Page breaks and RTF files

[amberv]

Context: Draft Export
Severity: Medium
Version: 0.1.1b
Issue: When choosing to insert page breaks after chapters upon exporting the full draft, the resulting RTF file, as viewed in Apple's TextEdit, and more importantly Pages, does not use these page breaks, and instead places the text for the chapter directly after the last sentence of the previous chapter text.

Cool. Right, let’s try switching between documents again. You see the document on the left beneath this one, the one entitled “Step 2”? Click on it now.Step 2
- No synopsis -

Where non-broken chapters look like:

Right, now choose “Step 5” from the binder...

Step 5
- No synopsis -

Actually, more technically, there is a control character being inserted in between the two, but since Apple's readers do not support them, it shows up as nothing. If I import the RTF into Mellel, then page breaks do happen. I presume the same would happen for Word.

Perhaps, if the user is exporting to RTF/D and has page breaks enabled, a little warning should appear, letting them know that the document will not be formatted correctly in all RTF viewers -- especially since RTFD files are an Apple convention, not readily supported outside of that platform.

I know it is really Apple's fault in this case for not supporting what should be an obvious control character, but we have to make do. I can kind of understand TextEdit not doing anything, but Pages -- that is a gross error.

[KB]

You're right, this is a gross error - but unfortunately (or fortunately, for me) it's on Pages' part, not Scrivener's.

In fact, TextEdit does show these page breaks - provided you use "Wrap to Page" mode. Just as Mellel, Word and Nisus recognise the break. Scrivener uses exactly the same method for page breaks as TextEdit and these other apps; the same method that Apple engineers recommend for exactly this purpose - inserting a "new text container" control character. The fact that Pages does not recognise it is just ludicrous. I've just tried exporting documents with page breaks from TextEdit and Mellel, and Pages doesn't recognise these either. I can't believe that Apple add "Insert Page Break" to TextEdit but don't have Pages recognise it...

So I guess someone needs to file a bug with Apple about Pages...

[dunx]

For the record, Open Office treats the page breaks in the RTF file as page breaks too.

[amberv]

Right you are. I never use wrap to page mode in TextEdit, and did not think of trying it that way, since it was handling it in such a weird fashion in Wrap to Window mode.

So, in that case this should probably just be considered a solved "bug" for now, as really the only issue is Pages. Looks like it works pretty much everywhere else important. Thanks for the pointer.