PDF Support - Native View & Export

[OneWordThenAnother]

I'm pretty new to Storyist, but unfortunately one of the very first things I noticed was its lack of PDF support. I'd love to be able to view PDFs natively inside of Storyist, as well as have the ability to export my manuscript to PDF once I've finished writing something. This is - to me - the most critical feature that is currently missing.

 

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Justifications:

Import: I do a lot of pre-writing and research using various other applications. I don't expect them all to play together nicely, so I've gotten in the habit of saving all of my research, character lists, background and designs, etc. as PDFs and simply importing them into my old workflow (Scrivener). They would all sit in my research folder on the sidebar, and then when I needed to reference something about my character I could pull up the PDF I'd created that had photos of style/outfits, background, and flow charts all in one document on my sidebar.

 

Export: PDF is possibly the only document standard that literally anyone, anywhere in the world can open on any device. DOC/X used to have serious problems on iOS. PAGES is worse since it can't be opened on Windows. TXT loses the style, and others need specific apps. Even if you do manage to get it open, sometimes formatting is skewed. PDF opens on every OS - from mobile to desktops, Mac to Linux, and everything in between -- if for some reason your machine isn't able to by default, it's free to download a PDF viewer. It keeps all formatting between these systems without loss. If it were unintentionally edited or corrupted while emailing, etc. it doesn't matter and can't harm your original copy because it's a read only image file. (OS X can "Print to PDF" by default, and its a decent workaround for the time being, but it lacks the options of choosing what gets included that you get in export options.)

 

Additionally, if you have Acrobat (which is incredibly cheap from Adobe Cloud now, unlike it used to be ) doing commenting and editing on a file using Acrobat is super fun and easy, and has the added benefits of 1) making it impossible to inadvertently leave a tracked change or comment in the document, and 2) forces you to go back into your own story to determine if the change is truly the best thing, or even if it needs to be more extensive, rather than simply hitting "accept". I started sending out PDFs by default years ago because of their ease of use.

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So yes. Thanks for the awesome software, can has PDFS to make awesomer?

 

(Post Script: When I originally emailed support about this, it was suggested that I bump this thread. There are a number of people in that thread requesting PDF support, but I decided to create a new thread because PDF export was not mentioned there, and I didn't want that request to get lost among the other comments. So please count their voices here as well!)

[Steve]

Hi OneWordThenAnother,

 

Welcome to the forums!

 

You can create a PDF version of your manuscript. To do so:

1. Open your manuscript.
2. Choose File > Print.
3. Click the PDF button and choose "Save as PDF..."

And thanks for the +1 on being able to view PDF as a native type in Storyist.

 

-Steve

[OneWordThenAnother]

Hi Steve,

 

Thanks so much for the reply. I am aware of the Print to PDF option, but I e found it to be limited as I mentioned above. Please correct me if I am wrong, which I may well be since I am a recent adopter, but what I've found is that Print to PDF only allows you to have one item per PDF (title page OR manuscript OR notes). What I was trying to say above was that having native PDF support in the Export window would allow you to choose which story parts get exported -- title page, manuscript, notes, AND summaries all to one file, for example, or just Character Bios and Location Info if you only needed a reference packet. With Print to PDF I've only been able to get it to do one thing per PDF file.

 

Please let me know if I am missing something and there is a way way to get multiple story components into a single PDF file. Right now I wind up with one PDF for each required element from my side bar, and I have to 'print' them all individually, so I'd be thrilled to learn of an easier method.

 

(I know this whole thing may sound like a silly nitpick, but when it comes to emailing, printing, uploading or FTP-ing to someone's server, it is significantly easier/less nerve wracking to be able to export a single, custom-tailored file for that usage than it is to try to correctly upload or email half a dozen component pieces.)

 

Cheers!

[marguerite]

So you'd like something like the export to ePub function, but for PDF? I'd vote +1 for that. I do think it would be useful to have the capacity to create a single PDF with, say, all my character sheets. I'd also like to be able to import PDFs into Storyist: for research notes, e.g.

 

A current work-around is to merge the PDF files outside Storyist via Preview or, if you have it, Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader but the full Acrobat). If the files are pure text, you can also export to RTF and combine them in Word, then save that file to PDF. Not what you're asking for, I know, but an interim measure.

Best,

Marguerite

[OneWordThenAnother]

So you'd like something like the export to ePub function, but for PDF? I'd vote +1 for that. I do think it would be useful to have the capacity to create a single PDF with, say, all my character sheets. I'd also like to be able to import PDFs into Storyist: for research notes, e.g.

 

A current work-around is to merge the PDF files outside Storyist via Preview or, if you have it, Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader but the full Acrobat). If the files are pure text, you can also export to RTF and combine them in Word, then save that file to PDF. Not what you're asking for, I know, but an interim measure.

Best,

Marguerite

 

Hi!

 

Yeah, that's exactly what I was getting at. It's a feature that my old writing software had that I got used to, and I've recently been surprised at how much I relied on it. I often create "packets" to send out to readers at various stages that include the Title Page, Manuscript, and Summaries. I sometimes add a reference packet with Character and Location info. Right now, instead of two packets, I wind up with three PDF's for the first, and a dozen or more for the second! Having an Export to PDF option would make that much easier.

 

Thanks for the tips on combining the files after export, as well. Acrobat has been my workaround in the past, but I wasn't actually aware that I could do it via Preview. That is a great stop-gap option for the time being, especially for those without access to Acrobat.

[Rusty]

I'd like to add: support for mirroring margins, so I can setup gutters for paperbacks WITHOUT going to Word. I should like to be free of Word completely one of these days.

 

Update:

Apparently, mirrored margins are already a thing. Perfect.

[RichardMillward]

Darn - search wouldn't let me enter just "PDF" (too few letters!), and now I've gone and created a post very similar to this separately...

 

In case powers-that-be are still monitoring then, +1 for import and rendering of PDFs natively. In my case, both Mac and iOS version would be very much welcome.