Literature and Latte

Is there a way to share a scrivener file with other users, without also sharing my personal info and customization that is global to all my projects? Meaning I email you this scrivener document, but when you open it DOES NOT contain my custom formatting presets, my costume compile settings, my templates, my meta data, etc. All it contains is the Binder I want to share. I don't see a way to delete these things from the shared file without also deleting it from all my projects. How do I just strip this one file clean so that it is essentially a file with Scrivener default settings, but with custom content in the Binder?

I don't think this is exactly what creating a template does, but maybe that is exactly what I am describing?

Expanding on my question, it looks as if I save a file as a Project Template I can give it other users with the desired effect that they get a Binder with the text and folders I want to share...

...but what isn't clear in creating a Project Template is what custom formatting is saved in this new template? The Binder is as I have created it, but which formatting presets, meta data, and compile settings are a part of this Project Template? I want to share the content of the Binder WITHOUT also sharing my personal global customization (don't want to export my presets and compile settings).

Does this make sense?

A project template wouldn’t be the best tool for the job because that system is designed to save as much about the project as it can. You can almost think of it more as being a way of “freezing” a project in its current state, so that you can make new projects off of that point. Every little checkbox in compile, every shred of meta-data, snapshots, even the stuff in the Trash can! It’s all going to be in the project produced by the template.

What I do when I want to distribute a “clean” copy of a project (such as our publicly available user manuals) is create a new blank project first; this will be what I distribute. Now from that I use the File/Import/Scrivener Project... menu command. This brings in just the data and some of its meta-data, so it will bring in such things as snapshots, keywords documents, comments, etc. But the compile settings will not, nor will any project meta-data (such as author name and book title) be carried over.

There are ways to strip out notes and such, but they are a bit more technical. For the tutorial project I do strip out all comments, snapshots and document notes manually from the project format itself, using Windows Explorer (or Finder), in bulk. But there may still be more coming in to the distribution project than you’d like.

So beyond that there are more “destructive” ways to distribute a project that is “content only”, they have their individual pros and cons:

• File/Export/OPML File...: this produces a file that can be dragged into any other project and recreate the outline structure along with titles and text content (with the right settings, some of which are in the export panel, and for import, check in the Import/Export preference pane). Important caveat: plain-text transfer only! The OPML format is incapable of storing rich text. It is a simple outlining format.
• Compile with dividers: set yourself up with compile settings that insert an easy to split by divider, probably using the Separators pane, and then use File/Import/Import and Split... to bring this compiled document into your distribution project. Caveat: although it is rich text (should you choose a rich text compile format of course), it will be flat.

Love my Scrivener! Always there with great answers...and the ability to do EXACTLY what I want it to do. The blank document solution is perfect. I am teaching a tutorial and so being able to share a Scrivener file that DOES contain comments and keywords WITHOUT my other meta-data, presets, etc...is precisely what I had hoped for thank you.

I do have an unrelated question--maybe I should post separately--but is there a way to apply a preset to multiple text files at once...and is there a way to apply a preset that will not effect italics and bold? I have a "Standard Manuscript Format" preset that has all the expected customization (alignment, line spacing, paragraph indent, font, etc)...I use it as my default...every once in a while i will use bold or italics and this gets changed/overridden by compile or if I apply the preset. The "as is" feature in compile is one solution, but that's not elegant. Have I missed a setting in creating my preset?

If you change your "Editor" settings (Preferences->Editor) to align with your font, spacing and indentation requirements, then you can select one or more documents in the binder and go to Documents->Convert->Formatting to default text style. That won't mess with your italics and bold, but it will change the font, point size, etc...

Yup, the document conversion tool is best for handling bulk text to “body” format, and in fact can even tidy up bulk documents at once if you select them from the sidebar. It has a number of exclusions, and always excludes inline formatting of all types as best it can.

Otherwise you can set up presets to avoid this situation, just make sure to leave the character attribute settings off, so that the icon beside the preset only has a pilcrow symbol (¶) and not a little underscore ‘a’ beside it. If you have an icon with both then it will (a) impact the entire paragraph by definition and (b) thus normalise the text to whatever character attributes (bold, regular, underscore or whatever) were saved to the preset as well. Note you can leave the font family and size checkboxes on if you prefer.

…every once in a while i will use bold or italics and this gets changed/overridden by compile or if I apply the preset.

That on the other hand should not be happening, unless the font you have selected in the Formatting compile pane does not itself have bold or italic variants (you can check in the Format Bar beside the font family selector). As with the aforementioned document format conversion command, compile is designed to respect inline formatting since nearly everyone is going to want their italics and bold to come through.

So maybe try another font if you see that happen, something safe like Times New Roman, and see if still happens. If it does there could be a bug.

Thanks. Convert is a nifty trick...and I am glad to know what those marks before the formatting presets mean--and that I can remove them by refining the preset.

Magic. All good here!