Can't add New Chapter

[OhDebs]

Yes, it is me again. I just started a new project and it is a third book in a series. I want them all to have the same styles so I was importing styles which worked fine between 1 and 2. Three is not cooperating the same in several ways. I tried importing the styles from the other project but they didn't work. So i just compared and edited--I am impatient. When I had the styles all fixed I tried to add a new chapter and it doesn't work the same as it did before. All I get in that bottom menu thing is the above (see screen shot).

 

In the past (and I compared this to the other project with the same set up) I could get to New Chapter this way.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Thanks!

[Rusty]

It looks like you used a new "Notebook Entry" instead of a new "Novel." You have to use >new text file >novel if you want it to be setup with chapters by default. Otherwise, you can edit your styles to give it whatever attributes you would like.

[Rusty]

I should also add, when you're done setting up you own "novel" text file, and it's perfect, and you love it—save it as a template.

[OhDebs]

Thanks Rusty.

[marguerite]

Oh, Debs,

There's also something strange about the display. If you select a note and click +, it should say "New Notebook Entry." I'm wondering if you defined styles with names that Storyist is using for something else. For example, did you change the name of your chapter style to Heading 1? That can lead to all kinds of confusion.

 

Admittedly, if you did do that, I'm not sure why it worked for book 2.

 

It's not too late to save your original file as a template, by the way. You can then open it, edit out what you don't need, and copy in the new text for book 3. There are two kinds of templates in Storyist 3. File > Save as Template preserves everything, including character and other sheets—very useful for a series. Control-clicking on the item in the Project View and choosing "Save Selected Project Item as Template" saves just the styles. You reuse the first kind by choosing New > Project; you get the second kind back through the Format > Style > Change Stylesheet > Template Stylesheet after clicking in the text. Could you have done one when you should have been doing the other, and that's why the import didn't work?

 

To create a new chapter, by the way, you don't need any of that. All you have to do (assuming you created a novel manuscript, as Rusty notes) is type Chapter X (or whatever) on a line by itself, hit return, and choose Chapter Title from the style menu in the status bar.

Best,

M

[Steve]

Hi Deb,

 

As Rusty points out, your screenshot shows the outline template from a Notebook Entry. The Novel template has this:

 

 

So what's going on? The outline items that appear in the context menu are built from the styles in the document. You can control what's listed in this menu (and therefore used as a template) by editing the file's outline template.

 

 

This is probably the missing step in your experiments.

 

-Steve