Compiling

Compiling turns the documents in your project into one finished file: a manuscript, a paperback interior, an e-book, a script.

Opening the Compile dialog

Choose File → Compile / Export… or press Ctrl+Shift+E (⌘+Shift+E on a Mac). The dialog has three parts: the Format list, the Include list, and Options. Pick a format, check the list, then click Export → and choose where to save the file.

Ravenburst saves the document you're working on before it compiles, so the export always has your latest words.

What gets included

The Include list shows every Manuscript document that is ticked to go into the final draft: parts, chapters, scenes, and a prologue, epilogue, dedication or epigraph if you have them. Above the list is a running total, for example Include (12 of 14 documents — 61,240 words).

• To leave something out of every export, untick it in the Navigator (right-click → Exclude from Compile). It stays in your project.
• To leave something out of this export only, untick it in the Include list. The Navigator is unchanged.
• Characters, Places, Notes, Reference and Template documents are never compiled. They are for you, not your readers.
• A chapter or scene with no text in it is skipped, so empty placeholders don't become blank pages.

New projects create the Prologue and Epilogue unticked. Until you tick Include in Final Draft they open read-only, so they can't be written in or compiled by accident.

Reading order

The compiled file follows the Navigator from top to bottom. Drag documents in the Navigator to change the order. Within the Manuscript, these always keep their place:

1. Dedication, then Epigraph, then Prologue, at the start
2. Parts, chapters and scenes, in Navigator order
3. Epilogue, at the end

Front matter comes before all of it and back matter after it. See Front and back matter.

Options

Only the options that make sense for the chosen format are shown.

Author Name

Used in running headers, on the built-in title page and in the file's details. It starts as the author set for the project and can be changed for one export. If you leave it blank, exports say “Unknown Author”.

Chapter numbering

On (the default): chapter and part headings include their numbers, exactly as the Navigator shows them, for example “Chapter Three — The Storm”. Off: only the chapter's own name is printed (“The Storm”). A chapter called just “Chapter 3” then gets no heading text at all.

Include page numbers

Adds the running header with page numbers to Manuscript and Paperback exports. Proof PDFs always have it.

Scene Separator

What goes between two scenes of the same chapter. Shown for Manuscript, Paperback, Proof and EPUB.

The separator only goes between scenes that have text; nothing is added before a chapter's first scene. The dialog starts on the project's own choice, which you can set from any scene's right-click menu with Scene Break Style…. A horizontal rule you inserted yourself (Insert → Horizontal Rule) is always printed as * * *.

Chapter Start

Shown for Manuscript, Paperback and Proof.

• New page (default): every chapter starts on a fresh page.
• Continuous (no page break): each chapter follows the one before on the same page, after a little space. Parts, dedications and epigraphs still get pages of their own, and the chapter after them starts a new page.

EPUB has no fixed pages: each chapter is its own section and the reader's device decides the page breaks.

Front and back matter

The Front Matter section of the Navigator holds one folder per kind of book: Manuscript Format, Paperback, Ebook, Screenplay and TV Script. Which folders you have depends on the project type. Each export uses the folder that matches it:

Each page in the folder becomes a page of the export, in folder order. If the folder is missing, the export prints a simple title page of its own instead.

Front and back matter pages can use merge fields, which are filled in when you compile: