I have written my tome in MS Word but have quickly discovered that I need a tool like Scrivener to manage the project. MS Word is not designed for this sort of thing whereas Scrivener is perfect. So I have spent today learning Scrivener and found it to be pretty much perfect for my needs. However being a newbie I have some difficulties with the programme so would appreciate some assistance.
Essentially the issue is three fold
Importing my word document into Scrivener – when doing so I lose the first 3 or 4 characters of each paragraph. I suspect that this is probably to do with margin settings but cannot seem to solve the issue. This means having to “cut & paste” each page. What is going on?
My tome is designed in such a way that only the right hand page has text + graphics and the left hand page is blank (not quite as it has different watermarked graphics on each) and represents a “notes” page. Given the difficulties I am having importing the original is there a way of inserting a blank page for each even numbered page? Word caters for this so I am sure Scrivener probably does.
3)I have seen in the forums how to remove the paragraph indent but then discovered it only works on “new projects” when changing the “tools – options – Editor” settings. I noticed I could convert each page to the new settings but when exported to a pdf it seems to revert back to the original settings. What I am doing wrong?
Lastly the use of images. Each graphic is a png file which is easily inserted into the text but it would be nicer to have the images in the reference section and simply “tag” where they should be when printed/exported with the export process automatically inserting them into the correct place. Can this be done? If so how?
I admit I am probably thinking about this all wrong and what I wish to do is not what Scrivener is designed to do, but even being told that will help me understand the tool better rather than wasting my trying to get it to do something it really isn’t designed for.
Thank you
Nick
I’ll cherry-pick the questions I know how to answer, and leave the other to wiser people than me…
… but in 4 parts?
… Use the Convert to Default Format function that you were using in question 3, and see if the words re-appear. It could be a font color thing, or a tab/indent/margin setting thing.
Scrivener doesn’t really have a concept of “pages”, leaving that kind of demarcation until you use the Compile process to produce a pdf or to print it out. There is a page view,but that is only an approximation, and is no guarantee that you’ll end up with things lining up that way after compiling. What might work for you is “Document Notes” in the inspector. There is only one per document, so depending on how you divide up your work, it may or may not be what you’re hoping for. Another option for taking notes that are linked to a given text is to use inspector comments.
You can also split your editor, so that you have different documents showing side by side, but they will not scroll together or be directly linked in any way, though you can use Scrivener Links in document notes to connect them more conveniently.
Please note that there are two ways to get your document out of scrivener: “Export”,which is a way to keep all of the individual files separated, which is not conducive to submitting your work to others, and Compile, which is what I think you’re talking about here, where it assembles all of those documents in your manuscript into one long document.
What is probably happening is that the compile settings are set up to use the paragraph setting you wanted to be rid of; how things appear in Scrivener can be changed radically when you compile, including using a different font, different paragraph spacing, line spacing, font color, and of course… paragraph indenting, as well as how the output is supposed to be formatted (HTML, PDF, Word, epub, etc…) Take a look at the expanded compile settings window for where to change the indentation. There are also videos on the main site that go through the compile settings that might be enlightening (in addition to the manual, accessed under the Help menu).
One last thing on my answer to question 3… I’m assuming that you are using the facing pages for reference only. If you want that stuff to be part of your draft, then the Notes panel won’t do you any good… Well, you can include the notes when you compile, but you don’t have as much control over the output.
Before you try to reformat your work in progress to fit into any given Scrivener feature, I highly recommend you experiment with a throw-away project to be sure the compiled output will be what you expected.
Many thanks for all the replies. As I become acquainted with scrivener I have solved most of my problems with pointers from these replies. Frankly I think I was expecting scrivener and Word to be much of a muchness which I now appreciate it is not. Changing the way I thought about scrivener was the key and solved many of the issues I was encountering.
I have have been searching through the forums for information regarding the “bug” with internet connection in version 1.2.1 which I have installed. I note that, apprently, V1.2.2 solves this but how does one update to V1.2.2 when the V1.2.1 updater is not working. I want to buy the software but will not until I have a version which connects to the internet. Any advice?
Thanks
Syncronizing changes between a scrivener project and a Word document is not possible. You can, of course, make changes in Scrivener and then compile to a Word doc as often as you like.
It took me a while to adjust to Scrivener 3, and I came to the conclusion that importing old compiling formats is way too troublesome since it’s impossible to see which sections have a certain formatting and the names don’t match with Scrivener 3 (old format uses “folder levels” rather than “Heading” “Chapter title” etc…
Fine. Moving on.
Starting from scratch I’m getting super frustrated as modifying styles works whimsically. For example. I select “Part Title” for some sections. Click “Edit format”, change it, then save. IT WORKS!
I repeat exactly the same process for a different section and it may or may not work. If it doesn’t work, it shows the updated version once I open the “Edit format” menu, but it won’t show the updated version in the compile window or in my compiled project.
QUESTION 1: Is this a bug? Why does editing formats work only sometimes?
This is DAY 3 of me trying to make a paperback look decent. It used to take me a couple of hours with Scrivener 2, even with all the freezing and having to restart at pretty much every try.
Sorry for the frustrated message. I promise I’m a nice person on any other day, lol. I just don’t understand how with Scrivener doing the same exact thing seems to lead to different results.
QUESTION 2: How do I add an image in the white space between paragraphs? I tried in the edit format window, but “scene” is not one of the options to select. Do I have to manually click every single scene in the book and reassign it to a different type?
Adding “scene” using the + button did not work. Scene was added and I selected my “custom” separator in between scenes like I used to (<$img:custom;h=50>). No luck.
