Scrivener to InDesign: Apostrophes Break Preceding Characters

[rossw50468954]

I'm using the most up-to-date versions of both programs.

Just a month ago I used InDesign to format my novel for print. I was able to copy/paste directly from Scrivener into my InDesign template without any issues. I'm working on a new novel and wanted to check how InDesign would render some of the stranger characters I planned on using in this draft when I found a larger issue.

Here's the original text in Scrivener:

Here's how it pastes into InDesign:

The font is the same in both, and I pasted without formatting. This isn't the only place where this occurs, and the error is always preceding the apostrophe. I'm using the same template that I used to produce the other novel.

I tried pasting the first novel's text into my template (the text that actually worked the first time around) and ended up with the same problem.

I used a new, untampered InDesign document with the same result from both novels.

Pasting from Scrivener to a Google doc, then copy/pasting from the Google doc to InDesign fixes the issue. But that's just stupid, and it adds an extra step to an already lengthy process.

Thanks in advance.

[BobLevine]

You should be placing text, not pasting it. Wonky things have been known to happen…as you’ve discovered.

[Jongware]

What Unicodes are reported for the pink characters?

[Barb Binder]

Hi Ross:

It looks like Scrivener (which I don't use) can export to Word, and InDesign knows how to import Word docs. Have you given that a shot?

~Barb

[rossw50468954]

Thank you all for your quick responses!

BobLevine and BarbBinder​

I tried a couple placements of text after exporting from Scrivener. The .doc and .rtf files generated from the export process had no issues as far as broken characters; placing those files into InDesign created the same problem that I had experienced before.

Exporting to webpages fixed the problem with the apostrophes but copy/pasting from the webpages into InDesign put full line brakes between each paragraph.

Exporting to a .docx format worked better, but when placing text, instances of italicized or bold words in the original file would apply italics/bold to all the words that followed until the end of the paragraph; there was no such issue in the original .docx files.

Placing text from these files also broke my ability to use my preset paragraph styles. Copy/pasting from the .docx files created no problems with italics/bold, nor with the apostrophes!

[Jongware]​

I'm not sure how to find that information.

I guess I'm not sure if this is a problem with Scrivener, or with InDesign. I also don't know what changed in the couple weeks since I was able to just copy/paste from one to the other.

Bleeping computers, amiright?

Thanks again.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Ross:

Bleeping computers, amiright?

Yes, you are right. I love technology—when it works.

Placing text from these files also broke my ability to use my preset paragraph styles. Copy/pasting from the .docx files created no problems with italics/bold, nor with the apostrophes!

Sounds like you are learning a lot about the conversion process, which is good. There's no reason that you can't assign paragraph styles to any text placed into InDesign—so I'm not sure what that is about. Happy to look at the .rtf and/or .docx files, if that would be helpful. For now though, it sounds like you have a working solution.

~Barb