Some basic questions to help me decide if Storyist is for me...

[erwindink]

I am currently using Scrivener and Pages for creating some poetry books. I'm tired of Scrivener's lack of an iPad app but it also offers more features and complexity than I need. Pages is ok but missing some project organization features. Storyist looks promising but it seems to be missing a couple of features that I would like to have.

 

Is it possible to have different page numbering for sections or chapters? For example, I'd like the first several pages to include no page numbers, the introduction to be numbered using i, ii, ii, iv... and the main body pages to be numbered 1, 2, 3...

 

Is it possible to have custom headers or footers for different sections or chapters? I'd like to be able to have the chapter name appear in either a header of footer.

 

In my first couple of tests when I export a document from Storyist to .doc or .docx and then open it in Pages, the headers and footers are missing. Is this a limitation of Pages or am I missing a step in the export process?

 

Type kerning looks awful in Storyist compared to Pages and Scrivener. Is this controllable any way?

 

Graphics disappear when exporting to .doc or .docx.

 

Hmm, the more I play around with it, the more I get the feeling that the page layout features I want are not in Storyist. I'm hoping to be able to use a single program to write in and prepare the document for printing. Any feedback is appreciated...

[marguerite]

Couldn't you set up the pagination and headers as you want by putting sections in different manuscripts within the same project, then combining them on export? I am writing this without access to my computer, so I can't be certain right now, but I think it is possible.

 

Have not seen problems with kerning in Storyist. I use Times New Roman for my novels. Courier, the standard font for publishing submissions, is monospaced and does not kern. Storyist is not a typesetting program, though.

 

Export from Storyist works best as RTF (for text). Alas, Pages trashes styles in RTF text. The trick is to go through Word or Open Office and save to .doc from there. The styles are sent out of Storyist but chewed up in Pages.

 

Graphics should not disappear if you export to RTFD. Headers and footers probably will, but those are easily reimposed. Just keep a template in Pages with them already set up.

 

Can't help with the rest, but Storyist is a great program and its integration with the iPad app is seamless, so you’ll find it worthwhile to stick with it through the learning curve. It's not that bad a journey: honest!

 

Welcome to the forums.

Best,

Marguerite

[erwindink]

I've been experimenting with different methods to get the custom page settings but haven't figured out how to export successfully yet. I used Notebook entries for pages without page numbers and I created multiple manuscripts to solve the page numbering problem but haven't figured out how to end up with a single file after exporting.

 

I guess the larger question is, will Storyist allow me to create a file that is suitable for my final book output? I'm not looking for advanced typesetting features but I don't want to have to write in one program and then export into another to prepare the print version of my books. It looks like I should be able to export easily into epub and mobi formats but I'd also like to be able to export a file that is print ready.

 

After re-reading your response and spending a little more time with it I realize that I cannot do what I want with Storyist. Such a shame. It looked so promising. I like the simplicity and if I were only interested in exporting to .epub or .mobi it looks perfect. But my main need is to create a single .doc file that I can use for printing. I guess it's true that print is dying, eh? All the new publishing tools all seem to emphasize ebooks.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

[marguerite]

For what it's worth, I wouldn't be caught dead sending a file to print from any of the programs you mention, especially Word. I edit and typeset for a living, and I use Storyist for all the fiction produced for my small press except creating a file for print. It works excellently for e-book creation and for export to people who do not have Storyist.

 

To create files for print, I export RTF from Storyist and typeset in Adobe InDesign CS6. But strangely, InDesign does a worse job of exporting to ePub, which is Adobe's own format, than Storyist does. The results for Kindle are even more pathetic.

 

Just FYI.

Best,

Marguerite

[erwindink]

I created my first chapbook in InDesign and printed it at Lulu.com. It came out very well. My experience includes graphic design so I have done a little bit of typesetting. I have an old version of ID and can't afford to upgrade. Scrivener does what I want minus the iPad synchronizing. It's also very complex and takes a lot of time to prepare for print.

 

It seems odd to me that .doc is still the standard for print output. I can remember someone telling me fifteen years ago how PDF was going to make Word files obsolete. I've been creating professional looking graphic output in Pages for a couple years now but so far it's been limited to single sheet items like postcards, flyers, advertisement, etc. I just print to PDF and everything comes out fine. I do still have and use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator but I'd very much like to move away from them.

 

Anyway, I haven't really given up on Storyist yet, in spite of my previous post. The fact that there's an iPad version is a huge draw for me.

[marguerite]

I think the issue is that if you have used InDesign and Pages and know how to format and print to PDF, you are way ahead of the curve in terms of self-pubbing. Word files are the standard for submission to agents and to publishing houses because pretty much everyone who owns a computer has either Word or something that can output to Word, so it's a known quantity. But of course, publishing houses do not print from Word.

 

CreateSpace, Lulu, BookBaby, SmashWords, and the like are actually extending the reach of Word by making it possible for writers who have no reason to know anything about graphic design and typesetting to upload .doc files and have them converted. The output looks nothing like what you get from a properly typeset PDF (which is what I upload to CreateSpace for Five Directions Press books). But writers have better things to do with their money than spend $1,500 or so of it on Creative Suite, and better things to do with their time than learning to typeset. Most of the ones I know have a hard enough time fitting their .doc files into the CreateSpace templates and stripping extra formatting out for SmashWords. And if I didn't already own the software and have the experience, I would too.

 

You can print from Storyist to PDF, but a better option would be to keep everything in Storyist until you are completely happy with it and use it to produce ePub and MOBI files (which it does much better than Pages), then export to RTF or RTFD and work in Pages or your old version of ID for the final print file. Pages will retain all the formatting; it just doesn't recognize the styles as styles. But if you make any adjustments to the base text manually and reapply styles only for chapter heads and the like, it won't be a colossal pain. Certainly no worse than reading the file into InDesign....

 

Even old versions of ID are perfect for formatting a novel. I use ID CS2 for one company that never upgrades its software. The e-book export in CS6 is better but still shaky, and the program slaps some kind of DRM on the file whether you like it or not: I can read the results in iBooks but not in the nook or Kindle apps. So Storyist is still the better bet there.

 

Yeah, a techie friend of mine announced thirty years ago that print was dead and everything would be in PDF in five years. You can see how well that prediction worked out.

[erwindink]

I'm convinced. Since there isn't a serious option for any single program to do it all I just bought Storyist. The clincher was the ease of working on my desktop and iPad. Storyist also has just enough organizational tools through it's styles implementation that I can keep my writing organized. Thanks for all the feedback.