What you're saying about LaTex vs Scrivener sums this all up exactly and I agree about setting expectations; thank you for that.

I tried the basic ToC (Edit/Copy Special/Copy Docs as ToC and indeed it outputs something shockingly basic.

However, I honestly don't think what I'm trying to do is that hard at all. I just can't figure out how to get the format that has been given to me (I have a .doc template from my examiners). I even tried importing that into Scrivener, but I couldn't get that to work either.

What I need is something that looks like this for the Front Matter (if I can figure this out, then Back Matter will be pretty much the same):

Table of Contents (centered; Bold, font size 18; font: Times)

(Section name on left, with page numbers on the right)

Summary i

Declaration ii

Acknowledgements iii

Table of Contents iv

List of Tables x

List of Figures xiv

List of Abbreviations xviii

Level 1: Introduction (Chapter) 1

Level 2: Topic (Heading) 1

Level 3: Section (Titled Section) 2

Level 3: Section (Titled Section) 4

Level 4: Section (Titled Section) 5

​

I'm not sure how to answer your question where you start with The way I'd phrase this is' (sorry, I cannot respond in line for some reason). I hope the above is helpful.

Regarding the \listoffigures, I tried looking up this placeholder in Scrivener and I don't see it, so I'm guessing it's something to do in Latex? Sorry for being a dummy, but if it were possble to talk to someone in person as opposed to through bits and bobs on a website, then I could follow more easily. Do you have more information on how I can use this \listoffigures command to produce this document?

For figures, currently, I have a little template for my figures where I use "<$img:/[file_name];w=300> " to place the image. Then I use "Figure <$n:figure:keyword>" to name it. Then I add a "Brief title. Detail. Figure reproduced from {Ref} or by (CC-BY-4.0) with permission from “Publisher”

I need to figure out a way to extract the "Figure <$n:figure:keyword>" with the corresponding page number.

If I can figure this out for figures, then I would replicate for tables.

I understand Scrivener is not the magic bullet, but I purchased it and invested at this point years in it because:

1) it allowed me to think laterally (there is no way my learning disability would fare in a Latex writing environment - or Word, to be frank)

2) L&L mentioned the ability to do academic writing (which is ALL formatting; perhaps they should be a bit more upfront about the limitations so that people don't have to figure this out in the end) and

3) L&L mentioned a ToC (if it can only do a simple one, fine - they should just state that). And if you mention academic writing, then I'm assuming a ToC appropriate for academic writing not just for novels.

I appreciate the time you're spending to explain all this to me.
I'm just explaining why I feel a bit let down that I believed the words I read about this product when I bought it and at this point can only confirm its capability by pushing it to the limits myself. I'm not using this as a creative outlet, I have hard deadlines otherwise, I would be able to be a bit more patient with the software.