Coordinating styles between Scrivener and Nisus

[Eric Weir]

I am relatively new to both Nisus and Scrivener. [Within the last month.] Also, I have never mastered styles on any previous system. I understand that if I got conversant I would have much greater control over how my documents look. One last preliminary: My formatting is mostly very simple: Bold facing titles and section headings. Two levels of headings. Single font throughout except for footnotes. Occasionally make bulleted lists. Occasionally inserted simple tables.

I'm trying to tweak Nisus' default styles to my preferences, and not having much success as yet. The thing that concerns me at the moment, though, is that when documents exported from Scrivener are opened in Nisus the styles that are available are different from the default set. I assume that is because Nisus is taking it's cues from the formatting of Scrivener documents as to which styles to apply. I do very little formatting in Scrivener. Mostly plain left-justified text, usually without section headings, or if there are headings they are plain text. Again, same font throughout, except for footnotes. Same font I've made default in Nisus.

This is going to be a vague request, but what can I do beyond what I've indicated to minimize differences in styling/available styles between Scrivener-created documents when opened in Nisus and Nisus-created documents? Is there any way I can force Nisus to use its default styles with Scrivener-created documents.

Again, I know it's vague, but any suggestions at all will likely be helpful.

Thanks,

[Groucho]

Hello, Eric

I use Scrivener on a daily basis but am not sure what you mean with “coordinating styles.” Maybe you want to preserve formatting, e.g. if you use Times 12 points aligned left in Scrivener you want the exported text to be Times 12 points aligned left. This is the way it works with me:

In Scrivener:
1. On the binder, select the file(s) you want to export to NWP.
2. Click File > Export > Files…
3. In the dialog that appears, select Rich Text from the Export Main Text as drop-down menu and give the file(s) a name.

This will normally preserve all of the formatting. Note: not the styles, just the formatting.

However, if you are using styles in Scrivener, that is, if you are using the styles listed in the ruler, these won’t export to rtf or any other format. If you set a heading as Heading 1 in Scrivener, the style name won’t appear in NWP. Only the formatting will. This is a shortcoming of Apple’s text engine Scrivener relies on, and I think it’s so by design.

Any question let me know.

Greetings, Henry.

[Eric Weir]

I use Scrivener on a daily basis but am not sure what you mean with “coordinating styles.” Maybe you want to preserve formatting, e.g. if you use Times 12 points aligned left in Scrivener you want the exported text to be Times 12 points aligned left.

Thanks, Henry. With one exception, our uses of Scrivener -- or rather, our formatting in Scrivener -- is pretty similar. Actually, I don't do any. As I said, maybe a flush left plain text heading. The difference is that instead of exporting I compile, then export. As I recall, that way of getting Scrivener documents out to a word processor was suggested by the Literature and Latté folks. I'll have to give your method a try.

...if you are using styles in Scrivener, that is, if you are using the styles listed in the ruler, these won’t export to rtf or any other format. If you set a heading as Heading 1 in Scrivener, the style name won’t appear in NWP. Only the formatting will.

I do not use Styles in Scrivener, but when I open documents that I've created, compiled, and exported in Scrivener in Nisus the style sheet associated with that document -- View > Style Sheet -- has a different set of styles than the style sheet associated with a document created in Nisus.

I don't know why that would be, since the documents I export from Scrivener are essentially unstyled. It's a bit irritating that that happens without my setting it up that way. i would prefer that the style sheets be the same for both types of documents.

If you have any insights with that explanation into what may be going on they would be appreciated.

In any case, Thanks,

[Groucho]

Ah, I see now. Yes, Scrivener’s exported files have just a few generic styles. But you can import styles from another document. You need to create a template. I understand you already have a template, Nisus New File maybe. You have to extract the styles contained in a template. Open the Document Manager (Window > Document Manager). In the left pane you will find a Template folder. Click on it. You should see the Nisus New File in the right pane. Drag the file onto the Styles folder.

Screenshot 2011-01-07.jpg (93.82 KiB) Viewed 7384 times

Now all the styles you have set in Nisus New File are available from within any document open by NWP. When you want to import styles into a document go to Style Sheet and click on Import from Style Library… There you’ll see the styles you have saved in the Styles folder. You can select any or all of them. Maybe you will be asked whether to replace or rename existing styles. I always replace. That’s it.

Clearly you can create as many templates as you like. The manual covers this topic from page 129 on. At the most basic level, you can turn any document into a template if you save it as a document template (with extension dot).

Also you can export one or more styles into the Styles folder from any document without creating a template.
1. Open the document whose styles you want to export.
2. Activate Style Sheet view.
3. Select the style(s) you want to make available to all documents.
4. Click on the gear at the pane’s bottom and select Save to Style Library.
You can either add styles to an existing style collection or create a new one and give it a name.

Any trouble let me know.
Henry.

[Eric Weir]

Ah, I see now. Yes, Scrivener’s exported files have just a few generic styles. But you can import styles from another document. You need to create a template. I understand you already have a template, Nisus New File maybe. You have to extract the styles contained in a template. Open the Document Manager (Window > Document Manager). In the left pane you will find a Template folder. Click on it. You should see the Nisus New File in the right pane. Drag the file onto the Styles older.

No time to explore this now, Henry. Just wanted to thank you. You've opened the door for me a little, maybe a lot. No doubt I'll have more questions after I go to work on this -- or maybe not! -- but I did want to say thanks.

While I'm at it, do you know if the manual is available in published form? I find it difficult to use in a PDF reader and I hate to print out the whole thing. Or maybe someone's written a book on Nisus?

Thanks, again,

[Groucho]

You can find a hard copy of the manual here.

Cheers, Henry.

[Eric Weir]

Thanks, Henry.