Applies to ScribeWright 1.1.117

Formatting Rules

Layout Review (F9) checks the manuscript against a formatting profile: a list of house-style rules, each with a detector and, where the fix is mechanical, a fixer. This topic is generated from the profile this book uses, so it is always current.

Active profile: fiction (version 2). Choose it in Book Setup ▸ General ▸ Formatting profile. Built-in profiles are fiction and nonfiction; a copy named <name>.rules.json in %APPDATA%\ScribeWright\Profiles shadows a built-in of the same name.

How Findings Work

• Nothing changes until you click. Import, Save and Export never touch the text. Layout Review only applies a fix when you press Fix Selected, Fix All of This Type, or Fix All.
• Severity. Error: the output would be wrong or invalid. Warning: almost certainly unintended. Suggestion: a house-style preference you may disagree with, hidden by default (tick Show suggestions) and never counted in the status bar.
• Mode. review rules have a fixer; report rules only point something out (the fix needs a human). A review rule can still leave an individual finding unfixed when it can’t decide safely; the row shows a · after its severity.
• Fix All applies every fixable finding in the current scope (whole book or current chapter), one rule at a time in the order below, after showing a per-rule count. That includes suggestions: it is the apply the house style button.
• Mark Intentional silences one finding (or, edited by hand in the project file, a rule for a chapter with RULE-ID|Chapter title or for the whole book with RULE-ID|*). It is saved with the book.
• Turning rules off. Preferences ▸ Formatting rules ▸ Customize… switches any rule off, changes its severity, and edits the shared settings. A rule marked off below is in the profile but never runs.
• Text inside <code>, <pre>, or any element carrying data-sw-verbatim is never examined or changed.

Settings

Values several rules read. Edit them under Preferences ▸ Formatting rules ▸ Customize… (or by hand in a user copy of the profile).

Rules

Punctuation

Numbers

Dialogue

Structure

Markup

Things Worth Knowing

• Front matter and numbering. Chapters inserted from Insert ▸ Front Matter are flagged as front matter. Older books are recognized by title (Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Epigraph, Contents, Acknowledgments, Foreword, Preface), and parts titled Prologue, Epilogue, Interlude, Afterword, Introduction, Author’s Note, Appendix, Glossary, About the Author, Also By, Coda or Postscript are left unnumbered. STRUCT-011 numbers the rest by position and never rewrites a heading that carries no number; it only reports it.
• Numbers that are never converted. A numeral joined to another by : / - , . (times, dates, decimals, fractions, ranges, serials); one after $ £ € # + or an apostrophe ('90s); one before %, ° or a unit (mm, km, kg, mph, GB …) or a.m./p.m.; one after a label word (Room, Chapter, Page, Flight, Gate, Unit …); a street address; anything inside a heading. A plain four-digit number from 1000 to 2199 is treated as a year.
• Acronyms. Periods are always removed (U.S. → US). When the acronym ends a sentence its last period is kept.
• Quotes. Straight quotes are paired by position; a lone ' with a space on both sides is reported but not guessed. Dialogue rules assume curly quotes, so fix PUNCT-001/002 first (Fix All does this in the right order).
• One speaker per paragraph (DLG-005) only fires when two quoted passages in one paragraph carry tags with different subjects (said Tom … said Ann). It will miss cases rather than flag narration.
• Headings. Title case leaves ALL-CAPS words and words with internal capitals (McDonald, iPhone) alone; small words are a, an, the, of, and, or, in, on, at, to, for.

See also Writing Tools for the Layout Review window itself, and Book Setup & Styles for choosing the profile.

Non-fiction profile

The nonfiction profile (Book Setup ▸ General ▸ Formatting profile) runs these rules. The explanations above apply unchanged.

Settings

Values several rules read. Edit them under Preferences ▸ Formatting rules ▸ Customize… (or by hand in a user copy of the profile).

Rules

Punctuation

Numbers

Dialogue

Structure

Markup

Non-fiction Structure

Things Worth Knowing

• Front matter and numbering. Chapters inserted from Insert ▸ Front Matter are flagged as front matter. Older books are recognized by title (Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Epigraph, Contents, Acknowledgments, Foreword, Preface), and parts titled Prologue, Epilogue, Interlude, Afterword, Introduction, Author's Note, Appendix, Glossary, About the Author, Also By, Coda or Postscript are left unnumbered. STRUCT-011 numbers the rest by position and never rewrites a heading that carries no number; it only reports it.
• Numbers that are never converted. A numeral joined to another by : / - , . (times, dates, decimals, fractions, ranges, serials); one after $ £ € # + or an apostrophe ('90s); one before %, ° or a unit (mm, km, kg, mph, GB …) or a.m./p.m.; one after a label word (Room, Chapter, Page, Flight, Gate, Unit …); a street address; anything inside a heading. A plain four-digit number from 1000 to 2199 is treated as a year.
• Acronyms. Periods are always removed (U.S. → US). When the acronym ends a sentence its last period is kept.
• Quotes. Straight quotes are paired by position; a lone ' with a space on both sides is reported but not guessed. Dialogue rules assume curly quotes, so fix PUNCT-001/002 first (Fix All does this in the right order).
• One speaker per paragraph (DLG-005) only fires when two quoted passages in one paragraph carry tags with different subjects (said Tom … said Ann). It will miss cases rather than flag narration.
• Headings. Title case leaves ALL-CAPS words and words with internal capitals (McDonald, iPhone) alone; small words are a, an, the, of, and, or, in, on, at, to, for.

See also Writing Tools for the Layout Review window itself, and Book Setup & Styles for choosing the profile.

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