![]() ![]() The ScrivenerVirgin blog is a journey of discovery:Ī step-by-step exploration of how Scrivener can change how a writer writes.Scrivener is extremely customizable, and while that makes it flexible to meet the requirements of different writers, it can make for a daunting learning curve.Īs I’ve tinkered in the many settings, I’ve landed on a way to use meta-data fields to model whatever outlining process you want to use. To help me to prepare, you could also complete this short questionnaire. To discuss how to use Scrivener, or to ask any questions about Scrivener features, book a Simply Scrivener Special. In this post, I’ve given an overview of what Scrivener’s formatting tools can provide, and, in the series of blogs that follow this one, all will be revealed … Questions? Need a helping hand? Want a demo? Another project format might output your draft including your notes to yourself – so that you can read it on paper and handwrite more notes and revisions – away from your computer.A project format might only output the chapter titles and synopses – an outline of your book.Another project format could send the same manuscript to PDF.One project format could output the entire manuscript – ready to publish as an ebook.One major benefit of Scrivener is that you can create a number of project formats so that the same manuscript can be compiled to produce output to serve a variety of needs. Customising formats for particular output options For example, in the screen grab above, the opening paragraph of the scene is full out and all other paragraphs are first-line-indented. It is possible to set up styles – and this is necessary if you want to achieve a professional finish. Leading (space between one paragraph and the next).Line spacing (between consecutive lines).Indentation (first line only, or blocked).Justification (left-aligned, centred, right aligned, fully justified).In the screen grab above, I’ve turned on Invisibles so you can see the pilcrow symbols (the backward Ps) which show the end of each paragraph.įor each paragraph, there are formatting choices to make. Paragraphs are sequences of characters (any/all of which can be formatted using character formatting) which are terminated by the Return key. In the paragraph below, the words ‘New home? Wow! Where?’ have been italicised (as have all the words in this sentence). Special formatting: italic, bold, underline.You can control how individual characters appear. Wherever you are formatting – for the Editing pane or for the compiled output – there are two levels and many aspects which can be tweaked for each. Padding (the space that appears – usually – at the start of a new chapter).Margins (the spaces between four edges of the page and your text).If your output is paged, you have a number of controls to set (or change from the default settings). But, if you want to control what you see onscreen, in the Editing pane, you need to learn about onscreen formatting. It’s what’s exported which matters to me. Personally, while I am writing a piece, I don’t worry about the onscreen formatting. How your text appears on your screen is controlled separately from how it appears when you export it. Or are you outputting to an ebook or Kindle – in which case there aren’t any pages!. ![]() Or are you worrying about how your material will look on the page when output?.Are you trying to tweak how your material looks on the Editing Pane? ( If so, you might like to read this blog post.).Once you’ve focused on which of those three you want to tweak ( and I explain what to do for each in the next blog post), there are then more decisions to make. Are you formatting for all your projects?.The first question regards the scope of your endeavours. Which particular default settings you need to tweak depends on what you are doing. It’s an art form, combining your material with white space to good effect.įormatting therefore involves making decisions on layout and adjusting the default settings in Scrivener so that you achieve the end result you desire. Having chosen the perfect words to convey your message, formatting determines how you will present your material to your audience. It’s the first of a series and I hope this series will persuade you to stay in Scrivener – and then, also, to stay with Scrivener for compiling … and self-publishing. ![]() So this post explains the extent of formatting available. I often hear of writers switching to Word or Vellum, rather than use the tools in Scrivener. Formatting is one of the most misunderstood features of Scrivener.
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