[SugarBear57]

Each of my chapters has a "subheading" (i.e. Chapter 1. Autumn, 1483.) Vellum makes the A in Autumn the drop cap, rather than converting the first letter of the first word in the chapter's text to a drop cap.

Add Subtitle: http://help.vellum.pub/headings/

Alternate method: put Autumn, 1483 in an alignment block, and then the drop cap will apply to the first letter of the first word of the body text.

 

[saklopfenstein]

Hello, I'm formatting a book in Vellum for the first time. Loving the ease of use and how great everything looks. However, I'm stuck on one thing. Each of my chapters has a "subheading" (i.e. Chapter 1. Autumn, 1483.) Vellum makes the A in Autumn the drop cap, rather than converting the first letter of the first word in the chapter's text to a drop cap. Is there a way around this? I can't find reference to a fix in the Vellum troubleshooting info.Thanks for any help you can give me.

I had the same problem. If you select that text and then apply an Alignment Block, which is in the dropdown in your taskbar, it should solve that.

 

[Kyle Alexander Romines]

I can't believe it took me so long to discover this thread. I have never heard of Vellum before. I am used to paying whatever cover design team I'm using to do formatting as well. Based on what I have read here and on their website, it sounds like Vellum is a formatting program that will format my manuscripts into paperback and ebooks. Is that correct? Are there any downsides or issues I should be aware of? If not, this might be my Christmas gift to me, because I would save a lot of money by not having to pay for formatting.

 

[SND]

Kyle,

I endorse Vellum as a Christmas present from you to you. As you research further you'll find Vellum is showered and garlanded with praise. The only niggles I've come across is that some writers would like a greater variety of 'styles' to be on offer. And some authors have very specific formatting needs with their manuscript where Vellum may fall short. For the majority of authors, if I may be so bold as to speak for the majority of authors , those are non-issues and more choice would potentially compromise it's main attraction which is simplicity and ease of use.


While I'm here I'll mention one advantage I haven't read about elsewhere. I write directly into Vellum, rather than importing a document from elsewhere, and when you see the pages fill up in in the preview screen on the right-hand-side in whatever device is selected (paperwhite, iPad etc.) it gives a sense of forward progress in the manuscript in a way that I don't get when writing in other programs. It somehow makes the goal of finishing seem closer and more tangible.

My two cents. Keep the change and Merry Christmas.

 

[Used To Be BH]

Kyle,

I endorse Vellum as a Christmas present from you to you. As you research further you'll find Vellum is showered and garlanded with praise. The only niggles I've come across is that some writers would like a greater variety of 'styles' to be on offer. And some authors have very specific formatting needs with their manuscript where Vellum may fall short. For the majority of authors, if I may be so bold as to speak for the majority of authors , those are non-issues and more choice would potentially compromise it's main attraction which is simplicity and ease of use.

While I'm here I'll mention one advantage I haven't read about elsewhere. I write directly into Vellum, rather than importing a document from elsewhere, and when you see the pages fill up in in the preview screen on the right-hand-side in whatever device is selected (paperwhite, iPad etc.) it gives a sense of forward progress in the manuscript in a way that I don't get when writing in other programs. It somehow makes the goal of finishing seem closer and more tangible.

My two cents. Keep the change and Merry Christmas.

I'd agree. The one caveat is that some aspects of Vellum can't be customized, but if you like the output Vellum produces, it's much faster than doing it yourself and much cheaper than paying someone to do the format (depending on how many books you intend to write).

The company is small but it's very responsive and corrects glitches when they occur pretty fast.

 

[Amy Maroney]

Add Subtitle: http://help.vellum.pub/headings/

Alternate method: put Autumn, 1483 in an alignment block, and then the drop cap will apply to the first letter of the first word of the body text.

Thanks so much SugarBear57! I'll try these options.

 

[Amy Maroney]

I had the same problem. If you select that text and then apply an Alignment Block, which is in the dropdown in your taskbar, it should solve that.

Thank you Saklopfenstein! I'm so glad I found this thread

 

[Kyle Alexander Romines]

Kyle,

I endorse Vellum as a Christmas present from you to you. As you research further you'll find Vellum is showered and garlanded with praise. The only niggles I've come across is that some writers would like a greater variety of 'styles' to be on offer. And some authors have very specific formatting needs with their manuscript where Vellum may fall short. For the majority of authors, if I may be so bold as to speak for the majority of authors , those are non-issues and more choice would potentially compromise it's main attraction which is simplicity and ease of use.

While I'm here I'll mention one advantage I haven't read about elsewhere. I write directly into Vellum, rather than importing a document from elsewhere, and when you see the pages fill up in in the preview screen on the right-hand-side in whatever device is selected (paperwhite, iPad etc.) it gives a sense of forward progress in the manuscript in a way that I don't get when writing in other programs. It somehow makes the goal of finishing seem closer and more tangible.

My two cents. Keep the change and Merry Christmas.

I'd agree. The one caveat is that some aspects of Vellum can't be customized, but if you like the output Vellum produces, it's much faster than doing it yourself and much cheaper than paying someone to do the format (depending on how many books you intend to write).

The company is small but it's very responsive and corrects glitches when they occur pretty fast.

Thank you both for your feedback! I usually pay $100-$200 extra for formatting( in addition to what I pay for a cover), so the cost of this package would pay for itself in two books. This looks like another great Kboards discovery.

 

[Dragonwriter11]

Hi,

I just started playing with Vellum and I really like it--planning to make the purchase this weekend. But I have a few questions, for things I couldn't figure out how to do and didn't see (or managed to miss) in the help files:

1. Can you suppress the default title page? My cover artist sends me a graphical title page that looks much nicer, and I'd prefer to use that. I could use both, but it would look nicer IMO if I only had the one.
2. Can you suppress items from showing up in the Table of Contents (like the copyright page, for example.) I figured out how to rename it so it shows as "Copyright" instead of "Untitled," but I'd like to get rid of the ToC entry completely and have the ToC start with "Chapter 1."
3. Can you alter the chapter headings? There's one with just a number, but the number is tiny. I'd like to make it larger.
4. I substitute a graphic for an ornamental break. It looks good, except Vellum seems to force me to add an extra blank line either before or after the graphic in order for the first paragraph of the new section to not be indented and to start with small caps. (If I don't add the line, it starts indented with no small caps). I suppose I could add the small caps manually, but I couldn't find where to set a paragraph to unindented. Ideally I'd just like to have this happen automatically.

Thanks much! I can't believe I waited this long to try Vellum.

 

[saklopfenstein]

Thank you both for your feedback! I usually pay $100-$200 extra for formatting( in addition to what I pay for a cover), so the cost of this package would pay for itself in two books. This looks like another great Kboards discovery.

I hear you, Kyle. I am about to purchase it as well. As I was scoping out prices, I estimated I would have to pay nearly as much as Vellum costs to get equivalent quality from someone else for only ONE book. The more I have been playing with it, the more I think it does everything that I need, with minimal effort and time. After the first book, it will be a huge money saver.

 

[FelissaEly]

1. Can you suppress the default title page? My cover artist sends me a graphical title page that looks much nicer, and I'd prefer to use that. I could use both, but it would look nicer IMO if I only had the one.

Oh my gosh, I came here wondering this exact same thing for the exact same reason!!! How weird, lol! But I agree, if there's a way to suppress the headings from showing there should be a way to suppress or assign a different page as the title page. Or I *hope* it will be a soon added feature

 

[Gerald]

Sorry to start a new question, but:

Scrivener 3 vs Vellum for formatting book files?

N.B. I already use Scriv 2.something. Compile is a complete dog's dinner. I heard they improved it for Scriv3, but updating for me would mean changing to OS X High Sierra, and losing MS Office and various other programs. But that's okay if Scriv3 is really an improvement, and matches (or nearly so) the formatting capabilities of Vellum.

Thank you.

 

[NoLongerPosting]

Sorry to start a new question, but:

Scrivener 3 vs Vellum for formatting book files?

N.B. I already use Scriv 2.something. Compile is a complete dog's dinner. I heard they improved it for Scriv3, but updating for me would mean changing to OS X High Sierra, and losing MS Office and various other programs. But that's okay if Scriv3 is really an improvement, and matches (or nearly so) the formatting capabilities of Vellum.

Thank you.

I recently updated to Scriv 3 and I don't have High Sierra. It works fine on Sierra. (I can't comment on the compile feature, since I use Vellum and would never go back.)

 

[TBD]

Sorry to start a new question, but:

Scrivener 3 vs Vellum for formatting book files?

N.B. I already use Scriv 2.something. Compile is a complete dog's dinner. I heard they improved it for Scriv3, but updating for me would mean changing to OS X High Sierra, and losing MS Office and various other programs. But that's okay if Scriv3 is really an improvement, and matches (or nearly so) the formatting capabilities of Vellum.

Thank you.

I write in Scriv (I keep each series -- Books AND Bible -- in ONE Scriv project per series on my PC. I compile each finished book into a Word docx and then open in my Mac and format the final version using Vellum. I do correct the docx as I need it for Vellum corrections so I have a final accurate WORD and Vellum at the end of the process ;-)

 

[Used To Be BH]

I write in Scriv (I keep each series -- Books AND Bible -- in ONE Scriv project per series on my PC. I compile each finished book into a Word docx and then open in my Mac and format the final version using Vellum. I do correct the docx as I need it for Vellum corrections so I have a final accurate WORD and Vellum at the end of the process ;-)

When I first discovered Vellum, I wrote in Scrivener and formatted in Vellum. Later I switched to Word for the writing, but the point that the two are not mutually exclusive is a good one.

Unlike some in this thread, I actually never had a problem formatting an ebook in Scrivener. For me, the biggest selling point for Vellum (if you can live without stuff like drop caps) is the paperback formatting. I found that much easier in Vellum. With Scrivener I exported to Word and tinkered to get the layout I wanted.

 

[Gone 9/21/18]

It's true you don't need High Sierra for Scrivener 3. El Capitan or higher.

I've never tried to format an ebook for publication from Scrivener, because before I ever got Scrivener I had started formatting another way and continued with it. I did quick compilations from Scriv for beta readers but exported an rtf and worked on it in WordPerfect once I was getting ready to publish. When Amazon stopped supporting the way I was using, I looked at other programs and methods and in the end went to Vellum, but still used WP for a pdf for paperbacks.

Now that Vellum does both ebooks and paperbacks, I'll skip WP.

I do think with some experimentation one could produce a great ebook with Scrivener and it would allow a little more individualism in design if desired. And, for me at least, it's not as if Vellum has no learning curve at all. Just going through every possible combination of styles and deciding which to use took me quite a while and then there was figuring out a few other features.

As to Scrivener and paperbacks, I haven't a clue, but I have seen posts by KBoards members who used it for that and were happy with it and that's even before version 3.

I think we all decide based on our own budgets and preferences, just as we decide whether to use Scriv for writing in the first place vs. a word processor or other program.

 

[DIAMONDSINTHESKY]

Hi Vellum,

So finally got my manuscript back from the proofreader and editor and about to drop it into Vellum today to do my final personal check on everything.

I wanted to ask - my proofreader has made notes within my word, will these disappear on Vellum and are they easy to remove if not? I work off PC normally but do have a MAC. Just off to get a new keyboard for it today, as I can't stand the one that we have on the MAC in the office. (My own keyboard on my PC is the same one I used from 2001!)

 

[WDR]

Hi Vellum,

So finally got my manuscript back from the proofreader and editor and about to drop it into Vellum today to do my final personal check on everything.

I wanted to ask - my proofreader has made notes within my word, will these disappear on Vellum and are they easy to remove if not? I work off PC normally but do have a MAC. Just off to get a new keyboard for it today, as I can't stand the one that we have on the MAC in the office. (My own keyboard on my PC is the same one I used from 2001!)

They should disappear. At least that's what my testing shows when I insert comments into a document, export to DOCX, and then import that into Vellum.

 

[Brad West]

Hi,

I just started playing with Vellum and I really like it--planning to make the purchase this weekend. But I have a few questions, for things I couldn't figure out how to do and didn't see (or managed to miss) in the help files:

Hi Dragonwriter11, I'll answer your questions below:

1. Can you suppress the default title page? My cover artist sends me a graphical title page that looks much nicer, and I'd prefer to use that. I could use both, but it would look nicer IMO if I only had the one.

Currently, there is not a way to disable Vellum's automatically-generated Title Page. Since the release of 2.0, we've received a number of requests for this, and so we are investigating options for a future update to Vellum. Stay tuned in early 2018.

Hi Vellum,

I wanted to ask - my proofreader has made notes within my word, will these disappear on Vellum and are they easy to remove if not?

Yes. When Vellum imports your manuscript it only looks for the content, and ignores any notes that may have been added by a proofreader. You won't have to worry about these finding their way into your book.

Hope that helps!

 

[DIAMONDSINTHESKY]

They should disappear. At least that's what my testing shows when I insert comments into a document, export to DOCX, and then import that into Vellum.

Thank you!