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Formatting imported header to play nice


sallysaurus

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Hiya. I've had Storyist for just a few days and love how the software handles my new ms. My issue is with an existing ms I've imported. The original header (author/title/page#) naturally shows up as the last thing in the imported ms. How do I get it to where it needs to be and have it:

 

1. Share space with the text of Chapter 1 (it wants to be it's own page)

2. Appear throughout the ms, with the page# flowing

 

I've also tried just creating the Header, rather than deal with the imported one. The same thing happens.

 

Thanks!

Sally

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Hiya. I've had Storyist for just a few days and love how the software handles my new ms. My issue is with an existing ms I've imported. The original header (author/title/page#) naturally shows up as the last thing in the imported ms. How do I get it to where it needs to be and have it:

 

1. Share space with the text of Chapter 1 (it wants to be it's own page)

2. Appear throughout the ms, with the page# flowing

 

I've also tried just creating the Header, rather than deal with the imported one. The same thing happens.

 

Thanks!

Sally

Welcome, Sallysaurus!

 

Storyist is sticking your imported header at the end of the file because in its infinite wisdom (ha-ha) Microsoft Word dumps all formatting after the object being formatted (assuming you're importing from Word. Have you tried just editing the default header inside Storyist's templates? Typing over the existing text usually works fine, but you can click on the header and choose Format, Style, Edit Current Style if you want to change the font, alignment, etc.

 

Or is there something specific you want in there that Storyist doesn't offer yet?

Marguerite

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Have you tried just editing the default header inside Storyist's templates? Typing over the existing text usually works fine

 

Thanks for the post (and welcome) Marguerite.

 

Before I imported the ms from MS Word, I first deleted the "Chapter 1" and "Chapter 2" folders from the Storyist project file I had waiting to receive the import. (Silly me, I expected Storyist to actually recognize "Chapter" as a chapter break, as I'd asked it to when going through the 3 import dialog boxes, and didn't want to confuse things by having two chapter 1s and two chapter 2s.)

 

Consequently, the imported text had no default header to type over. Trying to insert one had me pulling my hair out (see previous post).

 

Since seeing your post, I opened a new Storyist file, selected all the text in the header-less Storyist file, and pasted it at the end of the default sample text that comes in the template. On the upside, I was able to then type over the existing header. On the downside, I had to find all my chapter breaks again, even though I was pasting Storyist into Storyist, if you know what I'm saying.

 

Seems like importing a ms is more trouble than it's worth. Takes too much time to tweak out 300-400 pages. Perhaps I'll just stick to using Storyist for new (or barely started) projects.

 

Sally

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Thanks for the post (and welcome) Marguerite.

 

Before I imported the ms from MS Word, I first deleted the "Chapter 1" and "Chapter 2" folders from the Storyist project file I had waiting to receive the import. (Silly me, I expected Storyist to actually recognize "Chapter" as a chapter break, as I'd asked it to when going through the 3 import dialog boxes, and didn't want to confuse things by having two chapter 1s and two chapter 2s.)

 

Consequently, the imported text had no default header to type over. Trying to insert one had me pulling my hair out (see previous post).

 

Since seeing your post, I opened a new Storyist file, selected all the text in the header-less Storyist file, and pasted it at the end of the default sample text that comes in the template. On the upside, I was able to then type over the existing header. On the downside, I had to find all my chapter breaks again, even though I was pasting Storyist into Storyist, if you know what I'm saying.

 

Seems like importing a ms is more trouble than it's worth. Takes too much time to tweak out 300-400 pages. Perhaps I'll just stick to using Storyist for new (or barely started) projects.

 

Sally

Hi, Sally:

There is an undocument quirk in Storyist, which I discovered by trial and error. Your chapter name (say, Chapter 2: NEXT STAGE) has to be preceded by the section break character (# on a line by itself) for Storyist to recognize it and start a new chapter there during file import.

 

File import is something of a work in progress--although much improved over the days when cut-and-paste was our only option. Specifically, if you make the mistake of applying the "Section Text" tag to your imported text in place of the "Default Text" style, the program will wipe out all your italics, underlining, and bold text in its misguided attempt to convert your text to the default Courier 12. So use that feature with care until Steve has a chance to upgrade it.

 

To preserve the document header, you can leave "Chapter 1" in the template and click immediately below, on the first line of text, to import the file. Since you won't have set off your first chapter with the preceding section break character, Storyist will dump Chapter 1 right there and break the text at section/chapter breaks thereafter. Then you can correct that one chapter heading manually.

 

Some of the forum members are braver than I. So far I haven't tried to import my entire 450-page almost finished ms., only selected chapters that I'm working on. For that project I use Storyist to keep track of the characters and settings and all my notes (for revisions, sequels, whatever), plus whatever chunk is currently under construction. It's still hugely useful, I find.

 

New projects I am beginning in Storyist, although there are still a few file export issues to work out as well. In particular, you need to tell Word how to match its fonts to Storyist's fonts, which are basic OS X (Word defines fonts differently so that you can open PC-created documents in Mac Word and the reverse). The setting is somewhere in Word Preferences; I'd have to check exactly where. You only have to do it once, though. Even then, I've had mixed results, which are okay for short files but would be rather insanity-inducing if they affected the entire ms.

 

By the way, check out the emerging "Group novel" thread, continued as "Group novel structure," in Community/General topics. If you decide to take part, it will be a great opportunity to see how various people use Storyist, as it involves creating a single .story file to hold our group project. (I suppose you can download the file, once it exists, even without participating, but we'd love to have you join. The more, the merrier!)

Hope that helps.

Marguerite

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