Hello. I am writing a fiction novel. This is my sole novel, and I am trying to understand all about Papyrus’ features, including editing, formatting and so forth. I am learning and studying your video tutorials and this forum’s Help Section. This is all very new to me, and I am hoping to edit and format my Manuscript with Papyrus as much as possible, but I still expect I will need it professionally edited and formatted to some degree. My main question has to do with my final chapter. It will consist of about 25 or so of my own original song lyrics which are actually tied in with the main story itself. I need to know how to present my song lyrics in the final chapter so they will be neat and tidy and each lyric will begin on a new page. I don’t want one lyric to end halfway on one page and the next to begin partway down the same page as the previous lyric. I want each lyric to start on a fresh page. Can you please tell me how I can do this? Do I enter a new Page Break after each lyric? I would appreciate your help with this. I am very new to all of this and honestly, struggling to learn all the features and especially, to what extent I can format and edit my Manuscript. As I said previously, I am am expecting it will need to be further edited somewhat professionally, though, hopefully not a whole lot. Thank you, and I appreciate your making this Program available for us all. I think it’s the best one available and the monthly cost is very reasonable. I am just feeling my way through the process and any help with this issue would be greatly appreciated. - Jayden
As EarlyBird said, the easiest way is to manually insert a page break after every lyric.
There are lots of formatting options available in Papyrus Author. Many of these can be set by the Style you use. For example, you could create your own Style for your lyrics and assign a different font and/or attribute (e.g. italic), center the text or indent it; group lines together, etc. You can also do things like insert ornamental breaks using macros.
When you’re ready, you can read more about Styles in our Wiki article here.
Hi, Eva. Thank you so much. That’s very helpful. I’ll read all of that. I appreciate the links. Hopefully I can figure it all out with the links you gave me. Have a great day!
Hi, Eva. I have read the links and I’m even more confused. That’s a lot of information, and it’s hard for me to figure out, specifically with all the formatting options. I understand about using page breaks between lyrics. The main issue for the lyrics themselves is just the spacing and getting them to appear so they will be read typically as verses, choruses and bridges, usually 4 lines at a time. I am having a hard time with so many formatting options. Too many options just confuses me, lol. I am mainly concerned with just presenting them as I just mentioned and with the titles of each lyric and the beginning of each page. If you could narrow it down for me that would be really helpful, thanks so much.
No problem. Yes, there is so much you can do it can be hard to decide where to start!
This is one thing you could try, it involves creating a new Style which you could use for your lyric title so it always starts on a new page.
Click on the icon to open the Style dialog.
From the drop-down for the “Select” field, choose “Heading”. You can use any existing Style as a template - for example “Heading Centered”.
In the “Name” field type a new name - e.g. “Lyric” and click “New”.
Now both the “Select” and “Name” field will show your new Style name.
Next click on the “Advanced” button beside “Paragraph format”. This will open the “Advanced Paragraph Formatting” dialog.
From the drop-down list on the “Position” field, select “Start of new page”. Then click “OK” to return to the Style dialog.
Now you have a heading style that will always start on a new page.
Try it out by typing a lyric title in your document. Go to the Style drop-down in the toolbar and select your new “Lyric” Style.
Once selected, your lyric title will move to a new page (if it’s not already at the top of one):
One thing to note - if you’re using a table of contents, this new heading may start appearing there (along with your chapter titles). If you don’t want it to, don’t worry, we can easily change that (it’s also set in the Style dialog).
Actually. I see the Heading Centered now. And it’s Global. Will this setting apply only to my Chapter with lyrics in it? Or will I have to change the setting back so it doesn’t affect my other chapter’s text? Thanks again.
The “global” and “local” setting on a Style relates to whether that Style is available only to the one document or across all your Papyrus Author documents.
If you follow the steps in my other post, you will create a new Style so it shouldn’t affect your chapters at all.
By selecting the “Heading Centered” then creating the new Style you are just using that as a template on which the new Style is based. It will save you having to change other attributes - for example, making the text centered.
When you’re done you should have two Styles - “Heading Centered” which your chapters are using and - for example - “Lyric” which is a copy of “Heading Centered” but with the setting to start on a new page.
Thanks so much, Eva, for all your help. I need to ask all these questions because I’m a newbie at all this, and I want to get it perfectly right. I am hoping to do as much as possible and only need minimal professional editing and formatting at the end, if any. This novel is a major challenge for me, and it’s a very unusual and unique one. I don’t say that to be boastful at all, it just is. Have a great day and thank you!
icon to open the Style dialog.
