quorn
New Member
Posts: 5
|
Post by quorn on Oct 30, 2005 18:10:12 GMT
Forgive me if I missed how to do this somewhere....
I've imported a file that is a novel from another application (Appleworks) which has separate chapters. I'd like an easy way to convert that single file into separate chapter documents, either on import, or via the "stack of papers" view--if there was a way to highlight the chapter titles (or any text string, really) to create section breaks that would convert the single document into separate files within Scrivener? I hope that makes sense....
|
|
|
|
Post by KB on Oct 30, 2005 18:31:50 GMT
Currently there is no way to do this - you have to manually copy and paste into new documents, I'm afraid. I can't think of a really straightforward way to do this, either. On way would be "Create new document from selected text", I suppose. No, actually, I do like the idea of selecting a few words as a title and choosing something like "Split into new document with selected text as title", or some such. I'll add it to the "to do" list as something to look into. For now, though, you'll have to split it up manually. Sorry about that.  |
|
quorn
New Member
Posts: 5
|
Post by quorn on Oct 31, 2005 15:57:09 GMT
No, makes sense. It would be a great feature, though, to be able to break a document into smaller documents--at least in that particular view. I could see using it for an imported file, or even for editing an existing work--at least within that particular view tool--it would allow an author to reset chapter breaks, or break a longer chapter into segments, when reviewing the document as a continuous document--and then have those new segments converted into separate documents when shifting back to binder view.... Of course, I have no clue as to how complex that would be, but it would be really cool.  |
|
dunx
Junior Member
Posts: 66
|
Post by dunx on Oct 31, 2005 16:21:00 GMT
Well, I can think of a couple of approaches, but nothing that's very easy for a user.
Two main ideas:
1/ create a new file when a hard page break is encountered. This only works for file formats which include hard page breaks, though, so no text, or HTML. Can't remember if RTF has hard page breaks or not.
2/ use a regular expression to signal a new chapter. The obvious one here would be ^Chapter but it should be editable. This would be applicable to any file format that could be read. The problem is that regexes are not widely understood.
|
|
amberv
Junior Member
Posts: 99
|
Post by amberv on Oct 31, 2005 21:13:22 GMT
The problem is that regexes are not widely understood. Understatement of the year!  My opinion on this discussion: I like KB's idea of manually splitting documents for more than just intake. Joining would also be useful to. Select five documents, and hit a join function which will join based on the sort order of the Table (outline order by default, I think). That raises a lot of issues, like which document will set the meta-data for the new joined document; titles; notes; synopsis, and so forth. On second thought, that might just be too complex of a UI issue for now. Something to think about, though. |
|
|
|
Post by KB on Oct 31, 2005 21:25:45 GMT
Actually I only just realised last night that I went to lots of efforts in coding a "merge" option and then didn't implement it in the UI! So "merge" will make it in there *very* soon. It will work like this: when you select several documents and go to File > Merge Selected (or via Ctrl-Cick), you will have the option to merge them into a new document, or - probably - to merge all notes/index cards or pick which one to use. This is the intention, anyway... The splitting of documents is a little further off, but will make it in there before the official (2099) release.
|
|
