User

Manual
Scrivener 2.0 for Mac OS X

Literature & Latte

February, 2011
Revision: 2.0.3-01
�c 2010–2011, Literature & Latte LTD. All rights reserved.
 7.3 Saving and Making Copies 37

Contents
7.4 Opening Existing Projects 38
7.5 Templates . . . . . . . . . . 38
7.6 Backing Up Your Work . 42
7.7 Working with Scrivener
for Windows . . . . . . . . . 45

8 Setting Up the Binder 46

Contents ii 8.1 How the Binder is Or-
ganised . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Acknowledgements v 8.2 Binder Controls . . . . . . 50
8.3 Controlling Binder Inte-
gration . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
I Introduction 1 8.4 Using Collections . . . . . 52
8.5 Document Templates . . . 57
1 Philosophy 2
9 Navigating and Organising 60
2 About This Manual 4
9.1 General Navigation . . . . 60
2.1 Terms and Conventions . 5
9.2 Go To Menu . . . . . . . . . 61
3 What’s New 7 9.3 Hoisting the Binder . . . . 62
3.1 Hundreds of Other Im- 9.4 Locking the Editor . . . . . 62
provements . . . . . . . . . 10 9.5 Scrivener Links . . . . . . . 63
9.6 Using Favourites . . . . . . 68
4 Installation and Upgrading 13 9.7 Layouts Panel . . . . . . . . 69
4.1 Registering . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2 Application Updates . . . 15 10 Setting Up Meta-Data 72
4.3 Upgrading from 10.1 Meta-Data Types . . . ... 72
Scrivener 1 . . . . . . . . . . 15 10.2 Keywords HUD . . . ... 77

5 Interface 17 11 Gathering Material 79

5.1 Interface Overview . . . . 17 11.1 File Import . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.2 View Modes . . . . . . . . . 23 11.2 Scrivener Services . . . . . 83
5.3 Full Screen Interface . . . . 25 11.3 Scratch Pad Panel . . . . . . 84
11.4 Text Appending Tools . . 85
6 Quick Tour 26 11.5 Print as PDF to Scrivener 85
6.1 Project Format . . . . . . . 26
6.2 The Main Window . . . . 28 12 Project Planning 87
6.3 Outlining Your Draft . . . 29 12.1 The Corkboard . . . . . . . 87
6.4 Compiling the Draft . . . 32 12.2 The Outliner . . . . . . . . 92
12.3 Project Notes . . . . . . . . 93
12.4 Capturing Ideas with
II Preparation 34 Scratch Pad . . . . . . . . . . 95
12.5 Custom Icons . . . . . . . . 95
7 Project Management 36
7.1 Project Size Limitations . 36 13 Cloud Integration and Sharing 98
7.2 Creating a New Project . . 37 13.1 Simplenote . . . . . . . . . . 98

ii
CONTENTS iii

13.2 Synchronised Folders . . . 106 18.1 Synopsis Card . . . . . . . . 179

13.3 SimpleText.ws . . . . . . . 114 18.2 General Meta-Data View . 180
13.4 Index Card for iPad . . . . 114 18.3 Custom Meta-Data View . 180
18.4 Document Support Panes 180
18.5 Locking the Inspector . . . 184
III Writing 119 18.6 Advanced Inspector Key-
board Usage . . . . . . . . . 184
14 Writing and Editing 122
14.1 Rich Text Editing Philos- 19 QuickReference 186
ophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
19.1 QuickReference Mini-
14.2 Editing Basics . . . . . . . . 123
Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . 187
14.3 Editing with Scrivener . . 126
19.2 Using QuickReference
14.4 Formatting Tools . . . . . . 131
Panels in Full Screen . . . . 187
14.5 Header Bar . . . . . . . . . . 138
14.6 Footer Bar . . . . . . . . . . 142 20 Scriptwriting 188
14.7 Viewing Media in the Ed- 20.1 Formatting a Script in
itor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Scrivener . . . . . . . . . . . 188
14.8 Splitting the Editor . . . . 146 20.2 Using Page View to Esti-
14.9 Using Snapshots . . . . . . 147 mate Page Counts . . . . . 190
14.10 Auto-Completion . . . . . 149 20.3 Importing a Script from
14.11 Text Bookmarks . . . . . . 151 Final Draft and Other
14.12 Editing Multiple Docu- Programs . . . . . . . . . . . 191
ments (Scrivenings View) 152 20.4 Printing or Exporting a
Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
15 Page View 156
20.5 Working with Final
16 Full Screen 157 Draft 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
16.1 Using a Background Image 158 20.6 Creating Your Own
16.2 Full Screen HUD . . . . . 158 Script Formats . . . . . . . 196
16.3 Full Screen Inspector HUD 159
21 Writing Tools 202
16.4 Customising Full Screen
21.1 Bibliography Management 202
Appearance . . . . . . . . . 159
21.2 Goals and Statistics
16.5 Using Full Screen with
Tracking Tools . . . . . . . 202
Multiple Displays . . . . . 159
21.3 The Name Generator . . . 207
17 Annotations and Footnotes 161 21.4 Searching and Replacing . 208
17.1 Inline Notation . . . . . . . 163
17.2 Linked Notation . . . . . . 167 22 Using MultiMarkdown 215
17.3 General Usage Tips for 22.1 What is Markdown? . . . . 215
Notation . . . . . . . . . . . 170 22.2 What is MultiMarkdown? 216
17.4 Text Colour and Highlights 171 22.3 MultiMarkdown and
17.5 Marking Revisions . . . . . 175 Scrivener . . . . . . . . . . . 216
17.6 Text Markings and Multi- 22.4 Importing MultiMark-
Markdown . . . . . . . . . . 177 down Files . . . . . . . . . . 217
22.5 Exporting MultiMark-
18 Inspector 179 down Files . . . . . . . . . . 217
iv CONTENTS

22.6 MultiMarkdown in Rich V Advanced 284

Text Environment . . . . . 218
22.7 MultiMarkdown Meta-Data 219 27 MultiMarkdown Tips and Tricks 285
22.8 Updating MultiMarkdown 220 27.1 Functional Annotations
22.9 Advanced MultiMarkdown 220 and Comments . . . . . . . 285
22.10 Further Information . . . 220 27.2 Multiple Footnote
Streams with MMD . . . . 286

IV Final Phases 221

VI Appendices 287
23 Creating a Table of Contents 224 A Menus and Keyboard Shortcuts 288
A.1 Scrivener Menu . . . . . . . 288
24 Compiling the Draft 227 A.2 File Menu . . . . . . . . . . 289
24.1 Built-in Presets . . . . . . . 227 A.3 Edit Menu . . . . . . . . . . 292
24.2 Available Compile Formats 229 A.4 View Menu . . . . . . . . . 298
24.3 Expanded Compile Inter- A.5 Project Menu . . . . . . . . 308
face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 A.6 Documents Menu . . . . . 310
24.4 Contents Pane . . . . . . . 236 A.7 Format Menu . . . . . . . . 316
24.5 Formatting . . . . . . . . . . 241 A.8 Window Menu . . . . . . . 320
24.6 Processing Options . . . . 247 A.9 Help Menu . . . . . . . . . . 321
24.7 Script Settings . . . . . . . . 249
24.8 Separators . . . . . . . . . . 251 B Preferences 323
24.9 Text Options . . . . . . . . 252 B.1 General . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
24.10 HTML Options . . . . . . 254 B.2 Appearance . . . . . . . . . 326
24.11 Meta-Data . . . . . . . . . . 255 B.3 Corkboard . . . . . . . . . . 330
24.12 Layout Options . . . . . . . 258 B.4 Full Screen . . . . . . . . . . 332
24.13 Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . 259 B.5 Navigation .......... 334
24.14 Replacements . . . . . . . . 260 B.6 Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
24.15 Footnotes/Comments . . 262 B.7 Formatting . . . . . . . . . . 340
B.8 Auto-Correction . . . . . . 341
24.16 Page Settings . . . . . . . . . 268
B.9 Import and Export . . . . 343
24.17 Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
B.10 Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
24.18 E-Book Options . . . . . . 272
24.19 KindleGen . . . . . . . . . . 273 C Placeholder Tags 347

25 Exporting 275 D Tips and Tricks and Trouble 348

25.1 Exporting Binder Files . . 275 D.1 Bookmarks or Small Files 348
25.2 Drag and Drop Between D.2 Using Scrivener in a Se-
Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 cure Environment . . . . . 348
D.3 Hidden Preferences . . . . 350
26 Printing 277 D.4 Troubleshooting . . . . . . 352
26.1 Document Printing . . . . 277 D.5 Revision 2.0.3-01 . . . . . . 353
26.2 Printing Index Cards . . . 279 D.6 Revision 2.0.1-01 (Nov 25) 354
26.3 Printing Outlines . . . . . 281 D.7 Revision 2.0-01 (Nov 1) . . 355
26.4 Printing the Draft . . . . . 282
E Legal 356
 Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the following people for very kindly donating time or code to Scrivener:

Heinrich Gliesen—help with inline image found on their respective websites).

scaling. Philip Dow (author of Journler6 )—help with
Jonathon Mah—help with the bubble high- the custom ruler code.
lights around comments and footnotes. Wagner Truppel for help figuring out how
Andreas Mayer—NSBezierPath and table to draw the diagonal status text in the cork-
view extensions1 . board.
Andrew C. Stone—smart quotes code2 . Martin Wierschin of Nisus, for various help
Todd Ransom (author of Avenir) at with the chicaneries of the text system and
returnself.com—filtering and page number RTF.
printing code. Peter Maurer—help with the custom ani-
Jesse Grosjean (author of Mori and Write- mated disclosure triangles (and kindly pro-
Room) at Hog Bay Software—auto-saving vided the images too).
code. Christian and Eric at Devon Technologies7 —
Split view code based on OASplitView from help with keeping Scrivener in the back-
the excellent OmniGroup3 . ground when the clippings services are used.
Andy Matuschak—Scrivener uses the superb Positive Spin Media—the tab bar in the
Sparkle framework for software updates, cre- project notepad uses PSMTabBarControl,
ated by Andy Matuschak. Copyright � c 2005, Positive Spin Media
Matt Gemmell—various code snippets (in- (all rights reserved), which in turn uses por-
cluding the colour contrast code, the use of tions of code from Copyright 2004 The Shiira
QuickLook for the file link view and the Project8 (all rights reserved).
corkboard options bubble window) from his Malte Rosenau—for pointing me in the direc-
source code site4 . tion of the code I needed to import web pages
Andy Matuschak5 and Matt Gemmell are with their titles intact.
also responsible for the basis of the code for James Hoover, creator of Bean9 , for provid-
Scrivener’s HUD panels in Tiger (code to be ing the basis of the “show invisibles” code and

1
http://www.harmless.de/cocoa.html
2
http://www.stone.com
3
http://www.omnigroup.com
4
http://mattgemmell.com/source/
5
http://andymatuschak.org
6
http://journler.com/
7
http://www.devon-technologies.com
8
http://www.positivespinmedia.com
9
http://www.bean-osx.com

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

for sharing various other code snippets from The redoubtable Douglas Davidson, Apple
his work on Bean. engineer and guru, for responding so help-
Brent Simmons—the OPML importer code fully to so many of my enquiries about the
is based on a class created by Brent Simmons intricacies of the Cocoa text system.
for NetNewswire (Copyright � c 2002, Brent Aki Inoue at Apple for advice about the word
Simmons). count code.
Shortcut Recorder is � c Contributors of Fletcher Penney, for contributing so much
10
ShortcutRecorder —thanks to Jesse Gros- time and effort in helping me get MultiMark-
jean for pointing me in the direction of this down implemented in Scrivener.
project. Everyone on the Cocoa-Dev list for their
Nathan Day—the PDF Services alias file is help and support, with special mention to
created using Nathan Day’s NDAlias class11 . Bill Cheeseman, Malcom Crawford, Max
Mark Onyschuk—help with the window flip- and Marcus at Blue Technologies (authors
ping code for the templates panel, which is of Ulysses), J. Nozzi at Bartas Technologies
based on his LIFlipEffect12 . (author of CopyWrite).
Kino—the Snapshot comparison tool was in- Stephen Kochan, author of Programming
spired in large part by Kino’s “Compare Doc- in Objective-C, for answering my questions
uments” macro for Nisus Writer Pro. when I was getting started.
Robert Warwick13 —the improvements to Many thanks to the developer of Index Card,
text table support are based on code Robert “DenVog”, who went out of his way to help
wrote for Stone Hill Invoicer. get syncing to work between Index Card and
Improved PDF anti-aliasing was provided by Scrivener.
a line of code from Skim14 .

Beta Testers
Too many to mention everyone, but a big thanks to all of you, especially those who
helped beta test during the early stages - your feedback led directly to the freeware
release of Scrivener Gold and a much enhanced Scrivener. Special mention to:
Alexandria Pallas-Weinbrecht, for all the help in testing Scrivener’s full screen mode
on a dual-monitor set up.
Ernesto Salcedo, for help with a bug in viewing webarchives.
And in the best Oscars-speech-style, thanks to Kurt Vonnegut for making me want
to write and my father for buying me a ZX Spectrum when I was a boy and thus
forever turning me into a geek.

10
http://code.google.com/p/shortcutrecorder/
11
http://homepage.mac.com/nathan_day/pages/source.xml
12
http://www.lorem.ca
13
http://www.codehackers.net
14
http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/
 Part I

Introduction

1
 Chapter 1

Philosophy
Most word processors and text editors aimed at writers assume the creative process
will take place in linear form; that is, they assume that the writer knows how his
or her work will begin, and will start at the beginning and continue through un-
til reaching the end. Planning and restructuring is therefore forced into a separate
workflow—the writer must either plan before beginning and keep track of hundreds
of different files using the computer, or face the laborious task of cutting and pasting
numerous chunks of text to restructure a long piece of work at the end. For shorter
pieces of writing, this is not a massive problem, but for longer texts—such as novels
or academic theses—the writer can often find him- or herself battling against the tools
of their trade.
Over the past few years, a number writing solutions have appeared, aimed at those
who don’t write in a linear fashion. All have pros and cons, and writers with vary-
ing styles of working fortunately now have a wider choice. Scrivener is one such
nonlinear tool. Scrivener was developed because no other writing environment quite
provided all of the features required for the sort of writing that demands easy access
to research, a quick overview of numerous documents and the easy restructuring of
swathes of text.
The main concepts of Scrivener can be summarised as follows:

❧ The software should allow the writer to use many of the formatting features
familiar to word processors—different fonts, italics, paragraph styles and so on.
It is up to the writer to avoid distractions, not the software.
❧ What looks good in print is not always the best way of viewing something on
the screen: the software should allow the user to completely reformat the text
on export or for printing without affecting the original (thus making it easy to
export a manuscript in a format suitable for an editor and then export it just as
easily in a format more suited to publishing on the internet).
❧ There should be a synopsis linked with each document, which can be viewed
with other synopses to get an overview of the project as a whole.
❧ Linked to the above, it should be easy to view the project as an outline and use
drag and drop to restructure the project. Moving between the outline and the
text itself should be fluid.

2
 3

❧ It should be possible to view individual “documents” either as discrete chunks

of text, or combined with other (arbitrary) documents. Thus, for instance, a
chapter could be viewed as a whole, or each scene could be viewed individually.

❧ The user should be able to view more than one document at the same time—for
instance, the end of one chapter alongside the beginning of the next, a character
sketch alongside a scene in which that character appears, or a research document
alongside the writing it is being used to support.

❧ The software should be capable of storing and displaying common research

documents, because writers do not just use text—they also refer to images, web
pages, recorded interviews and other media.

The overriding philosophy behind Scrivener was in part inspired by a passage writ-
ten by the author Hilary Mantel, in a collection of essays by writers on the process of
writing entitled The Agony and the Ego. Hilary Mantel described a process of “grow-
ing a book, rather than writing one,” which can be summed up as follows:

1. During the first stage of writing, you might jot ideas down on index cards—
phrases, character names, scene ideas; any insight or glimpse.

2. When you have gathered a few index cards, you might pin them to a corkboard.
Other ideas build around them, and you might even write out a few paragraphs
and pin them behind the index card with which they are associated. At this
stage, the index cards have no particular order.

3. Eventually, you may begin to see an order emerging and repin the index cards
accordingly.

4. After you have gathered enough material, you might take all of your index
cards, sheets of paper and jottings and place them into a ring-binder. You are
still free to move everything around, but now you have a good idea of how
much work you have done and how much more work you have to do.

Scrivener is thus a nonlinear writing tool that provides the writer with all of the
features found in any text editor, along with the functionality for “growing” your
work organically within the program itself.
 Chapter 2

About This Manual

This manual has been written using Scrivener, and is available in three different for-
mats. If you purchased a boxed copy of Scrivener, you should have a printed version
of it available for desktop reference. It can also be accessed as a PDF from the Help
menu, under User Manual. You should also find two copies which have been spe-
cially formatted to be printed on either US Letter or A4 standard printer paper on
our website1 . Lastly, the Scrivener project used to author the manual has been pro-
vided to you as a demonstration of writing in Scrivener, and can be downloaded from
the Support section of the Literature & Latte website. It has been written using the
MultiMarkdown formatting syntax, and so also is a demonstration of that system as
well.
The manual itself has been split into four primary sections and an appendix. The
first section introduces Scrivener’s terminology and interface, and has a quick tour
for those who want to start writing as fast as possible. It is highly recommended
that you also go through the separately available interactive tutorial as well (which
can be accessed via the Help menu in Scrivener) to get the most out of Scrivener
and eliminate confusion over some of its unique features, but if you want to start
writing as soon as possible, the quick tour (chapter 6) should have you writing using
Scrivener’s basic main features within half an hour.
Scrivener has a wide variety features to accommodate many different purposes
from novels, screenplays, academic papers and dissertations, general non-fiction, jour-
nalism, blogging, and much more. While it strives to present as simple an interface
as possible, once you start digging into the application, you will find a degree of flex-
ibility and complexity to suit even the most esoteric needs. To help organise all of
these concepts, the other three sections take a pragmatic look at the primary stages of
any major project, Preparation (Part II), Writing (Part III), and Final Phases (Part IV),
which will discuss generating a manuscript or otherwise exporting and printing your
work. In each section the features most useful to you during those phases will be ref-
erenced in-depth. If you want to find a specific feature, but don’t know which section
it might be located in, consult the appendices at the end of the manual, which have a
cross-referenced list to every menu item and window.
Users who are already familiar with prior versions of Scrivener will want to consult
1
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/support.php

4
2.1. TERMS AND CONVENTIONS 5

the What’s New (chapter 3) section, where new major features are briefly explained,
and a list of minor changes and features is provided as well. For a full description of
everything that has changed, as well as bug fixes, check out the Release Notes2 online.
The PDF and Scrivener project versions of this manual will always be the most
up-to-date.

2.1 Terms and Conventions

Whenever the documentation refers to an action that must be taken by you, the vis-
ible name for that action will be formatted like so. Button labels, menu items, and
keyboard shortcuts will all be displayed in this fashion.
Menus will be displayed in a hierarchy using the “ � ” character to separate top-
level, sub-menu, and items. To convert a range of selected text to uppercase, invoke
the Format � Convert � To Uppercase command.
Keyboard shortcuts will use the following symbols:

❧ –:The Command key, or the Apple key, is the one located directly to the left
and right of your spacebar.

❧ : The Option key is also labelled the Alt key on some keyboards, depending
on which country you purchased your Mac from. Some laptops only have one
Option key on the left side.

❧ : Control is usually located to the left of the Option key. Some laptops only
have one Control key between the Option key and the Fn key.

❧ Fn: If you have a laptop, or a newer Apple keyboard, you might have a Function
key available. Scrivener tends to avoid this key since not everyone has one
available.

❧ : The Shift keys are rarely used by themselves in shortcuts, but are often used
on combination with other modifier keys.

When a keyboard shortcut requires a combination of modifier keys, they will be

printed together. Example: – V which matches Edit � Paste and Match Style,
means you should hold down all three of these modifier keys, and then tap the V key
on your keyboard. The hyphen is used to separate the modifier keys from the target
key, and is not meant to be included in the shortcut itself.
Interface elements will be capitalised as proper nouns to help differentiate them
from standard nouns, when appropriate. A Collection is an interface element, while
2
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivChangeList.php
6 CHAPTER 2. ABOUT THIS MANUAL

the word ‘collection’ can be used to indicate a casual grouping of items, and not nec-
essarily a formal Collection.
Some of the names for various elements within Scrivener are customisable on a per
project basis, and how you name these things will impact much of the interface. A
good example is the Draft, a place where your manuscript in progress is built. This
can be called whatever you like, and what you name it will impact the names of menu
items that refer to it. In all cases, this documentation will refer to these malleable
elements by their default names.
In cases where file paths are printed, the UNIX convention of providing a short-
hand to describe your personal home folder will be used. An example might look
like:
~/Documents

The tilde is a shorthand which means: “/Users/yourusername”. In this case, it

would refer to the Documents folder in your home folder.
 Chapter 3

What’s New
Scrivener 2 is a major revision, featuring comprehensive overhauls of the interface
to make it even more intuitive and easy to use. It includes a substantial list of long-
awaited new features, such as a better style system, non-linear collections of docu-
ments, free-form corkboards, better snapshot integration, and much more. We un-
derstand that you are a busy person, and while new software can be fun for some,
others just want to keep working in the ways they are used to. Scrivener 2 has been
designed so that the majority of the new features will not get in your way until you
want them. When you first start using version 2, you should be up and running in the
way you are accustomed with a minimal period of transition. When you do get the
time to explore the new features, they are easily accessible and we think you’ll find
they add valuable tools and methods to your writing process.
In addition to the list below, you might want to also check out the new preferences
(Appendix B) and menus (Appendix A).

3.0.1 Free-form Corkboards

Up until now, the corkboard feature has been another way to view the order of your
book by placing it into a familiar metaphor. Scrivener 2 takes the metaphor the rest
of the way. Now you can view a free-form corkboard for your sections where cards
can be moved around freely, allowing the right brain to visualise your book in new
ways. If you decide to commit the new order into book outline, you can do so with
the press of a button. For more information, read The Corkboard (section 12.1).

3.0.2 Collections
Collections add tabs to your binder, giving you the ability to collect groups of doc-
uments together for whatever purpose you desire, without moving them from their
original position. It’s a bit like making groups of aliases, without all of the fuss. You
could create a tab to collect all of the sections have your editor has marked as being
too verbose, and remove them from the collection as you trim them down, or create
another tab to store all of the documents that still need citations. Build smart collec-
tions that automatically look for search terms every time you view the tab. For more
information, read Using Collections (section 8.4).

7
8 CHAPTER 3. WHAT’S NEW

3.0.3 Marginalia
Now you get a choice between in-line annotations and footnotes, or placing your
notes into a new panel located in the Inspector. This not only lets you place long
notes out of the way of the primary draft, it can also work as a bookmarking system.
Clicking on the notes in the Inspector column will automatically scroll your editor
to its linked position in the document. When using Edit Scrivenings, you can see all
of the notes for the collected document at once. Your old projects will use the in-
line system as they always have, but you can easily convert to the new system with a
single menu command, or vice-versa. For more information, read Annotations and
Footnotes (chapter 17).

3.0.4 Improved Compile

For most Scrivener authors, compile is the last crucial step where all of your hard
work is bound together into a single document. It lets you write in a way that is com-
fortable for you, while quickly generating a format that your editor is comfortable
working with. Scrivener 2 recognises the importance of this process, and has increased
its abilities in nearly every facet. Now you can design export instructions which au-
tomatically title and number your chapters for you; insert custom separators between
types of documents; filter compile according to meta-data or other criteria; export to
more formats, including ePub and WebArchive, with even better Final Draft support.
Compile now takes your export format into account, and reduces the complexity of
the options provided accordingly. For more information, read Compiling the Draft
(chapter 24).

3.0.5 iPad Workflow Support

While the iPhone and iPod touch gave people a taste of mobile writing, the iPad
has made this more practical. In response, 2.0 features integration with the popular
Simplenote service, and the ability to sync files with an external folder. The latter
provides integration with plain-text editors on the iPad that can access DropBox and
can also be used as a collaboration tool. To read more about these new features, see
Cloud Integration and Sharing (chapter 13).

3.0.6 Better View Integration

The relationship between corkboard, outliner, and editor was for many, a stumbling
block when learning Scrivener. A lot of thought has gone into making this rela-
tionship more intuitive. You no longer have to worry about choosing between Edit
Scrivening modes (now called Scrivenings—but we’ll come to this later), or setting
preferences to change the behaviour of clicking on items in the Binder. Whatever
view you used last is what Scrivener will use the next time, and the toolbar buttons
 9

for selecting modes have been refined to make it clearer that you are changing the way
you view a binder item and/or its children items.

3.0.7 QuickReference Windows

There are still occasions where it is fruitful to have more than two documents open
at once. Now Scrivener provides a QuickReference window. It’s a bit like Finder’s
QuickLook, except unlike that, you can actually edit content, and have multiple pan-
els open at once. You can also split the window and edit nearly anything in the
second pane that would ordinarily require the Inspector to be open. QuickReference
windows can also be used while working in Full Screen Mode. For more information
on how to use QuickReference windows, read QuickReference (chapter 19).

3.0.8 Snapshots and Changes

Taking snapshots of your documents as you work has always been a crucial safety net
in Scrivener, but Scrivener 1 just gave you a list of old snapshots in a window, and
let you do all of the hard work figuring out what changed and which one was which.
Snapshots have now been moved into the inspector, meaning you can view them right
alongside your current version. They can also be loaded right into the editor itself as a
read-only reference. Split your editor into two panes, and load an older snapshot into
that pane for full size editing and reference. You can also now ask Scrivener to look
for changes between revisions. It will highlight new words and overstrike deleted
words for you. For more information, read Snapshots Pane (subsection 18.4.4).

3.0.9 Automatic Backups

To keep your work safe, you can now tell Scrivener to automatically back up your
projects as you work. There are a number of ways in which to do so, including time-
based, opening and closing, and force saves. Tell Scrivener to use your DropBox1
folder for automatic backups, and never worry about keeping all of your machines
up to date. You can still make manual backups using the File Menu as before.

3.0.10 Document Templates

Before, if you wrote a template character sheet, reference page, and so on, you had to
make sure to remember to duplicate the original and then move the copy to the right
spot. Now you can set up a template folder which will let you draft your templates in
a single spot, then place them in an easy to use menu to be inserted right into the draft
where you want them. Document templates will be clearly marked with a special icon
in the binder. For more information, read Document Templates (section 8.5).
1
DropBox is a free tool that lets you keep a folder synchronised between all of your computers.
For more information, visit the DropBox homepage2
10 CHAPTER 3. WHAT’S NEW

3.0.11 Page View

Display your work in a variety of visual page formats, including single-page, two-
page side by side, and custom page sizes. While not intended to replace your word
processor or layout program, Page Layout preview will give you a rough idea of how
many pages your sections are. This will be of considerable use to scriptwriters, or
others who prefer to work in a page-based method, or just anyone who prefers the
aesthetic appeal of seeing virtual pages scrolling by.

3.1 Hundreds of Other Improvements

Often when a new product version says hundreds of new improvements, you know
they are counting each and every change, including bugs fixes. Scrivener 2 actually
does have hundreds of improvements, far too many to list right now, though if you
want a complete list, consult the change log3 online. You’ll notice most of these
refinements as you go about working in the way you’ve grown accustomed to. Here
is a list of just a few of the new things you can do.
Binder Favourites: Set documents or folders as “favourites” and they’ll get pinned
to various document selection menus in the interface, such as Go To, and Scrivener
Links.
Text Bookmarks: Set bookmarks in the text of your document to mark places of
interest. Bookmarks are set using the existing inline annotation feature, so it is easy
to spot where they are while you work.
New Style System: Apple’s built-in style system has been completely replaced
with an improved style builder and selection mechanism. It is important to note
that Scrivener styles are still a way of applying favourite formatting rules and font
variations, not dynamic styles in the sense of a word processor, but the system for
maintaining and creating these should be much easier.
Refined Menu Layout: Much thought has been put into storing the vast number
of functions available. The new menus have been re-arranged to be more intuitive
and logical.
Preferences Overhauled: More control is available, letting you personalise your
copy of Scrivener even further, and the sections have been re-arranged to be more
logical and accessible.
Better Keywords: Keywords are now stored centrally for each project, and can be
assigned colours which you can optionally choose to display on index cards in the
corkboard. This raises the visibility of keywords, making them more useful when
viewing large groups of documents together.
Custom Binder Icons: Create or import your own custom icons and assign them
to documents and folders in the binder.
3
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivChangeList.html
3.1. HUNDREDS OF OTHER IMPROVEMENTS 11

Project Specific Formatting Preferences: In addition to the global application

editing formatting preferences, you can now set up each project to have special for-
matting defaults.
Improved Project Templates: Creating a new project is now even easier. Scrivener
comes loaded with a number of useful starter templates, and it is even simpler to make
your own and sort them using the new topical category system.
New Index Card Appearance: In addition to the existing choice of index card
styles, the new Rounded theme gives both the card and the “pins” an entirely new
look.
Revision Marking: Set up revision marking “pens” that automatically colour new
text according to the revision number as you type it in.
New Format Search: You can now search by a wide collection of format-based
criteria. For example you can look for all italic or bold texts, search by revision
markings, in-line annotations, highlights, and more.
Titles in Scrivenings: Display and edit the titles of documents right in the editor
while working in Scrivenings.
Integrated Title and Synopsis in Outliner: The outliner no longer requires a
second column for both the Title and Synopsis; they can be displayed in a single
integrated column, familiar to users of outlining tools like OmniOutliner, giving you
more space for other columns.
View Enclosing Group: It’s now easy to jump up in the hierarchy from where you
are currently editing, using the current view mode. If working work corkboards, you
can view the corkboard “above” the current one in the outline structure, for example,
or if when working in a text, you can broaden the scope of your text editor to include
the texts around it, in scrivenings mode.
Expanded Scratch Pad: The Scratch Pad has been modified to work better as an
out-board research collection tool. You can now store any number of notes, and
these will be saved as accessible RTFD files right on your disk. The Scratchpad has
also been approved to better enable the transfer of data from it to documents in your
open projects.
Optimised Text Engine: Snow Leopard introduced changes in the way text is ren-
dered; Scrivener 2 has been optimised to better work with these changes, improving
performance when working with large documents.
Character Name Generator: Authors of fiction will be pleased to find that a pow-
erful name generator has been built into the application. You can supply it with a
wide range of criteria, including ethnic background, gender, forenames, surnames, or
both, alliteration, the ability to add your own custom name lists, and more.
Store Any Kind of File: A new advanced feature which must be enabled in prefer-
ences allows you to drag any type of file into your project. When accessed Scrivener
12 CHAPTER 3. WHAT’S NEW

will let you load it in an external editor that supports that file type. Unlike references,
these files will be stored with your project, turning it into a hub for all your file types.
Full Screen Backdrop: Now you can customise your full screen experience by
choosing images from your hard drive.
Improved Navigation: New keyboard shortcuts let you traverse the binder from
right within the editor session. No more switching back and forth between binder
and editor to select the next document.
Expanded Export Features: More of your work can now be saved when using the
Export feature. Include all of your Snapshots as well.
Multiple Project Notepads: Project notes can still be accessed in the inspector,
just like you are used to, but now you can also load them in a separate window which
has been designed to look like a tabbed notebook. Add new tabs to have multiple
notebooks, and these will be accessible from the inspector as well. Now you can have
both your document notes and project notes available at the same time.
Format Bar: The new format bar collects the most common formatting tools into
a single, compact space. No more hunting around in menus, or messing with font
palettes. The margin and tab stop ruler has been separated and simplified, so now
you can show only the tools you need rather than having to keep one large all-in-one
tool at the top of your editing window. The new format bar is slim, and stays out of
your way at the top of the editing session.
 Chapter 4

Installation and Upgrading

If you purchased the boxed version of Scrivener, insert the CD-ROM into your com-
puter and wait for it to appear in the Finder. Create a new Finder window with – N
and choose the Go � Applications... menu item. Drag the Scrivener application from
the CD to your Applications folder.
For online downloadable purchases, download the trial version from the Litera-
ture & Latte website. The trial version can be unlocked with the registration serial
number that was sent to you when you purchased the application. When the DMG
finishes downloading, double-click on it in the Finder (if it hasn’t opened for you
automatically), and follow the above instructions to drag the Scrivener icon to your
Applications folder.
Scrivener will not be correctly installed on your system if you drag the icon from
either the CD, or the DMG, straight into the Dock. It must be dragged into the
Applications folder, or if you have do not have administrative rights to the computer,
into your user folder.
After copying the Scrivener application to your hard drive, you can then drag a
copy to the Dock from the Applications folder if you wish. To install the optional
bonus material, including starter templates, export presets, scriptwriting presets, and
more, double-click the Extras Installer which should be available in both the DMG
and the CD.
Once this is complete, you should eject the DMG or CD from your computer.
Click the Scrivener icon in the Dock (if you have placed it there), or double-click
from the Applications folder to launch Scrivener.

4.1 Registering
4.1.1 The Trial Version
You can try out all of the features of Scrivener for 30 non-consecutive days without
having to pay or register. During that period, Scrivener will be fully functional. After
30 days of use, you will no longer be able to access Scrivener at all unless you register.
(Actually, Scrivener will allow you a single “grace” session after the 30 days so that you
can export all of your work. This way, if you have decided not to buy Scrivener but
forgot to export during the 30 days, you can still get your work out of the program.)

13
14 CHAPTER 4. INSTALLATION AND UPGRADING

4.1.2 Purchasing Scrivener

During the trial period, whenever you launch Scrivener, you will be reminded of
how many trial days you have left and given the option of buying and registering.
Clicking on the “Buy Online” button will take you to the Literature & Latte online
store, where you can purchase a licence for Scrivener. You can also visit the online
store at any time whilst using Scrivener by going to the Help menu and choosing
“Purchase Scrivener”.
If you are reading the paper copy of this manual, you probably already have a
Scrivener serial number in the box.
When you buy a licence for Scrivener online, you will be e-mailed your unique
serial number, which will have the following format:

SCRIVEN001-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

Make sure that you keep this serial number, along with the exact name under which
you registered Scrivener (the “Serial Number Name”), in a safe place, as you will need
both to register Scrivener (remember that you may need to re-register at a later date,
too - for instance when installing Scrivener on a new computer, or re-installing after
wiping your hard drive for whatever reason - so it is very important to store this
information safely).

4.1.3 Registering Scrivener

After purchasing a licence and receiving your unique serial number, you can register
Scrivener by clicking on the “Enter Licence. . . ” button in the “Scrivener is Unreg-
istered!” box that appears whenever you launch Scrivener. Alternatively, you can
choose “Register. . . ” from the application (Scrivener) menu. Either way, you will be
presented with the registration panel or sheet.
Enter the exact name under which you registered Scrivener (referred to as the “Se-
rial Number Name” in the e-mail you received with your registration details) in the
“User Name” box and your unique serial number in the “Registration Code” box and
then click on the “Register” button. You must make sure that both the user name
and serial number are exactly as they appear in the registration e-mail you received,
or registration will fail. (For this reason, it is probably best to copy and paste both
the user name and serial number directly from your e-mail.)
Once Scrivener has been registered, there is no longer a time limit on its use and
you will no longer see the nag box at startup - the application will launch immediately
without any messages.
4.2. APPLICATION UPDATES 15

4.2 Application Updates

When you first launch Scrivener, you will be presented with a panel which asks
whether or not Scrivener should automatically check itself for updates. To use this
feature, you must have a connection to the Internet.
If you click Yes, whenever you launch Scrivener, if your machine is connected to
the internet, Scrivener will do a quick check to see if there is a newer version available.
If so, you will be presented with a panel giving details of the update and asking you
whether or not you want to install the newer version (it is strongly recommended
that you always update to the newest version available). If you click “No” to “Check
for updates on startup?”, Scrivener will not do this check automatically. Whether
you click “Yes” or “No”, however, you can always check for updates manually by
choosing “Check for Updates. . . ” from the application (Scrivener) menu.
You can change your mind later by setting this option in the application prefer-
ences, under the General tab (section B.1).

4.3 Upgrading from Scrivener 1

While it is possible to run more than one version of Scrivener at once on your com-
puter, it is advisable to first delete your copy of 1.x, before installing the new version.
To do this, make sure Scrivener is closed, and then locate Scrivener in the Applications
folder, drag its icon to the Trash in your Dock, then follow the above instructions to
install Scrivener 2.0 on your hard drive. Since the application preferences have all
been updated, you will need to go through the new preference system and set up your
defaults again.
The Scrivener project file format has been updated considerably, and new or up-
graded projects cannot be opened in Scrivener 1.x versions of the application. For
each project on your system, the first time you load it in 2.x you will be presented
with a dialogue box, asking if you wish to upgrade the project format. Until you do
so, it will not be possible to open these older projects in Scrivener 2.x. When updat-
ing the project, Scrivener will create a backup copy of the original project, preserved
in the 1.x format which you can choose to back up, or delete once you’ve verified the
update was successful.
Once the update process is complete, the project will open in 2.0 and you can begin
working immediately.

Updating large projects: When updating very large projects, be prepared to wait
a while for the process to complete. A good rule of thumb is how long it would
take to copy the project from one disk to another and then half again that time.
If your project is so large that it will take 20 minutes to copy, then you should be
prepared to wait at least a half hour for the project to update, as part of the update
process is creating a backup of the original. You will also want to keep this fact
16 CHAPTER 4. INSTALLATION AND UPGRADING

in mind when considering drive space. Do not attempt to update a multi-gigabyte

project file on a drive that does not have enough space left on it to accommodate a
duplicated copy.

In some cases, you may need to keep a copy of 1.x installed. If you are working with
a colleague which has yet to upgrade to 2.0, you will want to make sure to not update
these collaborative projects, and use 1.x to interface with them until they upgrade. It
is perfectly safe to do so, but if you elect to keep a copy of Scrivener 1.x installed, you
will need to take the following items into consideration:

❧ .scriv files will open in Scrivener 2.0 by default. To open older projects in
Scrivener 1.x, you will need to drag these items onto the Scrivener 1.x icon
in the Dock, or use the File � Open... menu command from within Scrivener
1.x.

❧ So long as you have both versions installed, the Mac might get confused over the
clipping services, which can be used to clip information from other programs
into Scrivener. Once you have fully uninstalled the old version of Scrivener,
these clipping services should work just fine.

❧ It is safe to run both copies at once, as they both use different preference files.

❧ Scrivener’s manual has been entirely moved to PDF (what you are likely read-
ing). If you leave 1.x installed on your machine, the old Apple Help system
will still have entries listed for Scrivener, so if you use the Help menu’s search
field (in Snow Leopard) to look up a topic, it will return search results from the
wrong version’s help. Instead, load the PDF in your preferred viewer and use
the search tool there, to find a topic.
 Chapter 5

Interface
The Scrivener interface has been carefully designed to cover a wide range of uses. At
its most minimal, the interface could look no more complicated than a basic word
processor like WordPad or TextEdit. In this section, we will go over some of the basic
interface elements that will be present in nearly every project you work in. Advanced
features will be gradually introduced in their own sections as they pertain to specific
areas of the writing process.

5.1 Interface Overview

The main interface comprises six main elements, not all of which are visible when a
new project is created.

1. Toolbar: Frequently used tools displayed in a standard fashion, familiar to most

Mac OS X applications, which can be customised as you see fit.
2. The Binder: A hierarchal list of all items in your project, including the
manuscript; a general collection area for research materials, notes, and so forth;
a trash can for collecting deleted items; and finally the top-level area where you
can create your own files and folders.
3. The Format Bar: Supplies frequently used text editing and formatting tools,
available to both editor splits.
4. The Editor: The editor can be split into to panes which can show two parts of
the same document, or two different items altogether. This is where all viewing
and editing is done.
5. The Inspector: A feature-packed tool providing information about the cur-
rently active split. The Inspector has five separate sub-panes, which address
various aspects of the viewed resources. Not all of them are available for all
media types.

Most of the main interface sections (binder, editors, and Inspector) can be resized
within the window via the grab handles located at the bottom, or in the case of splits,
by dragging the divider line between them.
Each of these elements will now be explained in greater detail.

17
18 CHAPTER 5. INTERFACE

Figure 5.1: The Basic Interface

5.1.1 Toolbar

Scrivener has a customisable toolbar which includes many common functions, in-
cluding a project search tool. To adjust the icons available, or their appearance, use
the View � Customize Toolbar... menu item, or right-click anywhere in the toolbar
background area.

It is possible to hide the toolbar by clicking the clear, pill shaped button in the top-
right corner of the window, or by using the View � Hide Toolbar menu item. Note
that when the toolbar is hidden, you can still access project search via the Edit menu,
or – F, which will provide a pop-up window featuring the same controls available
as on the toolbar.
5.1. INTERFACE OVERVIEW 19

5.1.2 The Binder

The binder is so-called because it really acts as the ring-binder of your project. It
provides a hierarchical list of all items in your project. You can drag items around
to restructure your project and double-click on any item to rename it. Selecting an
item in the binder displays its content in the editor pane that most recently had the
keyboard focus (see below) and its meta-data in the Inspector (again, see below).
Whilst you can create as many folders and files as you wish in the binder, there are
three root-level folders that cannot be deleted (although they can be moved around
within the top level and renamed):

Draft The Draft folder is where you place all of the documents you want to include
in your final manuscript. As such, the Draft folder is unique in that it can only
hold text files and folders - it cannot hold image files, PDF files, QuickTime
media or web pages as other folders can. All of the writing you want to be part
of your finished work should be placed inside the Draft folder, in the order you
want it (which, of course, is easy to change by dragging and dropping). When
you are ready to export or print your manuscript, use File � Compile.... This
will combine all of the individual documents inside the Draft folder into one
long document, formatted as you specify. Each file you place inside the Draft
may represent a chapter, a scene, a paragraph or whatever you want.
Some templates will have renamed this folder to something else, but its function
remains the same.

Research The Research folder can hold any type of file supported by Scrivener (text,
image, media, web archive or PDF files). It provides a default place for non-text
files to be imported and stored (although you can create other root-level folders
for this purpose if you so wish).
Some templates will have renamed this folder to something else, but its function
remains the same.

Trash When you delete an item in the binder, it is not really deleted but just moved
to the Trash folder. You can drag items in the Trash folder back into the main
binder, but you cannot create new items inside the Trash. To empty the Trash,
select Empty Trash from the File menu. This will permanently delete all items
inside the Trash folder (and cannot be undone).

The Collection interface can be toggled on and off with the associated toolbar but-
ton, or the View � Collections � Show Collections menu item.
Collections and search results can also be dismissed by clicking the X button in the
footer bar for the Binder.
20 CHAPTER 5. INTERFACE

This allows you to view search results, save them for future use, or collect arbitrary
binder items from throughout your project. For more information on how to use the
Binder and Collections, see Navigating and Organising (chapter 9).

5.1.3 Format Bar

The Format Bar stretches across the top of the main application view, right below
the toolbar, and provides easy access to the most common text formatting tools. It
can be selectively hidden when not needed with the Format � Hide Format Bar menu
command. For more information, read The Format Bar (subsection 14.4.2).

5.1.4 Editor
Scrivener has two identical editor panes which allow you to view two parts of the
same document or different documents entirely alongside one another. The editors
will look different depending on what sort of document you are displaying and which
mode you are in (scrivenings, corkboard, outliner, standard text editor, or media view
mode). The editors can be displayed alongside one another in a vertical or horizontal
split for referring between them, or you can just view one editor.
Above each editor pane is a “header bar”. This contains navigation buttons (the
arrows) which allow you to navigate backwards and forwards through the document
history. Next to the navigation buttons is the title of the document along with its
icon. Clicking on the icon will display a pop-up menu that collects together some
common editor menus. The entire header bar has three colour status modes:

❧ Plain grey is the default, and is what you will see unless you have split the view.

❧ Blue appears when you have split editors, and indicates the active editor.

❧ Mauve appears when the editor has been locked MAC:( – L), which inhibits
it from receiving binder clicks.

On the right side are two vertical arrows which allow you to navigate through the
binder in a flat list fashion. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts, – UpArrow
and – DownArrow. Using these navigation tools will also focus the binder on
what you are selecting.
On the far right of the header view is a button that controls the split. The icon in
the button will indicate the type of split that is available - horizontal, vertical or none
(close split). Option-clicking on this button will change the split type.
Clicking on this button when both editors are visible will cause the editor associ-
ated with that header view to take over and the other editor to close.
Below each editor pane is a “footer view”. This will change depending on the
type of document visible and the current editor mode. When a text document is
5.1. INTERFACE OVERVIEW 21

being viewed, for instance, it will display the word and character count along with a
pop-up button for changing the text scale and a button for setting document targets.
In scriptwriting mode, it will provide shortcuts for accessing various script entry
macros. Various types of multimedia, and PDF, will display their own appropriate
relevant information in the footer bar.
See Also:

❧ View Modes (section 5.2): for further information on the various group and
text view modes available.

❧ Viewing Media in the Editor (section 14.7): for details on how various read-only
media are displayed in the editor.

5.1.5 The Inspector

The inspector displays all meta-data associated with the document shown in the editor
pane that most recently had the keyboard focus. Note that the special root folders in
the binder—Draft, Research and Trash—have no meta-data associated with them, and
therefore the inspector just shows the project notes or references when these items
are selected. More on that later, for now if the Inspector appears suspiciously empty,
know you have an item selected that does not support meta-data.
The Inspector has five different sub-views, which can all be accessed via buttons
along the very bottom of the Inspector. If an associated view has had data entered
into it, an asterisk will appear in the upper-right corner of the button. The sub-panes
are listed in the order they appear:

1. Synopsis, Meta-data and Notes

2. Synopsis, Meta-data and References

3. Synopsis, Meta-data and Keywords

4. Snapshots

5. Linked Text Notes

The lock icon at the end locks the inspector so that you can reference the material
in it even when switching to a different split.
The first three sub-panes include the synopsis card, and general meta-data in addi-
tion to their specialised information. These initial sections can be collapsed by click-
ing the disclosure arrow on the left side of the header bar for each. The two meta-data
sections are as follows:
22 CHAPTER 5. INTERFACE

Synopsis & Image The top frame can show either the synopsis for the binder item,
which is what also appears in the index card representation of the item in cork-
board view, among other places. Using the top drop-down menu, you can op-
tionally also attach an image to the item to represent it in Corkboard mode,
instead of a text synopsis.

General & Custom Meta-data The General pane of the inspector shows basic meta-
data for the current document. This includes the label and status (which can be
renamed), the modified and created date of the document (click on the arrows
to switch between the modified and created date) and checkboxes that affect
how (and whether) the document will appear as part of the compiled draft for
exporting or printing. Click on the header bar to switch between general and
custom-meta data, which can be set up for each project. For more information,
read Setting Up Meta-Data (chapter 10).

Notes, References, and Keywords all display the above meta-data boxes. They are
described as follows:

Notes Displays a notepad for the document. Each document has an auxiliary
notepad associated with it. Clicking the header bar of the notes area will bring
up a pop-up menu from which you can select “Document Notes” or “Project
Notes”, which are global to the project. If you have multiple project notepads,
you may see more than one option here in parenthesis. For more information,
read Document and Project Notes (subsection 18.4.1).

References The References table allows you to hold links to related material within
the project itself, elsewhere on your hard drive or on the internet. Click the
header bar to switch between document references and global project refer-
ences. Use the latter to make links available throughout the project. For more
information, read References (subsection 18.4.2).

Keywords Displays a list of keywords associated with the selected binder item. Key-
words can be used to tag your document. Use the + and - buttons to add and
remove keywords, or the gear menu to access the project’s central keyword list.
Read more about them in Keywords Pane (subsection 18.4.3) and Using Key-
words (subsection 10.1.4).

The last two sub-panes, Snapshots and Linked Notes, take up the entire Inspector.

Snapshots An integrated view which displays all of the document’s snapshots and
the contents of the selected snapshot in the text area below. Snapshots can be
created (from the state of the current text) or deleted with the + and - buttons
in the header bar. The Compare button will show changes between the selected
5.2. VIEW MODES 23

snapshot and the current text. The Roll Back button lets you revert to an older
version of the text. For more information on using this, see Snapshots Pane
(subsection 18.4.4), and Snapshots and Changes (subsection 3.0.8).

Linked Notes Words and phrases in the text editor can have notes attached to them.
The contents of the notes will be stored in this pane. New notes can be created
with the + button, or new footnotes with the +fn button. Selected notes can
be deleted with the - button. For more information, see Linked Notes Pane
(subsection 18.4.5), and Annotations and Footnotes (chapter 17).

5.2 View Modes

There are three primary “view modes” available in Scrivener. View modes give you a
powerful way to view and modify multiple documents at once in a variety of fashions,
each tailored for different tasks. View modes are generally only triggered when the
editor is asked to view more than one document at a time. This can happen if you
Cmd-click on more than one Binder Item, or even if you just click on a folder. It is
also possible to manually enable a view mode, allowing you to easily flesh out a single
document with new index cards beneath it.
For the most part, Scrivener will anticipate what you are trying to do, and react
accordingly. If you click on a single text file, it will display the contents of that text
file in the editor. If you then click on a folder containing that file, it will automatically
switch to your preferred view mode, the one which you used last. An exception to
this is when “Treat documents with subdocuments as folders” has been disabled in
the Navigation preference pane (section B.5). In this case, file type items will always
be treated as though they were single text files, even if they are acting as folders.
The other exception to this rule is when the view mode has been explicitly set to
single text file mode. If you intentionally disable the corkboard to edit a folder’s text,
then the view mode will remain text-only until changed, no matter what type of item
you click on in the binder.
A key principle is that view modes are just that. They are alternative ways of
viewing a Binder Item, and thus like the Binder are methods for organisation. All
documents in the Binder can both contain text and children. This is a departure from
how most applications work, where the only way to organise items into other items
is to use a folder. Scrivener doesn’t restrict you to that, and indeed even allows you
to convert a text file to a folder and back again. Consequently, even though it selects
the most appropriate view mode depending upon what you click on, you can always
override the default. For folders, you can turn off the current view mode and read
or add text to it. For files you can select a view mode manually and then add items
to them as if they were folders. When performing the latter, you will most likely be
presented with an empty corkboard or outliner. This is fine, because you can still go
ahead and add items to that view, and in doing so you will add children automatically
24 CHAPTER 5. INTERFACE

to that file. This is a great way of expanding scenes and fleshing out rough ideas with-
out having to worry about whether or not something should be one type or another,
so take a moment to play around with the view mode buttons in the toolbar, or use
their corresponding shortcut keys to see how you can get the most out Scrivener’s
unique file and folder structure.
The default view mode will prefer whatever mode you have selected last. If you
choose Outliner, then this is the mode that all containers will default to when clicked
upon. It will remain this way until you manually change modes again.
The section on Project Planning (chapter 12) goes into greater detail on how to
use corkboard and outliner modes to their maximum power. The section on Editing
Multiple Documents (section 14.12) will cover the unique Scrivenings mode in detail.

5.2.1 Corkboard
Scrivener has made the corkboard metaphor popular in modern writing software.
The concept of representing many documents as index cards, letting you move them
around to restructure your book, or opening them up to edit their text, is quite
useful—but Scrivener 2 takes this even further. Now you are no longer constrained
to viewing index cards in columns and rows; you can use the new free-form mode
to move cards around as freely as you might on a desk or a real corkboard. Group
together cards that are related, but spread throughout your draft; spread things out
in a chronological order; the choice is yours. While you can choose to commit your
free-form ordering back into your draft, you can also feel free to just leave things as
they are, as an alternate way of viewing a section of your work.
The important thing to realise with the corkboard is that each of the displayed
index cards are actual files or folders in your binder outline. They display the title
and the synopsis (a short description of the item) on the cover, and optionally can
represent a few kinds of meta-data using real-world metaphors as well. Just remember,
cards are documents, and conversely documents can all be viewed as cards.
The corkboard view is rich with features, to read more about it and how to best
use it, see The Corkboard (section 12.1).

5.2.2 Outliner
While the binder is in a sense a very simple outliner, there are often times when you
need to view your book, or parts of it, in a much larger context and with a greater
degree of information at your disposal. The outliner view lets you see your book
structure in a standard outline format with indenting used to indicate depth. It also
has the ability to display many built-in aspects of your documents, from their label
colour, to word counts, modification dates, keywords, and much more, including
your own custom meta-data.
5.3. FULL SCREEN INTERFACE 25

Outliner is also a great view for making bulk changes to lots of documents at once.
Since it provides feedback for so many different aspects of your document it is easy to
see what has been changed at a glance.
Many people also like to brainstorm in the Outliner view as well, as it shows more
than one level of depth at once. Whether you prefer the analogue experience of the
corkboard, or the more literal but expanded information in the outliner is up to you.
As with the Corkboard, there are many features and usages for the Outliner. To
read more about it, see The Outliner (section 12.2).

5.2.3 Scrivenings
This is a unique view mode in that it works not with the viewed items themselves, but
specifically with their text. All of the text content (even empty documents) will be
stacked together as if on a long spool of paper, letting you read through large sections
of your book at once, no matter where they are located. As you make adjustments
to the text in this view, each of the corresponding documents will be updated as you
work. The overall effect is as if you were working in a single long document, but in
fact you are editing potentially dozens or even hundreds of files as you go.
Scrivenings view (frequently referred to as a “scrivenings session” and known to
Mac users of version 1.x as Edit Scrivenings), are temporary editing sessions. You
don’t need to worry about saving them, or what will happen if you click on some-
thing and they go away. It is merely a way of pulling together a number of files so
you can edit their text at once, and then releasing them when you move on.
For more information on how to best take advantage of this editing mode, see
Editing Multiple Documents (section 14.12). We will also explore a simple usage of it
in the following Quick Tour section.

5.3 Full Screen Interface

Full Screen is a special interface which will blot out not only the rest of Scrivener, but
the rest of your computer as well, allowing you to concentrate fully on the production
of text. It only works for documents and folders, and while it provides access to the
menus, QuickReference panels, and most aspects of the inspector, its default state is
to simply display the text contents of the selected document (or documents, if you are
viewing an combined text) in a “page” in the middle of your screen. Read more about
full screen mode (chapter 16).
 Chapter 6

Quick Tour
Before going over this section, it is suggested that you skim through the prior chapter,
introducing the interface, if you haven’t done so already.
This chapter will get you up and running with a simple sample project, and in-
troduce a few of the most basic concepts you’ll need in order to start working with
Scrivener. It is recommended that you eventually go through the full interactive tu-
torial in the Help menu, but if you are in a hurry, this guide should get you working
productively in thirty minutes or less. Scrivener is a complex program with a lot of
depth, but we hope this section will demonstrate that despite this, it is also a very
straightforward and intuitive, so its complexity can be gradually learned as required.
We will go over the following tasks:

❧ Creation of a new project from a blank template

❧ Navigating the binder and adding new documents to the draft outline

❧ Introduction to corkboard and Scrivenings text view

❧ Compiling the document into an RTF file

If you need to learn more than the above, we suggest that going through the full
tutorial would be best, which can be found in your Help menu.

6.1 Project Format

Scrivener is a project based application, which means that it stores your projects as
separate files, rather than working like a database which hides the location from you
and loads everything automatically when you start up the program, or a file based
program like Word, which creates an empty document whenever you launch it. The
intended use of a project is to store everything relating to a single major work, be
it your next novel, screenplay for a film, a dissertation for your masters, or a serial
collection of articles for a magazine or blog.
It is recommended that for each new “real world” project you embark on, a new
project file should be created. When you create a new project, Scrivener asks where
you want to save the file, by default this location is your personal Documents folder,

26
6.1. PROJECT FORMAT 27

Figure 6.1: Template Wizard

but you can choose to organise your projects on the computer however you like. It
is a good idea to choose a place you will remember. Even though Scrivener provides
convenience functions for finding the projects you’ve worked on most recently, and
will even reopen your last session for you if you choose, these tools should not be
relied upon as your sole reference point for of where projects exist.
Okay, enough theory. Let’s create a new project right now. Invoke the File � New
Project... menu command ( – N). You should see the template selection interface
(Figure 6.1). We’ll stick with the blank starter project for now, so simply click the
Choose... button in the bottom right, or just press Return. A sheet will come down
asking where you wish to save the file; feel free to choose a location you will remem-
ber (the default is your Documents folder, but you might wish to create a special
sub-folder just for Scrivener projects), and give the project a name. This name should
be considered an internal name; it won’t be printed on the final draft, and should
28 CHAPTER 6. QUICK TOUR

Figure 6.2: A typical new blank project

just be something that you’ll easily remember. Click the Okay button once you’ve
decided on a file name and location.

6.2 The Main Window

The project will be created, and you’ll be presented with a fresh Scrivener project
window (Figure 6.2).
The left sidebar panel is your Project binder, where everything stored or created
in your project will be represented in an outline structure. On the right side of the
window we have the editor (which is more than just a text editor, as we will shortly
see). In most cases, what you click on in the binder will be displayed on this side of
the window. Along the top, above the editor, is the Format Bar, which provides access
to common formatting tools such as font selection, justification, line spacing, and so
on. If you cannot see all of the tools, try expanding your window horizontally. If
you want to see tab stops and margins, use the menu command Format � Show Ruler
or press – R.
Directly below the Format Bar is the editor Header Bar. The title of the current
6.3. OUTLINING YOUR DRAFT 29

document is printed here (“Untitled” since we haven’t named it yet), and as well there
are also some buttons for moving around in your project and adjusting the editor
view, but we’ll get to that later. The important thing to notice right now is that the
Untitled document has been selected in the binder, and that this selection is being
viewed in the editor.
Below the editor text area is the Footer Bar which contains information about the
editor session, such as your current word and character count, and often contains
useful buttons for adjusting the view.
The cursor is blinking in the text editor, and with zero words so far, it’s time to get
to work!

6.3 Outlining Your Draft

Why do that when we can procrastinate for another minute, though? Take a look at
the binder. Let’s discuss how best to use Scrivener’s Draft section. Unlike a word pro-
cessor, Scrivener’s design philosophy revolves around creating and organising your
writing project in arbitrary pieces according to what is most comfortable for you.
For example, you could make a new file for each chapter, or take that even further
and make a new file for each scene within those chapters. It’s totally up to you, and
unlike most programs, you won’t be penalised for breaking things down as small as
you desire. The binder displays these pieces like an indented outline. Let’s try it. If
you haven’t touched anything yet, the cursor should still be blinking in the main text
editor (if it isn’t, just click in the middle of this white text area with your mouse).
Type a few words in here and then press the Return key to create a new paragraph.
Glance up to the top-left and note the far-left window button (which is red on
most Macs). You should see a little dot in within the button. This means your project
hasn’t been saved yet. If you don’t see a dot, try typing another word into the editor.
By the time you finish examining it, the dot ought to disappear—your project has
been saved.
Whenever you pause for two seconds, Scrivener’s auto-save feature will kick in and
save all your recent work. You might notice that the title of your document changed
when this happened. If you leave a document as “Untitled” the first line will be used
as the title. This will only happen once, and you can always change the automatic
title for something more descriptive.
First, let’s make a new document in the binder. There are a number of ways to
do this, but first let’s try the most direct method, click the green Add button in the
toolbar just once.
The cursor will flip over to the binder and let you type in the name of the new
document. Type something in here, like “Chapter Two”, and press Enter to confirm.
You’ll notice that the content you just typed into the editor has disappeared, that is
because you are now viewing “Chapter Two”. Let’s fix the name of the first document
30 CHAPTER 6. QUICK TOUR

Figure 6.3: Progress so far

while we are in the binder. Press the UpArrow once. Immediately, you should see the
words you just typed, re-appear in the editor. That is because you are now viewing
the first starter document.
To change the name, just press Esc and type in “Chapter One”, pressing Enter to
confirm the name change.
You might notice something going on with the icons (Figure 6.3). Document
“Chapter One” looks like a page of text, but “Chapter Two” just looks like a blank
sheet of paper. That’s because we haven’t typed anything into the editor for “Chapter
Two” yet. Scrivener lets you know which parts of your project are still placeholders.
For now, let’s use another method for adding new documents. When you are in
the binder, there is a simple way to add new ones below the current document. Select
“Chapter Two”, and just press Enter. Call this one “Wineries”.
Now let’s take a look at a great way to get an overview of your Draft. Either click
on “Draft” in the binder with your mouse, or simply press the LeftArrow to jump up
to it. When you view a folder in Scrivener, by default it will automatically switch to
showing you the corkboard in the editor area. You should see three index cards, one
for each of the items you’ve created (sometimes referred to as ‘Scrivenings’), but the
cards will be blank; this is because they display the synopsis for a document, not its
internal text. Double-click in the empty ruled text area on the “Wineries” card and
type in a short synopsis for this section of the book. When finished, pressed Enter to
confirm.
At this point, if you look in the binder you’ll see a third icon type that looks like
a small index card, next to “Wineries”. This new one indicates that you’ve typed in a
synopsis, but haven’t yet typed in any text for the section. Once you enter text into
the editor for the “Wineries” section, the icon will be replaced with the one you see
for “Chapter One”. Some people like to work in a top-down fashion, where they’ll
build a conceptual outline and then fill in what they intend for each section in the
6.3. OUTLINING YOUR DRAFT 31

synopsis. These three levels of icons give you an over-all idea of your level of progress
with this task.
We’ll try that now. Load the “Wineries” card by double-clicking on the icon next
to the name. If you can’t find the right spot, just click on it in the binder. Type in a
short sentence and observe that, as predicted, the icon has now changed to match the
“Chapter One” section.
You might be wondering how much text each section should hold. The answer is
largely up to you. With a word processor, it is often convenient to work in long doc-
uments because lots of small windows can create unmanageable clutter, but Scrivener
allows you to break things down into smaller pieces, since it organises all of these files
for you and keeps them in a logical order in the binder. In fact some people break
things down into pieces as small as paragraphs, but the size of these chunks of text are
entirely up to you. You can use index cards to represent beats, scenes, whole chap-
ters, or even a mix of these depending on how much attention you need to give that
portion of the book. It’s all very flexible, and in many ways you can use the Scrivener
outline to structure things according to how you think, not according to how the
book will appear.
Scrivener also contains features intended to make that balance a little easier to work
with. Unlike most applications of this type, you can choose to view many different
sections at once, and edit them as if they were a single file without actually merging
them all together permanently. Doing this is easy, let’s try it now. Select the Draft
item in the binder again, this time by clicking on it once with the mouse. You’ll get a
corkboard again, now invoke View � Scrivenings, or press – 1. You are now viewing
the collection of documents as a Scrivenings View, rather than a Corkboard View.
Each section will be divided with a horizontal rule, letting you know where one
ends and the next begins. Try clicking in the blank area between the two sections
you’ve already added text to, and keep an eye on the Header Bar, note the title changes
to let you know where you are, “Chapter Two”. Try adding some text to the second,
empty section, then select “Chapter Two” in the binder all by itself. Note that your
edits have been made directly to the document.
Now we will do something else that is impossible in many programs. Right-click
on “Chapter One” and select Convert to Folder. The icon will change to a blue folder
with a small page in the corner. That page means the folder has text stored in it, as
though it were a text file. The text you added to this document earlier is still there,
that’s what the small page icon means in the corner of the folder icon.
Let’s move that text into a new child document. If you haven’t clicked anything,
you should still be viewing its text. Switch to the editor, and select all text with –
A and then cut the selection with – X and note the folder icon loses its page icon
badge—it no longer has any text in it.
Press – N, which is another way to create new documents. The cursor will again
flip over to the Binder; call it “Scene A”, and click in the editor to start editing the
32 CHAPTER 6. QUICK TOUR

document. Then press – V to paste the text you cut. No doubt you can see that
Scrivener is very comfortable with the notion of splitting things up, and with this
feature you can feel free to work in small portions without losing sight of the big
picture.
Click on “Chapter One” again, and use the View � Corkboard menu item to return
to the Corkboard view. What you are looking at is the corkboard for the “Chapter
One” folder, which currently only contains one card, “Scene A”. Try clicking the
draft again in the binder. Now you are viewing the index cards that belong to the
draft again. “Scene A” has disappeared, because it is a child item of “Chapter One”.
The corkboard can only show you one layer of depth in your outline at once, but you
can tell when index cards are folders (or files that contain sub-items) by the stacked
appearance of their index card. Double-click on the “Chapter One” index card’s icon
and you’ll return to where you were at the start of this paragraph. You’ve navigated
“into” the “Chapter One” folder.
Hopefully by now you understand the relationship between index cards, the
binder, and the text within the items in the binder a bit better. Feel free to play
around with things a bit more if necessary, before proceeding to the next step. If you
want to import some text from an existing work in progress, you might find the Doc-
uments � Split � sub-menu to be quite useful in converting a long document into an
agile outline.

6.4 Compiling the Draft

We’ve only scratched the surface of what can be done, but before ending this tour
we’ll look at one more thing: compiling. Compile is Scrivener’s terminology for
what most applications refer to as Exporting. This name was chosen to reflect the
fact that Scrivener is doing quite a bit more than just converting the data from one
format to another or moving data to an external location that other programs can
access. Scrivener’s compiler can generate documents to a number of different formats;
do simple or complex transformations on the binder structure; reformat everything
to a consistent look; and much more. The philosophy of letting you work the way
you want to work is very much supported by the compiler. There is no need to work
in Courier, Times New Roman, or whatever your editor prefers. You can choose an
elegant font or one that is easy to read at 3am with sore eyes. In the end Scrivener
will generate a document to your required specifications.
Let’s try it now. Press – E or select the menu command, File � Compile.... After
all of the features described above, you might think you got the wrong function at
first. By default Scrivener presents a very simple form with some industry standard
presets and an export file format chooser.

❧ From the “Format as” menu, select “Novel Standard Manuscript Format”
6.4. COMPILING THE DRAFT 33

❧ Change the “Compile for” option to Rich Text (.rtf)

That’s it. Click the Compile button, choose a name and location for your RTF file,
and once the dialogue box dismisses, open the file using the Finder. It should open
with your system’s default RTF editor. As you can see, all of the test lines you typed
in are there, separated by hash marks in between the sections as well, those came from
the Compiler too, as a part of the Novel preset. This can be turned off, or changed
entirely.
Let’s try one more thing. Switch back to Scrivener and open up the Compile sheet
again. Leave everything the same, but this time click the down arrow button which
appears to the right of the “Format As” drop-down menu. The full Compile interface
will appear, and with that, you’ll be able to see just how much power is available.
Feel free to explore the interface. Many of the options are self-explanatory, but if
you find yourself confused over something, read the chapter on Compiling the Draft
(chapter 24).
There is much more to learn, but if you are in the middle of a major project and
want to get started right away, you should now know enough to make a simple outline
and start writing content into that outline, and then compile this as a single draft
document. As you’ve seen from the amount of flexibility we’ve demonstrated, you
can rest easy on the topic of “doing things the right way from the start”. Unlike
many programs, Scrivener makes it easy to change your mind later on. Folders can
become files, items can be easily re-arranged, and so on; so don’t worry too much
about adhering to any proper ways of working. Scrivener has no standard except
for your standard, which will develop in time as you become more familiar with the
interface.
If you have a spare hour or two, it would be really beneficial to go through the
full interactive tutorial or watch the introductory videos1 available on the Scrivener
homepage. Together, they cover Scrivener’s features in much more detail and should
address most things you should know to get the best results in your work.
Further recommended reading:

1. Interface (chapter 5)

2. Navigating and Organising (chapter 9)

3. Gathering Material (chapter 11)

4. Writing and Editing (chapter 14)

5. Compiling the Draft (chapter 24)

For now, happy writing!

1
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/videos/index.php
 Part II

Preparation

34
6.4. COMPILING THE DRAFT 35

One of the principle goals of Scrivener is to be your first stop when a new major
project is embarked upon. The program therefore contains a variety of tools which
address the early phases of a writing project. These include: brainstorming, outlining,
collecting and organising research, gathering prose snippets, building background and
world-building information, and so on. Another Scrivener principle is that what
works best for your readers and even your editor might not work best for you as a
writer. As writers, we see the text in a different way, and we have different demands
on how we organise that text. A table of contents is great for a reader, but is it the
best tool for a writer? What if you could have your own table of contents, one that
evolved out of the structure of the work itself?
This section will cover the majority of the tools that you may use to accomplish
these goals. If your method of writing couples the process of writing with prepara-
tion, you might find it beneficial to read both this section and Writing (Part III). The
level of fuzziness between preparation and writing in Scrivener is very intentional,
because the same tools you use to build up initial structures and ideas will be the
backbone of your actual text. In Scrivener, there is no separation between outline
and book order. This seamless approach will help you get straight into the writing
phase.
The topics that will be covered in this part are:

❧ Project Management (chapter 7): Creating, saving, backing up, and managing
projects on the disk.

❧ Setting Up the Binder (chapter 8): Using the built-in sections of the binder,
managing collections, organising your work, and setting up document tem-
plates.

❧ Navigating and Organising (chapter 9): Optimise how you navigate within a
project.

❧ Setting Up Meta-Data (chapter 10): The various forms of meta-data available

for tracking progress and types.

❧ Gathering Material (chapter 11): How to collect material from other resources
and applications.

❧ Project Planning (chapter 12): How to rapidly capturing your ideas and give
them shape, shapes that will eventually become your manuscript.

❧ Cloud Integration and Sharing (chapter 13): Introduces tools for integrating
your project with various Internet services; and working in cross-platform sce-
narios between Mac OS X and the Windows operating systems.
 Chapter 7

Project Management
As mentioned before, Scrivener is a project based application and stores your projects
as separate files on your computer. These project files are saved into your Documents
folder by default, though you can choose to organise these projects however you like,
even after you’ve created them. Some find it convenient to rely upon the File � Recent
Projects menu item to organise their projects, or simply just let Scrivener maintain
which projects are open whenever they start Scrivener for the day. These tools are
valuable, but shouldn’t be a substitute for good organisation on your computer.
The intended use of a project is to store everything relating to a single major work,
be it your next novel, screenplay for a film, a doctoral dissertation, or a serial col-
lection of articles for a magazine. This can be approached in a flexible manner. It is
possible to use a project as a daily journal, a collection of random things you intend
to one day utilise in future projects, and so forth.
Going a bit deeper, the project file is a cohesive folder of files (which will appear
as a single bundled package on a Mac) containing all of the pieces that make up your
project. The accessibility of this format is meant to be used as a last resort safe-guard,
not as a way to allow you to edit a project in places where Scrivener is not available.

7.1 Project Size Limitations

Since Scrivener was primarily written with the large-format author in mind, much
effort has been put into making it as robust as possible. It can handle book-length
manuscripts with ease, store large quantities of research material, and handle many
thousands of individual components, even on a single corkboard. Scrivener has been
tested against projects with millions of words in them; way beyond what it would
normally have to face. So for ordinary usage, you will never need to worry about
limitations.
There is one caveat to keep in mind, however. The bigger your project is on the
disk, the longer it will take to produce backups. When combined with the automated
backup system, this could mean waiting long periods of time for backups to complete
in the most extreme cases. While Scrivener is very capable of handling large amount
of media, some users have found it better to use database software in conjunction with
Scrivener, when gigabytes of data are involved.

36
7.2. CREATING A NEW PROJECT 37

7.2 Creating a New Project

When you first start Scrivener, you will be presented with the Project Templates win-
dow. In addition to providing an easy selection mechanism for new projects based on
templates, you can also create a blank new document, which is the default for new
installations, open existing projects from your disk, or select from a short list of re-
cently opened projects. To call up this window later on, use the File � New Project...
menu command, or press – N.
Along the left side of the window are template categories. A number of useful
presets have been provided, and it is easy to make your own templates as well. The
Options drop-down menu provides template management tools. To read more about
creating and managing templates, see Templates (section 7.5).
To create a new project based on an existing template, click on that template to
make it active, or select the “Blank” template to start with a fresh project. A descrip-
tion of the template, if one has been provided, will appear in the grey text box below
the selection area. Click the Choose... button to proceed.
The next step is selecting where you would like to save the project file. It is a good
idea to choose a place that you will remember. You might want to create a special
folder in the Documents folder just for your Scrivener projects. You can use the New
Folder button to do so. Type the name of your project into Save As field. This can
be changed later if you require, so if your project doesn’t have a final title yet, don’t
worry! At any point, you can go back and change your initial selection if you change
your mind, by clicking the Cancel button.
The Create button will activate once you have supplied a name and valid save loca-
tion. Click this button to proceed with the settings you have chosen.

7.3 Saving and Making Copies

While you work, your projects will be automatically saved on a frequent basis. By
default, this means that after two seconds of inactivity, the project will always be
saved. You can monitor this process by watching the upper-left corner of the window.
The left-most “traffic light” button will have a dot inside of it whenever the project
contains edits which have yet to be saved to the disk. If you stop typing for a moment,
the dot should disappear after a brief pause. You can change how rapidly this happens
by adjusting the inactivity interval in the General section of the Preferences tab.
At times, or if you have selected a very long interval for some reason, you might
wish to manually save the project. This can be done as per normal in any application,
by selecting File � Save, or pressing – S.
It is also possible to save a separate copy of the project, while working, and continue
working in the new copy. To do this, select File � Save As... ( – S), and choose a new
name for the project. Upon clicking the Save button, the active project will become
38 CHAPTER 7. PROJECT MANAGEMENT

the new one you created, and the old copy will be closed. This can be a useful tool
when you wish to experiment with a series of radical structural changes, or simply as
a way to leave a trail of history as you work.
Additionally, since Scrivener projects are just files on your system, you can use the
Finder to manage projects, create duplicates, and archive old versions. Always be
sure to close your projects before doing so.

7.4 Opening Existing Projects

Existing projects can be opened in a variety of ways. For convenience, Scrivener keeps
track of the last several projects you have opened, and stores them in a list, accessible
from File � Recent Projects.... In addition, this list can be accessed from the Project
Template window, via the Open Recent drop-down menu in the bottom.
You can also configure, in the General section, to have all projects left open when
you last quit, reopened for you automatically when you start up Scrivener.
You can open older projects using File � Open... ( – O), or click the Open an Exist-
ing File...button in the Project Templates window.
As with managing projects that have been saved, you can also use the Dock, Finder,
Spotlight, or other system tools to open files stored on your drive. Simply double-
click the project you wish to open in the Finder.

Mac OS X Tip: If you cannot find a project, often it is often easy to locate it using
Spotlight and typing in the name of the project. If you cannot remember the name,
you can search for “.scriv” to find every Scrivener project that your computer has
indexed.

It is not possible to delete old or test-bed projects from within Scrivener. To remove
projects you no longer want, use the Finder.

7.5 Templates
Simply put, templates are ordinary projects which have had some basic structure and
settings added to them. In some other applications, templates are almost a way of
modifying the way the entire application behaves, but in Scrivener, it’s best to think
of them as starter projects. Many of them will come with a few example items added
to the binder, but these are meant to be helpful guides for laying out your book, not
forms that you have to fill out, or features that must be worked around. The items
added to templates are like any other items you’ve added to projects on your own.
They can be deleted, modified, duplicated, or set aside and ignored.
In fact, you can create your own templates for future use, which will be covered in
more detail in the following pages.
7.5. TEMPLATES 39

7.5.1 Using Built-in Templates

Most of the built-in templates will provide you with an explanatory readme style file,
explaining what the purpose of the template is, what has been modified and set up for
you, and how best to use it to develop your project.
For templates that do not come with a Help file, here are a few things to keep in
mind as you explore templates:

❧ Templates are just starter projects. With the exception of a few, and somewhat
technical, differences, there is nothing in a template generated project that is dif-
ferent from a blank project. In fact, a blank project is just another template that
is extremely minimal. Everything that you see in a template can be handled
just as you would handle any other items in the binder. They can be dupli-
cated, deleted, modified, turned into document templates, or what have you.
Scrivener templates do not provide you with “forms”, “wizards”, or parts of
the interface that you must fill out before proceeding. A sample chapter folder
with a header in it is just that, a folder with some rich text in it that is of a large
font size and bold. To change it, edit it as you would any other text. If you want
another one to make a second chapter, duplicate it. Scrap it if you don’t like the
style at all and want to design your own.

❧ When you use a new template for the first time, check the Meta-Data settings
( – ,) and make sure that everything is arrange the way you prefer.

❧ Some project templates will have document templates already pre-configured.

This will provide you with starter documents for creating new elements within
the template. You can modify the items in this folder to customise these.

❧ Some templates will change the name of the Draft and Research folders to some-
thing more appropriate. The novel template, for example, changes the Draft
name to Manuscript. Note that when the Draft has been renamed, all interface
elements that refer to it will have their labels updated.

7.5.2 Creating Your Own Templates

Creating custom templates is as easy as creating a new project, and if you often set up
similar projects with items—like character sheets, keywords, to mention a few—they
will save you a lot of time. Here is a list (by no means complete) of things that are
commonly changed or added to custom templates:

❧ Custom labels & status: add the types of labels, preferred colours, and status
stamps that you find useful for your projects.

❧ Project references: try making a list of writing resources and research portals
that you often use.
40 CHAPTER 7. PROJECT MANAGEMENT

❧ Character sheets or research note starters: use Document Templates (sec-

tion 8.5) to supply yourself with your favourite starter documents.

❧ Compile settings: since Compile settings are stored in the project preferences,
you can set these up so that your future projects will be ready for one-click
export (or close to it!)

❧ Generic collections: standard collections as well as saved search collections can

be placed in a template as well, though initially they will probably be empty.

❧ Starter story structure: set up your favourite story-building techniques.

The important concept to keep in mind is that, when it comes to the content of
what you can do with a project, a template is identical. There are a few differences
(most pertain to how it is loaded and the explanatory information and thumbnail
that can be saved with it) but for what will be saved, consider it no different than an
ordinary project.
Try not to worry about getting everything perfect the first time through. On
average, it will take at least half a dozen new projects before things start to settle
down. It is easy to updated existing templates with revised starting parameters by
simply naming them identically with the template you wish to update.
Once you have set everything up, use the File � Save as Template... menu item to
start the template creation process.
In the “Template Information” box, provide the following details:

Title The visible title of the template (what will appear beneath the thumbnail in the
template browser).

Category Which section to add the template to.

Description A brief description on what the template provides. You may not find
this useful for yourself, but if you intend to share the template with others, it is
a good idea to explain what the template is meant to provide.

The “Icon” box on the right gives you options for setting the appearance of the
template thumbnail. You can choose from a number of available presets, or if you
wish to make your thumbnail stand out from the built-in templates, you can click
the Save Icon as File... button, which will generate an image file for you, based on
the currently selected thumbnail. After you have edited this image in your favourite
image editor and saved it as a PNG file, you can use the drop-down menu to select
Custom... and choose the saved file from your computer.
After clicking OK, the template will be saved into the system, and you can either
go ahead and continue working in the new project you started setting up (it won’t be
associated with that template any longer), or close it safely.
7.5. TEMPLATES 41

Template Variables
In addition to the standard project elements you can include in a template, there are
a few variables that might be of interest to you, especially if you intend to share the
template with others. For example, if making a template for yourself, you could
just write in your name and address on the manuscript submission cover-page you
designed. This wouldn’t work so well if you wish to share the template, though.
Template variables let you place a special code in the place where text should occur,
and when the template is first loaded, it will consult the user’s address book for the
relevant information.
The template codes are:

Code Description
<$template_firstName> First name from address book
<$template_lastName> Last name
<$template_fullName> Combines the first and last name for you, or-
dering them according to system language pref-
erences.
<$template_street> Street address
<$template_city> City
<$template_ZIP> Postal code
<$template_country> Country
<$template_phoneNumber> Work number, if provided.
<$template_email> E-mail address
<$template_projectName> The name of the project from when it was cre-
ated. Note this will not include the “.scriv” por-
tion on the end.

If you wish to edit a template which has had template variables used (such as many
of the built-in templates), then follow these instructions:

1. Create a new project ( – N)

2. Select the template you wish to edit

3. Hold down the option key, and click on the Choose... button

4. You can let go of the option key and give the project a name

This will inhibit the substitution of these tokens for their address book equivalents,
allowing you to edit the template file, and then update it.
42 CHAPTER 7. PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Updating Templates
To update a template which has already been saved, follow the above instructions
to safely open it without substitute variables, make the changes you wish, and then
repeat the instructions for creating a new template. When you access the Save as
Template... sheet, you will note that all of the information from the template will be
provided, so you do not have to worry about replicating this information every single
time. If you do not need to make any changes here, just click the OK button and then
Yes to confirm that you wish to update the existing template.
Note that after you have created a project from a template (even when holding
down the option key to click on the Choose... button), the project will have no
further connection with that template. So if you have created a project purely to
update a template, there is no need to keep the project around after that point, and
allowing the project to auto-save will not automatically update the template, you must
follow the template creation procedure in full.
Built-in templates cannot be overwritten. However you can open them for editing,
and then save your modifications as a new template by giving it a new name.

7.5.3 Managing Templates

In the Template browser window, Options menu in the bottom left provides the fol-
lowing functions for managing templates:

Set Selected Template as Default Changes the default template selection to

whichever template you currently have selected. A yellow border will appear
around the selected template. Once this is set, the next time you call up this
window it will highlight that template for you.
Import Template. . . If you have downloaded templates from the Web, or would
like to transport your custom templates to another computer, use this feature
to import template files from the disk, into the template system.
Export Template. . . Useful for sharing your templates on the Web with other au-
thors, or if you wish to transfer templates to another working computer.
Delete Selected Template When a custom template is selected, you can use this
menu item to remove it from your system. Note that the built-in presets cannot
be removed.

7.6 Backing Up Your Work

Regularly backing up your work is an important part of the writing process, and
while there are many external strategies for keeping your work safe from catastrophes
and mistakes, the most important part is remembering to do it. Fortunately it is
possible to set up Scrivener to handle most of the latter part for you.
7.6. BACKING UP YOUR WORK 43

7.6.1 Configuring Automated Backups

By default, Scrivener will automatically back up every project that you work on,
whenever you close it. These backups will be stored in your user folder:
~/Library/Application Support/Scrivener/Backups

This location can be changed in preferences, and could even be set to save into
a synced folder over the Internet. Also by default, projects will be zip archived to
save space and protect the internal files, and Scrivener will rotate the files (delete old
backups) to keep the maximum for each project under 25 backups. In most cases,
the more automatic functions you activate here, the slower things will get. Finding a
balance between frequent backups and usable settings will be up to you.
In cases where security is a concern (if you are working with confidential files in
protected area for example) the automated backup system might present a security
risk if it produces files in an unencrypted area of your hard drive. If you are work-
ing in an encrypted environment, make sure the backup location is set to also output
to that area, or use the File � Back Up � Exclude From Automatic Backups menu com-
mand to restrict the sensitive file from getting backed up with the rest.
Read about the various options available in the section on the Backup tab (sec-
tion B.10) in Scrivener’s preferences.

7.6.2 Managing Backups for Large Projects

Very large projects can conflict with what would ordinarily be good settings for the
automated backup system. If a project has reached a point where backing it up auto-
matically has become a nuisance, rather than decreasing the amount of backup secu-
rity globally, consider excluding the large project from the automated system.
While the project is open, use the File � Back Up � Exclude From Automatic Backups
menu command. Once this option is checked off, the automatic backup system will
ignore this project entirely. It will then be up to you to keep manual backups of the
project. The File � Back Up � Back Up Now feature is useful in this regard.

7.6.3 Manually Backing Up

Backups can be created whenever and wherever you want, regardless of the automated
settings, just as in Scrivener 1.x. Use File � Back Up � Back Up To... and select a backup
location. The “Backup as ZIP file” option will compress your project into a zip file
prior to saving it, and is thus useful when backing up to remote storage locations,
such as MobileMe or DropBox. By default, backups will be timestamped according
to your system’s locale settings, making it easy to find a precise version later on.
It is also possible to manually trigger the automatic backup system, even for
projects which have been excluded, by using File � Back Up � Back Up Now. This
44 CHAPTER 7. PROJECT MANAGEMENT

will follow any relevant options that have been set in preferences, such as how many
to keep, where to store them, and how many to keep around.
Frequent use of this feature will help safeguard your work in progress, and it is
recommended that you start forming a habit of making backups whenever a decent
amount of work has been committed to the project.

7.6.4 Tips for Using Time Machine

Mac OS X Leopard and greater provides the Time Machine feature, which will au-
tomatically back up your computer once every hour, and store backups as far back
in time as possible, reducing the frequency of these backups the further back in time
you go.
This presents a unique problem with Scrivener in that the hourly backup routine is
likely to run while you are working in Scrivener. This means that Time Machine will
be capturing your project while it is open and in progress, a state that could produce
corrupted backups if you try to restore from that particular point in time. Frequent
users of Scrivener may very well keep their projects open for weeks at a time, meaning
good backups of their project will be few and far between.
There are fortunately a few tips you can use to help Time Machine work effectively
with Scrivener:

1. Time Machine can be set to run manually at any time of your choosing, using
the menu status icon in the upper-right hand portion of your display. You can
thus control when Time Machine makes a backup of your projects, making sure
they are closed first.

2. As Time Machine starts to erase hourly backups that are old, it saves only the
last backups made in a single day. In conjunction with the first tip, you can
make certain that your “safe” backups are retained once Time Machine starts
erasing old backups, by always running Time Machine manually at the end of
every day.

3. Always use Apple’s Time Machine interface to restore projects. The way they
are stored on the backup disk means they are in actuality held at scattered loca-
tions throughout the disk. It only saves the parts of a project that have changed
to save space. Copying a .scriv file out of the backup disk will hardly ever re-
sult in a valid project file. Apple’s Time Machine tool will always re-assemble
a complete version of your project by building it together from hundreds of
individual backups.

Going the extra mile: Time Machine is a wonderful tool for what it does, but
it shouldn’t be used as your sole backup for two important reasons. First, being
attached to your computer at all times, it is thus susceptible to the same risks of
7.7. WORKING WITH SCRIVENER FOR WINDOWS 45

damage and loss due to theft or catastrophe. Second, no backup system should
be considered infallible, and thus you should have more than one method. Time
Machine isn’t perfect; don’t let it be your single safety net.

7.7 Working with Scrivener for Windows

Important Notice: At the time of this writing, Scrivener for Windows is still in
beta development. You can out more about it from the main web site1 .

The Scrivener 2.0 project format is fully compatible with its Windows companion.
No conversion is necessary, and both versions can work off of the same source file
(at different times; no project should ever be opened more than once). The primary
difference in appearance between the two platforms is that Windows does not have
a “package” or “bundle” format like the Mac does. Thus, the Scrivener project will
appear in its ordinary state, which is a folder. This is invisible to you as a Mac user,
but in fact there is no difference between the two.
To open a project on the Mac, you need only double-click the “MyProject.scriv”
file, or open it from within Scrivener. On Windows this will be a folder, so you will
need to descend into the “MyProject.scriv” folder and select (or double-click on) the
“MyProject.scrivx” file that you will find at the top level within that folder.
To transfer projects between computers, always make sure to copy the entire
“MyProject.scriv” folder from Windows, not just the .scrivx file by itself. The en-
tire folder is your project, and once it is on the Mac it will go back to looking like a
regular file.
 Chapter 8

Setting Up the Binder

8.1 How the Binder is Organised

The binder is the document browser on the left of the main window where you can
organise your files. It allows you to structure and rearrange your work with the
utmost flexibility, much like a ring-binder in the real world (hence the name). You
can drag files from the Finder straight into the binder to import them, too, which you
can read more about in Gathering Material (chapter 11).
The binder is an optional element, though in most cases you’ll want to rely on its
organisational features at all times. To hide the binder, click the Binder icon in the
toolbar, select View � Layout � Hide Binder, or press – B. All of these commands
can be used to restore its visibility if it has been hidden.
The binder is labelled at the top. Some functions will automatically replace the
Binder view with a temporary data display. Project Search Results is the most com-
mon of these. This label will change to reflect whatever automatic data is currently
being viewed. You can always get back to the binder by clicking the small X button
in the footer bar of the binder.
This section will go over the various aspects of the binder, and how to best use
Scrivener’s features to structure, navigate around in, edit, and write your draft.
Scrivener does some things which are unusual, and generally restricted to high-
powered expensive applications. As a consequence, this can result in some inter-
esting surprises, some of which are revealed in the basic templates distributed with
Scrivener’s installable extras.

8.1.1 The Three Root Folders

The binder has three default root folders which cannot be deleted or moved from
the root (although they can be renamed, moved around within the root, or assigned
custom icons). To use Scrivener effectively, it is very important to understand the
significance of these folders.

The Draft Folder

As the name suggests, the Draft folder is where you place all of the files that you
want included in your actual draft. How you structure it is entirely up to you—you

46
8.1. HOW THE BINDER IS ORGANISED 47

Figure 8.1: The three default root folders

may have parts and chapters, or you may have separate files for each scene within each
chapter, or even separate files for each individual paragraph if you so wish. Everything
that goes inside the Draft folder will be compiled into one long text file when you use
Compile Draft from the File menu (excepting documents that have their “Include in
Draft” setting unchecked). Thus, the Draft folder is central to Scrivener: ultimately,
you are aiming to complete and arrange everything inside the Draft folder so that
each of the elements it contains form an organic whole that can then be output as
a single manuscript file. Because the Draft folder is what is used to create the final
manuscript, it is unique in that it can only contain text and folder files.

The Research Folder

The Research folder is the default folder for non-text documents such as images, PDF
files and so on (although it can hold text files too). You can create as many subfolders
as you wish to organise your research, or you can rename it and create other folders
in the root to hold different types of research.

The Trash Folder

Whenever you delete a file in Scrivener (by hitting the – Delete, for instance, or
by selecting the Edit � Delete menu item), the file is not actually removed from the
project but is instead moved to the Trash folder. You can tell at a glance if the Trash
folder has anything in it, as its icon will appear full. To permanently remove files from
the project, select “Empty Trash” from the File menu after having moved files to the
Trash folder. Note that although you can rearrange items inside the Trash folder or
view it like any other binder item (and of course, you can move files into the Trash
folder by dragging); you cannot create new files inside it.
Files that have been place in the Trash will have their icons ghosted. This is useful
in differentiating old files, since project search results will include trashed items as
well.
48 CHAPTER 8. SETTING UP THE BINDER

8.1.2 Files and Containers

If, like many authors, you are used to using a word processor for all of your writings,
you probably have a few habits that you’ll inevitably end up bringing with you to
Scrivener. One of these is that of working with large sections of information. In a
word processor, it can be awfully clumsy to work in extremely long files the length of
an entire book, but at the same time it can also be clumsy working with sections that
are too short; it means having so many files open at once and no good way to keep all
of the windows organised.
A common tendency is to treat the binder like a collection of those semi-large files,
say the length of a chapter, because even just that small incremental step can be so
much better than working in a word processor. But if you organise your project in
this fashion, you are missing out on a part of the Scrivener experience.
As it uses the convention of folders and files, you might instinctively approach the
binder as a sort of “meta-Finder”, but in actuality, it’s far better to think of the Binder
in terms of being a bonafide outliner. You might have been drawn to Scrivener for this
very reason, but because of the daunting number of things that must be learned all at
once, have found yourself falling back to using a simplified file-is-chapter approach.
The next section will demonstrate that it’s not only easy to work more dynam-
ically, but it will save you countless hours in the long run if you just take a few
minutes to sort things out, cut them up, and allow your book to emerge as a gen-
uine outline. That’s what Scrivener’s binder can do for you, and unlike other word
processor applications or plug-ins that tout outlining capabilities, you can use your
own internal “authorial outline” which may or may not have anything to do with the
actual construction of the book itself.

8.1.3 Folders are Files are Folders

As you no doubt instinctively know, a folder is a place where you organise files. You
can create folders on your disk, put files and even other folders inside of them to keep
everything nice and tidy.
Let’s throw away all of those notions for a moment and take a new, fresh look at
folders, because in Scrivener, folders are an entirely different animal. Select a folder in
one of your projects by clicking on it in the binder. You’ll probably get a corkboard
view of its child items1 or perhaps an Outliner view if that is how you have things set
up. This is all pretty straight-forward, but what happens if you close the corkboard
view?
1
This is a term from outlining applications which means: items which are contained by the parent
item. It is a relative term, for a parent could be a child of another parent. You’ll often see items referred
to in genological terms like “siblings”, “aunts”, “ancestors” and so on. Most of these are intuitive and
mean exactly what you’d expect. “Aunts” are a little more esoteric, but it refers to an item that is one
level “higher” in the hierarchy than the previous item. A item has an “aunt” if the next item below it
in the list is thus a sibling of its “parent”.
8.1. HOW THE BINDER IS ORGANISED 49

With the folder still selected, click the currently selected view icon (Corkboard is
the default) in the main toolbar, and you should get a blank view that looks suspicious
like an empty text document. In fact, that’s precisely what it is. Type in some text
and see what happens. Note that in the binder, the Folder icon has changed, and now
sports what looks like a little page of paper in its corner. This means the folder itself
has text associated with it.
Let’s try something a little more radical. Right-click on the Folder in the binder
and select “Convert to File”. It should change to a stack of papers with words on
them. Delete the line you wrote in that item and it will turn into a stack of paper
with an empty page in front. Go ahead and right-click and select “Convert to Folder”.
Nothing fundamental changed here. You didn’t lose any information, the only thing
that changed is the underlying type of the item, which is really primarily a visual
change. When an item has other items beneath it, but it is a file, it is often referred
to as a document stack, or a file group, but fundamentally it can act just like a folder
does.
Let’s test that theory. Select one of your files in the binder. You should see the
text in that file as you always do. But let’s do the same thing we did earlier with the
Folder, click on the corkboard icon. It will be empty, but you are now looking at
the corkboard for that file. With the focus in the Corkboard, press – N to make
a new document. An index card should appear, just as if you were adding items to
a folder. In the binder, you’ll notice that the icon for this file has changed to the
aforementioned stack of paper.
Perhaps you can better see why it is a good idea to think of the binder as an outliner,
instead of a glorified Finder. What is all of this flexibility good for? You don’t have to
be thinking in terms of constrictive structural elements as you flesh out the skeleton
for your book. You can just add items as you go, building out new corkboards, and
changing things to folders or back to files once a structure begins to emerge.
Scrivener lets you work the way you find most comfortable. There is no need to
build out a strict outline if you’ve always worked text-first, but if you like to work
in outlines, or use the snowflake model of expansion, you can accomplish these with
ease. An outline can literally emerge out of your book, or the book can be built onto
an outline. It’s all up to you and how you work best.
In Scrivener, the concept of a Folder is fluid. It’s an important concept to grasp, be-
cause organising your book will inevitably mean a hierarchy of documents, and wher-
ever that hierarchy takes you it will take so in the form of folders, or their cousins,
the document stack. The concept of hierarchy is important, because it means you
can keep the parts of the book you aren’t currently working on tucked away, and
that means you can feel free to break things down as far as you want, no matter how
many hundreds of items you make in the binder, if you sort things into folders (or file
groups!) you can always keep the clutter at bay.
50 CHAPTER 8. SETTING UP THE BINDER

8.2 Binder Controls

Revealing and Hiding Elements Click on the arrow to the left of any container to
reveal or hide its contents in the binder.
Use the LeftArrow and RightArrow keys
In conjunction with the Option key with either of the above methods, expand
or collapse an entire portion of the outline tree at once.

Reveal and Hide All View � Outline � Expand All and Collapse All will disclose or
reveal the entire outline at once.
Expand All can be accomplished with –9

Collapse All with – 0. Both of these commands work in many areas of the
interface where it is possible to disclose items.

Hoisting Focus on one area of the binder by selection a container and choosing Doc-
uments � Hoist Binder.

Documents � Unhoist Binder will return the binder to its full display.

Drag and Drop Items can be moved around in the binder with drag and drop. Sim-
ple pick up the item by clicking and holding on it, then drag it to where you
wish to move it. The binder will display a target preview showing where the
drop will result.
Holding down the Option key while dragging will inhibit the “Drop on” fea-
ture, making it easier to move siblings amongst one another.

Moving items with the keyboard – ArrowKeys can be used to move an item
around in the binder. Up and down will increase or decrease its placement
in the outline, while left and right will promote and demote the item.

Keyboard navigation The arrow keys move around in the binder.

Up and down arrows will move up and down the outline
Left and right will ascend and descend the hierarchy
UpArrow and DownArrow will jump from one visible container to the
next. If a container is hidden from view, it will not be selected. When “Treat all
documents with subdocuments as folders” is enabled in the Navigation prefer-
ences, file groups will be included when navigating this way.
UpArrow and DownArrow jump to the top and bottom of the binder. Note
this is different than the Home and End keys, which will only scroll the view,
but retain your current selection.
8.3. CONTROLLING BINDER INTEGRATION 51

8.3 Controlling Binder Integration

Generally speaking, whatever you click on in the binder will be automatically loaded
into the editor. This can become more complicated when there is more than one
editor split in use. When this is the case, the split which has its header bar highlighted
in blue will be the one that receives binder clicks. The inverse of this is however not
true. The binder will not automatically select items based upon what you are viewing
in the editor. The editors can drift from the original selection quite easily. All you
need to do is use the history buttons, double-click on an index card icon, use the
View � Go To � menu, click on a Scrivener Link, and so forth.
There ways to modify how the above behaviour works:

Locking the editor Any editor can be locked with View � Editor � Lock in Place, or
– L. The header bar for the editor will be changed to a dusty red colour.
Either or both splits can be locked independently.
An alternate behaviour can be set in the Navigations preference pane (sec-
tion B.5), “Binder selection affects other editor when focussed editor is locked”.
Ordinarily if the editor split you have active is locked, nothing will happen
when you click on things in the binder. With this option enabled, the binder
click will be loaded in the opposing editor split if one is already open.

Binder Affects. . . The View � Binder Affects � sub-menu contains several choices
from which you can cause the standard behaviour to become locked rather than
dynamic. For example, if you have a left and right split, ordinarily when you
click in the binder what you click on will be loaded in the active split. If Binder
Affects Left Editor has been enabled, however, all clicks will be sent to the left
split no matter which is active. The precise contents of this menu will alter,
depending upon whether you are using a vertical or horizontal split.
Alternately, the “Other Editor” choice will cause the binder click to always
act in opposition to its normal behaviour, loading the binder click in whatever
editor is not currently active.
When binder clicks are being diverted, a small indicator will appear in the
binder sidebar header, to the left of the title. This iconic depiction will use
a darker shade of grey to indicate where future binder clicks will go. This in-
dicator will be removed when operating in the default behaviour, and so its
presence is not only useful to determine where a click will go, but that clicks
will not be functionally normally in the first place.
To reset the binder behaviour to default, use View � Binder Affects � Current Ed-
itor.

See also:
52 CHAPTER 8. SETTING UP THE BINDER

❧ Splitting the Editor (section 14.8) for further documentation on how to use
editor splits.

8.4 Using Collections

Collections are a new feature to Scrivener, a way to augment the binder method of
organisation, which will temporarily supplant the binder view in the sidebar, allow-
ing you to reorganise or arrange collections of items in a flat list, regardless of their
position in the actual project.
You can think of collected items as being a bit like an alias, or a shortcut to that
item. Changes made to items within the collection will also be made to the original
item in the binder. A single item can be outside of the collections, or in one, or even
in many. Each instance all points back to the same original item in the binder.
When setting up a new project, you might like to create a few starting Collections
to help organise material as it flows into the project, or as you generate new outline
ideas. If you find yourself creating a sequence of common Collections at the start
of every project, you might want to design a custom template (subsection 7.5.2) for
yourself. Here are some example uses for Collections:

❧ Experiment with an alternate scene flow without disrupting the original layout

❧ Collect all scenes which still need to be edited

❧ Designate items which you wish to share with another author using one of the
various syncing methods

❧ Create a special compile group with an alternate selection and order than a
typical compile of the draft

❧ Store saved searches for future use, or to monitor workflows.

❧ Set aside groups of documents in a day-by-day schedule, removing them from

each daily collection as you address them.

8.4.1 The Collection Interface

To reveal the Collection interface, click the Collections icon in the toolbar, or select
View � Collections � Show Collections.
Each virtual tab represents a single collection. In the screenshot (Figure 8.2), the
“Binder” tab is selected. While not a true collection, this is how you can navigate back
to the Binder after viewing a Collection. Click on any tab to select it; when a tab is
selected, it will re-colour and ghost all of the tabs below it to help indicate which is
the active tab. Additionally the header bar will change its title to the name of the tab.
You could hide the Collections interface at this point and continue working in that
8.4. USING COLLECTIONS 53

Figure 8.2: The basic Collection interface.

tab. The background colour of the sidebar and the header bar will help remind you
that you are not in the full Binder.
When first created, Collections will be assigned with an automatically generated
colour, but their tabs can be recoloured by double-clicking the rectangular colour
chip to the right of the label. Likewise, double-click on the title to change the name
of a collection. The Binder and Search Results tabs cannot be renamed.
The are three main types (excluding the Binder) of Collections:

1. Standard Collections: allows you to freely add and remove items as you work.
This is the most flexible form of Collection.

2. Search Results Collection: a special collection type that cannot be removed.

Any project searches will have their query and results stored in this collection.
This is persistent between project sessions.

3. Saved Search Collections: indicated with the same magnifying glass used for
Search Results, on the left side of the label; they will be dynamically populated
with a search query).
54 CHAPTER 8. SETTING UP THE BINDER

Figure 8.3: Standard Collection Controls

8.4.2 Standard Collections

Creating a new standard Collection is as easy as pressing the + button. Any items that
you have selected in the active view (including the Binder, other views, or even other
Collections), will be automatically added to it.
Once a Collection has been created, you can add or remove items to it, so it is not
critical to select everything before you create it. There are several ways to add items
to a collection:

❧ With the tab interface revealed, use drag and drop from any view including the
binder. If you hold over the target tab for a moment, Scrivener will switch to
the tab allowing you to drop the items precisely where you want to place them
in the list.

❧ Using the Documents � Add to Collection � sub-menu, any selection of items,

including the active item that is being edited or viewed in the editor, can be
added to the bottom of a collection list.

❧ In the binder sidebar, you can right-click on an item(s) to access this same “Add
to Collection” menu.

In all cases, if an item already exists in the collection it will not be added again,
and its original position will not be changed, so it is safe to err on the side of “over-
selection”.
Removing items by selecting them, and then clicking the - key (Figure 8.3) in the
lower title bar, or by simply pressing Delete on your keyboard.
Delete the entire Collection by first selecting the tab you wish to remove, and then
clicking the - key in the upper title bar.
8.4. USING COLLECTIONS 55

Items can be re-ordered within the list using click and drag, or the same –
ArrowKey combinations used in the Binder. Note that since there is no hierarchy
in a Collection, you will not be able to promote or demote items.

Where new items go: In Standard Collections, you may create new items using
all of the ordinary tools available for doing so. Since collections are uncoupled
from the Binder structure in every way, new items will be placed into folders with
names corresponding to the name of the collection they were created within. These
folders will be created at the top level of the binder, at the very bottom of the list.
An example might be a new text file called “Joseph” in the Characters collection.
When you return to the binder, you will find a new text file called “Joseph” in a
folder named “Characters (New)”.

Collections take advantage of the same view modes that containers do. Click the
coloured header bar title (not the tab) to view all of the contained items using the
default view mode. This can be used to view Scrivenings, Corkboard (freeform and
linear), or Outliner. You can also remove items from a Collection by deleting them
from these views.

8.4.3 Search Result Collection

If you’ve used Project Search before, then you’ve been using a Collection without
perhaps realising it. Search results are placed into this special collection every time
you run a search, and the criteria of your search are saved into it along with the
project. This means the last Project Search that you ran will always be available to
you, even after you have rebooted your computer. Like the Binder tab, the Search
Result tab cannot be deleted, and there is always one included with every new project.
Both the built-in Search Results collection, and Saved Search Result Collections,
allow you to view the label and status of the matching items, making it convenient to
enact workflow changes without using the outliner.
When you click on the Search Results tab, the previous search criteria will be
loaded into the search bar tool, allowing you to further tweak the results if you de-
sire. Since search results depend upon the search criteria, you cannot manually add,
remove, or change the order of items from the Collection, as you can with the stan-
dard type.

8.4.4 Saved Search Result Collections

As with the Search Results tab, saved searches have a magnifying glass in the corner to
indicate that it is a special type of Collection which cannot have its contents modified.
Saved searches are created by clicking the magnifying glass in the Project Search tool,
and selecting Save Search.
56 CHAPTER 8. SETTING UP THE BINDER

Figure 8.4: The Search Result Collection

If the Collection interface is hidden, the sidebar background will change to a ran-
dom, automatically generated colour, and the header bar title will adjust to the name
you provided. To leave the saved search, you can either click the close button in the
sidebar footer, or enable the Collection tab interface and select another tab.

Limitations: Searches performed using the Binder Selection Only option cannot
be saved for future use, because the binder selection is a temporary state which
changes whenever you click in the binder. If you find yourself unable to save a
search, make sure this option is disabled.

The contents of a saved search are dynamic. Every time the tab is loaded, the saved
criteria will be checked against the current state of the project. If you wish to “freeze”
a list for later reference, there are two ways you can do so:

1. Convert the saved search to a standard type: This will destroy the saved search,
so only use this method if you no longer need to the search criteria. To con-
vert a saved search result to a standard collection, View � Collection � Convert
to Standard Collection.

2. Copy the contents into a new collection: This is quite easy to do. Simply select
all of the items ( – A) in the search result, and click the + button to create a new
Standard Collection.

Saved Search Collections can be removed in the same fashion as Standard Collec-
tions, by selecting the tab and clicking the - key, as shown here (Figure 8.3)
See Also:
8.5. DOCUMENT TEMPLATES 57

❧ Project Search (subsection 21.4.1).

8.4.5 Back to the Binder

It is possible to select some or all of the items in a collection and instruct Scrivener to
gather them all together into one spot, based on the order of their appearance in the
collection. To do so, you will need to have the collection tab interface visible. Simply
select the files you wish to gather, drag them to the binder tab and hold for a moment.
The binder will activate, and you can drop the selection wherever you please.
Do notice that this moves items from one spot to another, and cannot be undone.
Experienced users of outliner style programs will recognise this ability as “mark
and gather”. The marking phase is done by assigning documents to a collection. Drag-
ging them back out to the binder then gathers them quickly into one focussed spot.
This can be an extremely useful technique for some workflows.
It can also be useful to experiment and implement an experimental text flow. If
a chapter or section just doesn’t seem to flow right, you can quickly create a new
collection, Option-drag the container of items to the new tab, and then re-organise
the flow using the collection’s ability to view itself as a corkboard or outliner, then
reviewing the text with scrivenings mode. Once you are satisfied with the new layout,
select all of the sub-files and drag them back into the original folder in the binder
using the above method. The items will be re-organised for you in the actual book
structure.

8.5 Document Templates

Document templates give you the ability to designate a set of items which can be used
to create new items. Much as with project templates (section 7.5), everything that
you add to a template item will be added to new items created off of it. This includes
the various meta-data, notes, keywords, references, synopsis, and of course any text.
Additionally, folder items designated as templates will create copies of their children
too, allowing you to quickly generate complex repeating structures.
Document templates do not provide forms that you can fill out with the tab key.
They are simply a convenient way to reproduce ordinary folders and files, with their
meta-data intact.

8.5.1 Setting a Document Template Folder

Templates are designated by placing them into a special folder, marked as being a
template container (which can be a folder or file group). Each project can only have
one template container at a time. To set it up, select the container of templates, and
use the Project � Set Selection as Templates Folder. The binder icon will change to
58 CHAPTER 8. SETTING UP THE BINDER

Figure 8.5: Example Document Template Structure

indicate its status, and all of the items beneath it will have a small blue “T” badge
added to their icons.
To clear a document template container designation, use the Projects � Clear Tem-
plates Folder menu item. This action will not delete anything in your project. It will
merely remove the special status from the designated templates folder. Template fold-
ers can be placed (or designated) anywhere in the binder, even in the Draft (though do
note that if you do that, they will likely show up in the final manuscript, and toggling
them to be hidden would lead to generated items being hidden by default, as well).
Some of the built-in project templates will come with a template folder already set
up for you. To use your own templates folder, first clear the default setting using the
above menu item. Optionally, you could just remove the contents of the default, and
supply it with your own templates.
If you find yourself doing this often, you might wish to create your own project
template (subsection 7.5.2).

8.5.2 Creating Document Templates

Creating new templates is as easy as creating a normal file or folder item in the binder.
There is nothing special about these items, save for their position within the desig-
nated templates folder. Anything that you create within the templates folder will be
available for usage in the project.
It is possible to pre-configure all aspects of an item. The only thing which will not
get carried over is Snapshots. The latest version of the item’s text will always be used
and Snapshots will be ignored.
8.5. DOCUMENT TEMPLATES 59

8.5.3 Using Document Templates

Once a container is designated as a Template Folder,and items have been added to
it, you can generate copies of these templates via the Projects � New from template...
sub-folder. The items in this folder will be arranged precisely as they have been or-
ganised in the binder. Groups will become further sub-menus. As with the other
commands that create new items, they will be created in relation with the current
binder selection.

❧ If you select an entire group, it and all of its child items will be created in the
selected position.

❧ The first template item in the template folder is a special spot as it will be given
a keyboard shortcut, – N. Using this shortcut, you can easily create that
item on the fly, so if applicable, choose the top position for a template you will
be using most frequently.

❧ As with project templates, once created, document templates have no connec-

tion with the item that they were modelled after. It is safe to delete a template
that is no longer being used to create new items. You might wish to, however,
move the template item to another spot outside of the template folder, in case
you ever need it again.
 Chapter 9

Navigating and Organising

9.1 General Navigation

Moving around within a large project is an important part of writing efficiently, es-
pecially in an application like Scrivener, which lets you cut your work up into small
pieces. An average book might have anywhere between several dozen and a few hun-
dred sections arranged into many folders. Along with the binder, there are two pri-
mary tools for making sense of all of these pieces: The Outliner (section 12.2) and
The Corkboard (section 12.1), covered later in this portion of the book. For now we
will concentrate on how to use them as navigational tools, and as your skills increase,
you’ll find other uses for them beyond mere navigation.
Beyond the three primary navigation tools, there are a number of other features
which can be used as needed to enhance the main three, and these will be covered in
this section as well.
Some navigation features which are common to both the corkboard and the out-
liner are:

❧ Double-click on an icon to load that document in the editor.

❧ –O to load the selected item in the editor, or when more than one item is
selected, isolate the focus on just the selected items.
❧ – O to load the select item in the other split

❧ Both views have an Auto-Load feature, which when enabled, will load any se-
lected item(s) in the other split, if one is opened. The Auto-Load button1 is
located in the footer bar, and will appear blue when switched on.
1
nav-auto_load_button.png

Figure 9.1: The Auto-Load button will appear blue when activated.

60
9.2. GO TO MENU 61

9.2 Go To Menu
In most cases, it will be easiest to use the binder or views to select and navigate to
various components in your project. However there are a few cases where this will
not be true. If you prefer to work with the binder hidden, are working in Full Screen
mode, or just would rather not drill down to a particular spot solely to select an item,
the Go To menu is an easy substitute for other methods, and in some cases can even
be faster than traditional navigation. The Go To menu always takes action on the
activated split, even when it has been locked.
There are two locations where this menu appears:

❧ The main application menu, View � Go To.... The main application menu ver-
sion also provides three shortcuts for navigating within an editing session:

– Previous Document ( – UpArrow): Selects the previous item in the

binder, no matter what the relative depth.
– Next Document ( – DownArrow): Selects the next item in the binder, no
matter what the relative depth.
– Enclosing Group ( – R): Selects the parent container which the cur-
rently selected item is within; in effect traversing up the hierarchy. The
current view mode will be used if possible. If you editing text, scrivenings
will be used; if working on a corkboard, the next corkboard higher up
will be viewed. In cases where the current view mode conflicts with the
selection, corkboard will be used as a fall-back. An example might be if
you have scrivenings mode enabled as you default view mode, but you are
currently viewing an image or PDF. Since scrivenings does not apply to
these items, this command will switch you over to corkboard.

❧ Via clicking on the item icon in the editor header bar.

In both cases, both sub-folders and items can be selected. When a sub-folder is
selected, it will be loaded with the default view mode (Corkboard by default). The
header bar menu is provided as a convenience, and more readily applies the navigation
action to a particular split, whereas one must first ensure the right split is active before
using the application View menu.

Standard Mode In standard mode, the Go To menu will list every item in the binder,
organised in such a way that containers will be converted into sub-menus.
Go To is one of the menus which is modified by the list of favourite items in
the project. Favourites will be placed at the very top of the menu in a flat list,
allowing quick access to frequently visited areas of the Binder.
See also, Using Favourites (section 9.6).
62 CHAPTER 9. NAVIGATING AND ORGANISING

Scrivenings Mode When the active split contains a Scrivenings session, the Go To
menu will be transformed into a table of contents for that session, letting you
quickly jump to sections within the session. The main application Go To menu
will adhere likewise to this model, but if a split that is not in a Scrivenings
session is activated, the menu will return to presenting the entire binder. The
header bar menu will always show the contents of the current session for that
split.
Favourites will not be shown when the menu is modified in this way.
See also, Editing Multiple Documents (section 14.12).

In Full Screen To use the Go To menu in Full Screen mode, move the mouse to the
top of your screen for a moment. The application menu should drop down,
and you’ll be able to access the View menu.

9.3 Hoisting the Binder

When you need to focus on one specific area of the binder, you can use Docu-
ments � Hoist Binder to isolate the currently selected container. Only one item can
be selected, and it must be a container (file or folder).
When a container has been hoisted, the appearance of the binder will change2 . The
header bar will be replaced with the name of the container that has been selected,
including a small icon representation of its type, and the list of items available will be
reduced to only those items which are children of the selected container.
If you wish to select the container itself (to for example view Scrivenings, or its
corkboard), click on the header bar. Once selected you can choose the view mode
you prefer, if necessary.
To return to standard Binder view, either click the indicated X button in the footer
bar of the binder area, or select the menu command, Documents � Unhoist Binder.

9.4 Locking the Editor

The editor can be locked with View � Editor � Lock in Place or the –L shortcut.
The feature can also be accessed from the header bar menu.
Locking the editor prohibits external click actions from impacting the locked ed-
itor. This means that clicks in the binder, corkboard or outliner (when Auto-load
is enabled), will be blocked. This makes it easy to keep your editing session while
you use the binder or these other views to explore the outline. What locking will
NOT do is prohibit actions taken from within the editor itself. This includes use of
the binder navigation arrows, History functions, and manually dragging items to the
2
action-hoisting.png
9.5. SCRIVENER LINKS 63

Figure 9.2: Hoisting: Before and After

header bar, or menu navigation commands. Locking is meant primarily to keep the
interface from taking actions that it would ordinarily take automatically. It will not
inhibit intentional actions that you make.
When the editor is locked, the header bar will change to a reddish colour, which
persists even when the split is not active.

9.5 Scrivener Links

Much like hyperlinks on the Web, Scrivener Links make it easy to create and use a
network of text-based cross-references within your project. Since they do not export
from you project, it is safe to use them in the text of your work wherever you need
them. They can also be used within the various available notepads. Their ability to
elevate the visibility of information in your project can turn them into a valuable
navigation tool, as well as providing convenient uses beyond the project itself, during
Compile.
The creation of links can even be a good brainstorming tool, as you can build your
outline with links, while typing. Links appear much like URL links do on the Web.
They will sport a pale blue appearance and be underscored. The link colour can
be customised in the Appearance tab, under “Customisable Colours”, in the Editor
section. The underscore cannot be removed, so even links set to same colour as the
64 CHAPTER 9. NAVIGATING AND ORGANISING

base text can be identified.

9.5.1 Creating Scrivener Links

Links can be created in a variety of ways, to suit different styles of working.

Drag and drop

❧ To create a link to specific item in the binder, drag the item into the text where
you would like it to appear, while holding down the Option key. The blinking
cursor will help show you where the final location of the drop will occur. When
creating links in this fashion, they will be automatically titled by the name of
the document that was dragged.

❧ It is possible to drag more than one item into the text area at once. Select mul-
tiple items in the binder and drag them over as above. Links will be separated
one per line.

❧ Items can be dragged into the Notes Pane (and the Project Notes window) as
well as the main text area, in this fashion.

Select Items and Copy

When you want to create links to items in multiple places, it is usually easier to use
the Edit � Copy Special � Copy Documents as Scrivener Links menu command. Now
you can paste ( – V) the items into several different places rapidly. As with Drag and
Drop, you can select more than one binder item at once, producing quick lists of
links.

Select Text and Link

Often you will want to link a phrase to a specific document without having the name
of that document be a part of the link. To create links in this fashion, select the text
you wish to link, and then right-click on the selected text. Use the Scrivener Link
sub-menu to create a new link. This menu is also located in Edit � Scrivener Link.
This sub-menu functions in a very similar manner to the “Go To” menu (sec-
tion 9.2), by providing an organised list of every item in the binder. The menu is
organised as follows:

New Link ( – L) Brings up a sheet which gives you the option between creating a
new item and choosing where to place that item, or to navigate through a list
of items that already exist.
9.5. SCRIVENER LINKS 65

Figure 9.3: Create a New Linked Document

There are two tabs available in the sheet. The default tab, “Create New Linked
Document”, will let you generate a new document and attach it to an existing con-
tainer (or optionally, another item, forming a new container).
The “Destination” drop-down menu provides a list of all the containers in the
project binder. Use this to select where the new document should be created. By
default, it will select the Research folder for you. If you have unchecked “Only show
containers in destination list”, then the drop-down menu will display all items in the
binder, allowing you to form new containers by creating new items beneath existing
documents3 .
The “Title” field is where you type in the name of the new binder item which will
be created. It does not need to match the text of the link.
The “Link to Existing Document” tab will provide a browser with which you can
look for an existing binder item and link to it. Using this method is very similar to
right-clicking on the text and selecting an item from the Scrivener Link sub-menu,
and is mainly provided as a convenience for people using the – L shortcut to create
new links, or wiki linking, discussed below.

Suggestions If the selected text contains material that is found in existing binder item
titles, these matching titles will be added to the menu as well as suggestions.
This is handy when you have typed out the name of a Binder item, and wish to
create a link to it.
3
If this is hard to understand, I suggest reading Folders are Files are Folders (subsection 8.1.3).
66 CHAPTER 9. NAVIGATING AND ORGANISING

This section will not appear if no suggestions are found.

Favourites As with the Go To menu, Favourites will be added to the list. Consider
adding frequently linked to items as Favourites to make it easier to access them
in the future.
This section will not appear if no Favourites have been created.

Item List The remainder of the menu will be organised according to how your
project is laid out. Containers will be converted into sub-menus, allowing you
to navigate the project and select a link target (much as you would with the “Go
To” menu).

Wiki Link Style

An optional method lets you type in new links without using the mouse at all, or
even being fully aware of the title you wish to link to. To enable this method, visit
the Auto-Correction tab of Scrivener’s preferences, and turn on and [[Scrivener links]]
in the Substitutions section.
To use this method, while typing in the text you can enter two double-brackets,
type in the title of the item you wish to link to, and then close it with a second pair of
brackets, as shown. Scrivener will detect what you are trying to do, and if it finds an
exact match to a document, will link it for you automatically. If it does not recognise
the text inside the brackets as correlating with an existing title, the New Link sheet4
will pop-up, giving you the option to either create a new item and place it in the
Binder, or via the second tab, “Link to existing document”, navigate to an existing
document in the Binder and create a non-literal link. Non-literal links are useful
when you wish to link phrases in your text without directly referencing the name of
the item you are linking to. Once substitution has been performed, the brackets will
be removed.
As with other substitution types, wiki linking5 works only on newly typed ma-
terial. If you have previously typed in double-bracketed words, and then enable the
option, you will need to re-bracket them.

9.5.2 Removing Links

Any type of link can be deleted (including URLs to external web pages) with the
Edit � Unlink menu command. Any link falling within the currently selected text will
be removed, so there is no need to be precise about what you select. This is an easy
4
sheet-new_link-new.png
5
Referring to these links as “wiki links” does not imply that your project can become a wiki. It
merely refers to the appearance of the syntax as it is typed in. Scrivener links must always point to an
existing resource, unlike true wiki links, which can be placeholders for items which do not yet exist.
9.5. SCRIVENER LINKS 67

way to wipe out dozens of links at once, something which is of particular use when
pasting text from webarchive files, or other Scrivener documents with links.
Note that linked comments and footnotes will not be deleted with this command.

9.5.3 Configuring How Links Work in the Interface

Most of the configuration options for links are located within the Navigation tab
(section B.5), in the Scrivener Links section. Here you can configure how links will
act when they are clicked, and what will happen when new links are created.
Both settings have three options available:

❧ Current Editor: The link will replace the current editing session with the
linked item. This method works most like a web browser, and like a web
browser you can use the forward and backward buttons to get back to where
you were, after following a link.

❧ Other Editor: Will use the other split to load the clicked link. If necessary,
Scrivener will open up a new split (section 14.8) for you, using the last used
split type (horizontal or vertical).

❧ QuickReference Panel: The item will be loaded into a QuickReference panel

(chapter 19).

The colour appearance of links can also be adjusted in the Appearance tab (sec-
tion B.2).

9.5.4 When Scrivener Links can be Compiled

For the most part, Scrivener Links are a feature which reside completely within the
realm of Scrivener. When compiling, they will be stripped out of the source text, and
thus are handy for inserting useful links for your own purposes, which will not show
up at all in the finished manuscript.
There is one optional exception to this rule that requires a chain of conditions to
be present.

1. Links which are solely the title of the document they link to.

2. Enable the “Update Scrivener Links containing titles to include prefix/suffix”

option, in Compile under “Document Settings”.

3. A title prefix or suffix applied to the document level that contains the links.

This is a more advanced feature of Compile, but in essence it allows you to create a
list of document titles in the text which will be altered to match their final appearance
68 CHAPTER 9. NAVIGATING AND ORGANISING

in the compiled version. Since titles can be added to, or even entirely replaced, by the
compiler, this set of features will ensure that referenced titles will remain valid after
export. An applied example:
The original text reads:

To read more about this topic, see How to Grow Better Tomatoes .

The phrase “How to Grow Better Tomatoes” is linked to a binder document of

the same name, in the final manuscript. However, in the compiler the author has
arranged for this title to be prefixed, so that in the book it will appear as:

Chapter 7: How to Grow Better Tomatoes.

With the above options configured correctly, Scrivener will recognise that this link
points to a title and that it should be updated to reflect the final version. It will be
compiled in the manuscript as:

To read more about this topic, see

Chapter 7: How to Grow Better Tomatoes .

The Table of Contents generator uses this trick to keep its list of documents up to
date with the final manuscript version of titles.

Pro Tip: If you link the special token, <$p>, to a particular document in the
Draft, the compiler will insert a special RTF code which lets compatible word
processors cross-reference the actual page number of that item. This technique is
also used in the Table of Contents generator, but could also be used for formatting
nicer cross-references for your readers. This feature will also be available when
using the Print/PDF format option in Compile.

See also:

1. Compiling the Draft (chapter 24)

2. Creating a Table of Contents (chapter 23)

9.6 Using Favourites

Setting binder items as favourites will increase their visibility in a few key areas of
the application. One of these has already been covered; the Go To menus. Setting an
item as a favourite will make it easy to navigate to that item in the future, as it will
always be present at the top level of that menu (with the exception of when the menu
is acting as a table of contents for a Scrivenings session).
9.7. LAYOUTS PANEL 69

The second menu which will have favourites added to it is the Scrivener Link cre-
ation menu. When creating a new Scrivener Link, your favourites will be placed at
the top of this menu.
Adding and removing items from the list of favourites is easy to do. Simply select
the item in the binder and right-click on it to view its contextual menu. At the bottom
of the menu, there will be two options:

❧ Add to Favorites: Adds the selected document(s) to the favourite list.

❧ Remove from Favorites: Removes the selected document(s) from the favourite
list.

Favourites will be added to the following menu functions:

❧ Edit � Go To � : Provides navigation features to any spot in the binder.

❧ Edit � QuickReference � : Opens a QuickReference Panel for the selected item

from that menu.

❧ Edit � Scrivener Link � : Creates text links to documents, like URLs in a web
browser.

❧ Documents � Move � To � : Moves selected binder items to other locations in

the binder.

9.7 Layouts Panel

The Layouts panel allows you to save different layout set-ups and load them again
easily. For instance, in the early stages you might focus on a large corkboard without
any other interface to get in the way; as structure starts to emerge, you may have the
binder open with the corkboard in the top editor and text in the bottom editor; whilst
composing, you may have only the text open, with the binder, inspector and toolbar
hidden. By using the Layouts panel to save different layouts, you can switch between
these view settings quickly, without having to go through the process of hiding the
binder, toggling the toolbar and so forth. You can even save column settings and other
details into layouts. To show the Layouts panel, select View � Layout � Show Layouts,
or press – 0.
If you do not have any layouts saved yet, you’ll be presented with a window and
an empty list. You can try the feature out immediately by clicking the + button. A
screenshot of your current project window will be taken and placed into the right
side of the screen, and you’ll be given the opportunity to name the layout something
meaningful. With a combination of names and screenshots, your layouts should re-
main accessible and easy to find.
70 CHAPTER 9. NAVIGATING AND ORGANISING

Switching to a saved layout is easy. You can either double-click on the icon next to
its name, tap Enter, or click the Use button in the footer bar of the left list. Another
way of switching layouts is to use the application menu instead of the Layout panel.
When you save a layout, it will be added to the View � Layout � All Layouts � sub-
menu. Since these are assigned a menu command, you can supply custom keyboard
shortcuts for quick access to commonly used layouts.
To remove a layout you no longer need, select the layout and click the - button in
the footer bar. You will be warned that once it is deleted you’ll be unable to retrieve
it. This warning can be dismissed so that it no longer appears, if you wish.
To update an existing layout with the current project window layout, simply select
that layout in the list, and click on the gear menu in the footer bar, choosing Update
Selected Layout. A new screenshot will be taken and the old settings will be updated
to reflect the current window layout.
Layouts can also be exported and installed into Scrivener. Using the same gear
menu as above, select the layout you wish to export, and then choose Export Selected
Layout. The layout will be saved as an XML file in the location you provide.

Pro Tip: Layouts are saved to individual files on your hard disk, in your Library
folder, under “Application Support/Scrivener/Layouts”. If you wish to transfer
them to another computer or backup your layouts, you can find them here and
make copies of these files en masse.

Because layouts are separate from projects, there are some things that they cannot
save, such as which collection you are viewing, which QuickReference panels are
open, or whether the binder has been hoisted to a certain level. Even within one
individual project, these details might change or no longer be relevant. Here is a list
of things layouts do save:

❧ Binder visible/hidden

❧ Collection tab interface visible/hidden

❧ Inspector visible/hidden

❧ Split type (horizontal/vertical/none)

❧ Binder mode (whether it affects one or current editors)

❧ Header bar visible/hidden

❧ Footer bar visible/hidden

❧ Editors locked in place

❧ Ruler and Format Bar visible/hidden

9.7. LAYOUTS PANEL 71

❧ Selection auto-load in alternate editor settings

❧ Window size and position and view sizes

❧ Toolbar visible/hidden and view mode (such as small or large icons)

❧ Corkboard/outliner/scrivenings/editor mode for each split

❧ Page View or standard draft view for each split

In addition, optional settings are saved depending upon whether these two check-
boxes are enabled for the specific layout.

Save outliner and corkboard settings All corkboard display settings, such as card
size, ratio, card wrapping, and so on will be saved with the layout
In the outliner, which columns are visible or hidden, and column sorting.

Preserve all meta-data appearance options This will save whether or not label tint-
ing is in use in the various areas of the interface; and pin, stamp, and keyword
chip visibility in the corkboard.
 Chapter 10

Setting Up Meta-Data
Documents of any type in Scrivener can have various meta-data associated with them.
Some of this meta-data can be viewed in the corkboard, outliner views, and the Quick-
Reference panes, but the main interface for viewing and editing all of the meta-data
for a given document is the Inspector (chapter 18). This section will brief you on the
various types of meta-data available, and how to create more types if necessary. It will
not go into all of the details of the Inspector pane; please read that section to gain a
full understanding of how meta-data is assigned to documents.

10.1 Meta-Data Types

The basic meta-data types include the title, text synopsis, and an optional image re-
placement for the synopsis. The title is the most important component of any item in
the binder, as it will be used to identify the document in the many views, menus, and
export methods. When exporting as files, filenames will be set according to the title
field; when compiling, titles can be used to generate headers for that section; index
cards use the title; the outliner is composed of a list of titles.
The synopsis is a plain-text field, primarily intended to be a short summation of
the contents of the document, though how you choose to use it is entirely up to you.
The synopsis is displayed in a variety of ways.

1. Corkboard: used to display the content area of the card.

2. Outliner: will be placed beneath the title (which appears in bold), by default.

3. Binder: revealed in the tooltip when hovering the mouse over the correspond-
ing title.

Instead of the text synopsis, you can elect to use an image to represent a document
on the corkboard. This image will be used on the corkboard and in the inspector,
but whatever text exists in the standard synopsis field will be used in the outliner and
binder as described above, and in the various export and print options that include a
synopsis field. The image is not a replacement for the synopsis, but an override for the
corkboard.

72
10.1. META-DATA TYPES 73

In all cases, specific types of meta-data can be displayed as columns in the Outliner
view, including custom meta-data.

10.1.1 Setting Up Label & Status

The next two forms of meta-data are flexible in what you can refer to them as. Using
the Project � Meta-Data Settings... ( – ,) you can set up custom names for both the
label and status, and the interface will adjust accordingly, no longer referring to them
as “label” and “status” for that project. If you wanted, you could have “POV” and
“Location” instead of “Label” and “Status”, or “Focus” and “Type”, or “Monkeys”
and “Bananas”, or anything else you want. This document will continue to refer to
them as labels and status for convenience. They are also, after the title, the most
visible items in the entire interface. They can be represented in the corkboard and
outliner views, are best administered in the inspector, are given a priority position
in the QuickReference panel, are displayed in search results, and are given priority
placement in most of the printing methods.
The default blank project and many of the templates come packaged with a few
example status & labels, but you will most likely wish to create your own. To add or
remove project labels, use the Project � Meta-Data Settings menu item, or press – ,.
The interface provides tables for three meta-data types; we’ll discuss custom meta-data
below.
For each of the first two tabs, you can provide a custom title, which will replace
the generic “Label” and “Status” designations throughout the interface.
Labels and status can be added or removed with the + and - buttons. Edit an existing
label by double clicking on the text. For labels, the colour can be changed by double-
clicking on the colour chip to the left. The order in which the these items appear in
their respective menus is determined by their arrangement in this table. Click and
drag rows to rearrange them.
When you create new items in the binder, either by adding items or importing,
they will automatically be supplied by a default label and status value. Ordinarily this
will be assigned to the “No Label” or “No Status” choices. If you wish to change this
behaviour, select the alternate value by clicking on its row, and then click the Make
Default button.
Once you click the OK button, the interface will update with your changes.

10.1.2 Label Colours

Labels can have a colour associated with them and are completely customisable - you
can even rename “Label” to “POV” or something that better fits your project (see
below). Labels are one of the most flexible meta-data types in terms of how visible
they are in the interface, so you can pick a colour to reflect how prominent you wish
them to be, depending on their associated material’s content. Label colour can be
74 CHAPTER 10. SETTING UP META-DATA

depicted in the following ways, many of which are optional, and can be enable in the
View � Use Label Color In � sub-menu.

1. Corkboard: will be used to shade the upper right corner of the card when using
the rounded card theme. When using the classic card themes, the pin will be
coloured according to the label. Use View � Corkboard � Show Pins or – P to
toggle the visibility of pins.

2. Outliner: The outliner can be set to tint the background colour for each row
using the label colour with View � Use Label Color In � Outliner Rows.

3. QuickReference Panels: the label is one of the priority meta-data values always
visible at the top of the QuickReference panel for each document.

4. Binder: can be set to highlight the background of each binder item using the
label colour in a manner similar to the Finder. Toggle this behaviour with
View � Use Label Color In � Binder.

5. Icons: enabled with View � Use Label Color In � Icons, this option will tint doc-
ument icons wherever they appear.

6. Index Cards: enable with View � Use Label Color In � Index Cards this optional
method will tint the background colour of index cards wherever they appear.

The label can also be used to tint colour printouts when printing corkboards and
outliners.

10.1.3 Status Stamps

As with the label, the status field can have its representative name altered to suit your
project preferences. By default, this field represents that status of a document in terms
of its completion, such as “To do” or “Rough draft”, but this field can be used for
whatever purpose you desire. Unlike the label, there is no corresponding colour, and
so its display potential is more limited.

1. Corkboard: can be displayed as a diagonal “stamp” across the face of the card.
The appearance of this can be adjusted in the corkboard and Appearance pref-
erence panes, and display can be toggled with View � Corkboard � Show Stamps
or – S.

2. QuickReference Panels: the status is one of the priority meta-data values always
visible at the top of the QuickReference panel, for each document.
10.1. META-DATA TYPES 75

10.1.4 Using Keywords

Each document can have a list of keywords associated with it. These are useful for
making documents easily searchable - for instance, you can list all characters and loca-
tions connected with a scene in the keywords even if they are not mentioned explic-
itly in the text. Creative uses for keywords also include extended status control, plot
management, and whatever else you can think of.
Like labels, keywords have an associated colour which will be displayed beside the
keyword in the inspector list, as an underscore in the relevant outliner column, and
in the Keywords HUD1 (see below). Additionally, keywords can be used in the cork-
board as small coloured squares along the right-hand edge of the card. The visibility
of these can be toggled with View � Corkboard � Show Keyword Colors, or – K. The
display preferences for these can be adjusted via the corkboard display controls (sub-
section 12.1.4).
When exporting or printing, keywords will be displayed on a single line, separated
by commas.

10.1.5 Minor Meta-Data

In addition to the primary types of meta-data, there are a few smaller items, mostly
located in the General meta-data section of the Inspector:

Created Date The date and time the document was first created.

Modified Date The date and time the document was last changed and saved.

Include in Compile A checkbox determining whether the document should be in-

cluded in the draft when exported or printed via Compile Draft from the File
menu. If checked, the document is exported or printed; if not, it is excluded
from the export/print (this can be temporarily overridden in Compile). This
way, you can have documents in the Draft folder that act as notes and that
are never included in the final draft. Note that this setting really only has any
meaning for documents that are inside the Draft folder, though it can be set
anywhere, allowing you to modify text documents outside of the Draft in cases
where they might at some point end up being compiled, or used as templates
for files that will be compiled. The checkbox never has any meaning for media
entries, as these items can never be compiled.
1
“Heads-up Display” is an avionic acronym originally used in a military context. HUDs were
first employed in the cockpits of fighter pilots, giving them the ability to see their attitude, altitude,
speed, radar, and other important flight details without removing their eyes from the horizon and
looking down at a console. HUDs have been employed in civilian cases since then. Some luxury cars
have HUD style speedometers and tachometers on the windshield so you can stay focussed on the
road. In computer usage (and more specifically, Mac software), the term has come to mean any sort of
window that provides features or information to the user in a utility role, displayed in a characteristic
translucent black window.
76 CHAPTER 10. SETTING UP META-DATA

Page Break Before If this checkbox is ticked, a page break will be inserted before
the document when compiled. Useful, for instance, if the document marks the
beginning of a chapter. As with Include in Draft, this only has any meaning for
text documents inside the Draft folder.

Compile As-Is All options set in the formatting pane (section 24.5) will be ignored
for the checked document. This means no extra material will be added, includ-
ing titles, and no reformatting of the text will be done. Text will always be
included, even if it would otherwise be excluded. As with the above two items,
this checkbox has no meaning for items outside of the Draft.

10.1.6 Custom Meta-Data

When you need to keep track of more details than the default meta-data options pro-
vide, adding custom fields to your project can be a valuable move. Custom fields are
fundamentally free-form text labels. Setting them up is done using the Project � Meta-
Data Settings control, in the third tab. For each column you wish to add, press the +
button and supply a field title. Each field has two options:

Wrap Text Useful for fields where you want to display all of the entered text, even
if that text causes the row to expand in height in the outliner. Unwrapped
columns will only ever show the first line of text unless you edit the field.

Colored Text When checked, the colour selection tool at the bottom will be enabled,
allowing you to customise the text colour for this column. Text colour will be
displayed in the inspector and outliner columns.

As with label and status, fields can be re-ordered by dragging rows in the configu-
ration table.
Custom-meta usage is generally limited to the inspector and outliner, though it
can also be exported along with the rest of the meta-data when compiling, exporting
binder items, and printing.

10.1.7 Exporting Meta-data

All meta-data can be exported in a variety of ways, usually text-based for maximum
compatibility, so you needn’t fear having important organisational information get-
ting locked-in with the project format. Meta-data can be exported in the following
fashions:

1. Compiling: when compiling the Draft, enabling meta-data export is an optional

feature of the Formatting pane. The various types of meta-data will be exported
into the Draft in a variety of ways best suited the type of data involved.
10.2. KEYWORDS HUD 77

2. File export: when exporting files from the Binder, meta-data can be placed into
optional “sidecar” plain-text files corresponding to the main document being
exported. This method is used to preserve the integrity of the original docu-
ment, and to enable meta-data export in formats which would not otherwise
allow text data to be inserted into it, such as QuickTime movies.

3. Outline and Corkboard printing: both of these printing methods optionally

allow meta-data to be expressed in the printout. Unlike the above two examples,
these allow for a more fine-grained approach, letting you export just the label
or keywords if you want.

4. Drag and Drop: When dragging documents from one Scrivener project to an-
other, all meta-data will be preserved where applicable. In some cases, like labels
and status, these values will need to already exist in the target project.

10.2 Keywords HUD

The Keywords HUD holds all of the keywords in use by the project. As you enter
new keywords into the Inspector (subsection 18.4.3), they will be added automatically
to the central project list. You can access this pane via Window � Show Keywords HUD,
or – H.
You can create a new keyword by clicking on one of the buttons at the bottom of
the HUD. The left-most button creates a new keyword as the sibling of the selected
keyword, and the one next to it creates a new keyword as a child of the selection.
The third button deletes the selected keyword(s). Note that the keywords are auto-
matically sorted alphabetically. You can drag any keyword onto any other keyword
to make the dragged keyword a child of the one onto which it was dropped. Note
that for the most part, the hierarchical structure of keywords are really only an or-
ganisational convenience, and has no effect on how the keywords are represented in
documents themselves. There is one exception to this, below.
To assign keywords in the HUD panel to a document in the main window, se-
lect and drag the desired keywords from the HUD and drop them onto either the
keywords table in the inspector of the main window, the header view above the doc-
ument editor or onto the document in the binder, corkboard or outliner. If there is a
multiple selection in the binder, corkboard or outliner and the keywords are dropped
onto one of the selected documents, the keywords will be applied to all selected doc-
uments. Hold the Option key down whilst dragging to drag not only the keyword
but also any parent keywords under which it is grouped.
You don’t have to use the HUD to create keywords, of course - you can also en-
ter keywords directly into the keywords table in the inspector (subsection 18.4.3) to
apply them to the current document. Note that whenever you apply keywords via
the inspector, they will automatically be added to the list in the HUD if they are not
78 CHAPTER 10. SETTING UP META-DATA

already contained there, so that the HUD should always contain a complete list of
the keywords you are using in your project no matter how you have created them.
Keywords can be managed from the HUD. By changing the name of a keyword
in the HUD, all of the associated keywords in the project will be updated instantly
in the background. When removing keywords from the HUD, they will also be
removed from all of the documents they had been assigned to. To change the colour
that represents the keyword, double-click on the small colour rectangle to the left of
the keyword.
The HUD also provides an easy way to search for keyword usage in your project.
Simply click on the keyword you wish to look for, and click the Search button in
the bottom of the HUD. If you instead wish to search all text in the project for that
keyword (instead of just real keywords), hold down the Option key and click the
Search All button which will replace it.
You can also search for combinations (using the Boolean AND logic) of keywords
by selecting more than one keyword and then clicking Search. All documents con-
taining all selected keywords will be returned.
 Chapter 11

Gathering Material

11.1 File Import

Whether you are using Scrivener for the first time and want to use it with documents
you have already created in other programs, or whether you just have reference files
lying around that you want to bring into an existing project, the chances are that at
some point you will need to import documents created in other word processors and
programs into your Scrivener project. Fortunately, this is very easy.
Importing files into the project binder means that these files will be copied (and
possibly transformed into a fashion that Scrivener can use better) into the project
file itself. The original copies on your disk will not be removed or altered in any
way. While it is possible to easily edit many file types from within Scrivener with an
external editor, if you wish to retain maximum external control over the files, you
might wish to use References (subsection 18.4.2) instead.
There are two ways to import documents from other programs:

1. Drag and Drop. In the Finder, select the files you wish to import and then just
drag them straight into the binder in Scrivener. (Note that you cannot drag files
from the Finder into the corkboard or outliner, but only into the binder.)

2. The File � Import... sub-menu provides a number of handy methods for bring-
ing existing material into your project binder. In cases where the imported
material has some sort of innate or optionally defined structure, Scrivener will
attempt to convert that into outline hierarchy. Files and folders will be turned
into likewise in the binder, documents with split markings can be set up to cre-
ate many documents upon import, and MultiMarkdown files with their innate
header structure will be converted to outline hierarchy

The first time you import anything, you will be presented with an informative
sheet describing important information pertaining to the various limitations of the
import feature. If you do not wish to view this warning every time you import files,
be sure to check “Do not show this warning again”.
When importing text documents, they are internally converted to the RTF format
so that Scrivener can work with them easily (again, note that this has no effect on the

79
80 CHAPTER 11. GATHERING MATERIAL

original file in the Finder, only on the copy that is made inside the Scrivener project
during the import process). This can cause some loss of data for some file types (see
“Compatibility Issues” below).
When using the import menu items, material will be imported according to where
the current binder selection is set. If you have a line selected in the binder, the material
will be inserted between the selected line and the one below it. If more than one item
is selected, the last item (in top-down fashion) will be used as the insertion point. This
means that some forms of import will be disabled depending on where your selection
is. If your selection is in the Draft, you will be unable to import media of any kind;
if your selection is in the Trash, all import will be disabled. The only exception to
this is importing another Scrivener project, and importing from SimpleText.ws, both
of which ignore binder selection and create top-level folders at the bottom of your
binder.
When using drag and drop, the dropped material will be placed wherever the inser-
tion indicator in the binder shows. If you try to drag media into the Draft, the drop
will be prohibited until you move the mouse out of that folder.

11.1.1 Supported File Formats

Scrivener supports the following text types for importing:

❧ RTFD (rich text format directory) A proprietary Apple rich text format com-
monly used by Mac Cocoa applications.

❧ RTF (rich text format) The universal rich text standard; note that this is often
the best format to use for importing from word processors, as Scrivener can
import footnotes, comments and images from RTF files but not from DOC
files.

❧ DOC & DOCX (Microsoft Word format) As with TextEdit, Scrivener ignores
images, footnotes and comments in DOC files, so if you have these elements in
your documents and need them preserved when importing, re-save the file as
RTF in Word and import the .rtf file into Scrivener instead of the .doc file.

❧ TXT (plain text) Note that Scrivener tries to import all plain text files using
Unicode UTF8 encoding; this should be absolutely fine in most cases, but if a
plain text document gets imported as gibberish you may need to convert it to
UTF8 format using TextEdit before importing it into Scrivener. If all else fails,
use copy and paste.

❧ FDX (Final Draft format) Using the standard document format for Final Draft,
you can import scripts directly into any area of the Binder and have those im-
ported documents converted to Scrivener’s script formatting. Better yet, use the
11.1. FILE IMPORT 81

File � Import and Split command to automatically split an FDX file into smaller
documents, with the ability to select where splits occur.

❧ OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) Commonly exported from out-

lining style applications, this format well let you transfer an outline tree from
one application to another. Many applications will also save text notes attached
to outline nodes, and if Scrivener detects them, it will use this material in the
main text editing area. This behaviour can be changed in the Import & Export
preference pane (section B.9). By default, each top-level outline node will be
imported into the binder with all of its children. To contain the entire import
in a single folder, you’ll find an option in the aforementioned preference pane.

❧ No extension. Documents with no extension get imported into Scrivener as

plain text files (note that this can often be a source of confusion - if you try to
import an RTF or DOC file that has no extension, when you import it into
Scrivener you will see all of the raw code because it will be imported as plain
text; make sure you add the appropriate extension before importing to ensure
that Scrivener recognises it as an word processor file).

As well as these text file types, Scrivener also supports all of the main image file
types (TIF, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP etc), all of the main QuickTime formats (MOV,
MPG, WAV, MP3 etc), PDF files and HTML, HTM and .webarchive file types for
importing saved web pages.

11.1.2 Web Page

Web Page: This lets you enter the URL of a web page that you would like to
import into Scrivener. The web page will be imported as a web archive into the
Scrivener project (note that you can convert it to a text file afterwards by using Doc-
uments � Convert � Web Archive to Text should you wish to edit the file). Note that
web pages cannot be imported into the Draft (which only supports text), so you must
ensure that a non-Draft item in the binder is selected for this item to be available.

11.1.3 MultiMarkdown File

This imports a MultiMarkdown text file into the project by splitting it into multiple
files based on its structure, and recreating that structure in the binder. The Meta-data
block will be inserted as the first document at the top level, which Compile will use
as auxiliary meta-data on top of any Compile Meta-data settings for MultiMarkdown.
Below that, each header found in the MMD file will be used to create a new document
at an appropriate level of depth with any text following that header up to the point of
the next header included in that document.
82 CHAPTER 11. GATHERING MATERIAL

11.1.4 Plain Text Formatted Screenplay

When importing screenplays from Movie Magic Screenwriter, Celtx, and other pro-
grams that export plain-text scripts, you can use this import utility to have them con-
verted into Scrivener’s script formatting automatically. You can optionally choose to
have the imported file split into multiple scene documents for you. If you are work-
ing in Final Draft, you should use the FDX format instead, with the Import and Split
utility.

11.1.5 From Simpletext.ws

If you use WriteRoom for the iPhone, or the SimpleText.ws service, you can login
using this utility and select from your available note files online, choosing which ones
to download into the binder. If you are using your own server to provide SimpleText
services, you can use the Options... button to supply the proper connection informa-
tion.
Scrivener does not support uploading documents to SimpleText.ws, if you wish
to use a note taking service that offers round-trip synchronisation, we recommend
Simplenote (section 13.1).

11.1.6 Scrivener Project

Allows you to import another Scrivener project. The files of the other project will
be imported into a folder entitled “Imported Project” at the bottom of the binder,
with the structure intact. Keywords and project references are also imported, and
any project notes are imported as a text document which is placed at the top of the
folder. This command can also be used to import—and therefore retrieve—corrupted
projects. If you have a project that has somehow become corrupted so that it can no
longer be opened in Scrivener, use File � Import � Scrivener Project to have Scrivener
do its best to retrieve all the data. All the text, synopses and notes will be retrieved,
along with snapshots. The structure cannot be retrieved for corrupted projects, how-
ever, and folders will be imported as text documents (which you can convert back to
folders using Documents � Convert � to Folder.

11.1.7 Import and Split

There are two modes for this tool:

1. Plain-text: when a plain-text file is selected you will be presented with a text
field. Type in the separator that was used in the text document to define sec-
tions. A common example might be a “#” character. Any line in the document
that contains only the text entered into this box will be removed from the file
and used to split the results in two. This process continues, further splitting the
work into subsequent binder items, until all of these lines have been processed.
11.2. SCRIVENER SERVICES 83

2. FDX: Final Draft files can be imported using this tool, and when they have been
selected the interface will change, giving you a selection of elements to choose
from. You can select any one element to split by, such as scene breaks. The
imported FDX file will be split into multiple binder items at these break points,
and the script formatting will be converted to Scrivener’s internal formatting.

In both cases, a portion of the first line in each sub-divided section will be used to
title the incoming items in the binder.

11.2 Scrivener Services

Scrivener installs several services that aid in grabbing text from other applications
and getting them straight into Scrivener without having to worry about manually
opening Scrivener and then pasting in the text yourself. The Services menu is not
found in the main menu bar, but in the Services submenu of the application menu
(which will be named according to whichever application currently has the focus).
In all cases, you will need text to be selected for the appropriate services to become
available. In versions of OS X prior to Snow Leopard, the menu options will appear
greyed out, but in all newer versions, they simply won’t appear until text is selected.

Services never show up: In some cases, you will need to log out of your account
and back in, after installing Scrivener for the system to properly register the ser-
vices.

Where the clipped text shows up will depend in part on the service chosen. In all
cases, the active project (the last project in use, even in Scrivener is in the background)
will be used as a target, and in some cases the active document or split will be used as
the target. In all cases, you must have at least one project open for services to work.
If you wish to collect text into Scrivener, but do not yet have a project created, you
can use the Scratch Pad (subsection B.1.4) instead.
Each method has an alternate form that will bring the selected text in unformatted.
This can be useful when clipping text from the web, which often has inappropriate
text colour and other formatting applied to it. All methods include an optional titling
prompt. If you supply a separator or title, this will be placed into the document sep-
arating it from whatever content already existed. When using the formatted services,
this title will be emboldened.
The following methods are available:

Append to Current Notes Targets active document split.

Selected text will be appended to the active document’s Notes field, which may
not appear to do anything unless you have the Inspector open.
84 CHAPTER 11. GATHERING MATERIAL

Append to Current Text Targets active document split.

Selected text will be appended to the active document’s main text area. If the
current document in Scrivener is not one that can hold text (for instance, if it is
an image document), the Scrivener icon will bounce and Scrivener will display a
warning panel telling you that you cannot append text to any open documents,
and asking if you would like to create a new clipping for the text instead.

Make New Clipping Targets active project.

Creates a new text document in the active project in Scrivener from the selected
text in the active application. Note that all new clippings are placed inside a
“Clippings” folder which will appear right at the bottom of the binder. This
service is slightly different from the above two in that the title you provide will
be used to name the clipping document that is created in the binder. A default,
date-based title will be provided in case you do not wish to bother with naming
them individually.

11.3 Scratch Pad Panel

The scratch pad is a universal Scrivener tool that is not tied to any particular project.
You can use it to jot down any notes that don’t fit anywhere else, or that arise whilst
you are looking at another application. You can access it by selecting Show Scratch
Pad from the Window � Show Scratch Pad menu ( – � ), or you can use the system
Dock by right-clicking on the Scrivener icon in the Dock and selecting “Scratch Pad”
(which will bring up the scratch pad over the currently active application). The
scratchpad is a floating panel, which means that you can have it open over the main
window (or in full screen) while you work on other documents or even other appli-
cations.
The top pane contains a list of all the note documents you currently have stored in
the scratch pad. New notes can be added by clicking the + button in the lower-left,
and notes you no longer need can be deleted with the delete button next to it. Deleted
notes will be moved to the system Trash, so if you make a mistake, you’ll find your
notes by clicking on the trash can in the Dock.
When projects are open, the Send to Project... sub-menu will provide you with a
list of all opened projects. There are two ways of bringing notes into the project:

1. Append Text To: The contents of the selected note will be appended after any
existing text of the document you select in the project sub-menu. A list of your
entire binder will be arranged so you can easily select any text item. Note that
media files will not be listed since they can not have text appended to them.

2. Import as Sub-Document Of: A new document will be created beneath the se-
lected document. This sub-menu operates in a similar fashion to the above,
11.4. TEXT APPENDING TOOLS 85

though it will allow you to select any of the items in the binder since all types
can contain children. The name of the scratch pad note will be used to populate
the title field for the new document.

Since Scratch Pad does not store your notes in any projects, it uses ordinary RTFD
files, which by default will be stored in your Documents folder, under “Scrivener
Scratch Pad Notes”. These are ordinary files that you can edit with other programs,
or you can even make your own RTF files in this directory, making it possible to add
notes while Scrivener is not even open.
To change the location of where notes are stored, use the General preferences pane
(section B.1). You may also set up a system-wide shortcut that will make it possible to
toggle the visibility of this panel while in other applications. Scrivener must be open
for this to work.

11.4 Text Appending Tools

Text selections can be easily appended to other texts within Scrivener, using two
handy methods.

Append Selection to Document This command is available in the contextual

menu, when right-clicking on selected text. The command will provide a sub-
menu populated with every item in the binder, prioritising any favourites to
the top of the list.
Best used when the target document is not visible, or you want to remain in the
source document after the append action.

Drag and Drop When working in the target document, and the source document is
visible in the binder, it will often be easiest to simple click and drag the docu-
ment you wish to append, into the area you wish the text to be dropped within
the current editor. As you drag the binder item into the editor, the cursor posi-
tion will move to indicate the drop point.
Best used when you want to combine an entire document into the current one
without switching to the source document first to copy the text or use the above
command.

If you wish to simply create a Scrivener Link (section 9.5) to a document, hold
down the Option key while dragging.

11.5 Print as PDF to Scrivener

If the information you wish to import into Scrivener is locked in a format that cannot
be used, a common way of capturing this information is to print the document from
86 CHAPTER 11. GATHERING MATERIAL

the source application, and when the print dialogue appears, use the PDF drop-down
menu to select the target application. When you first ran Scrivener, it installed the
necessary mechanism for this to work. You should see an option in that list to “Save
PDF to Scrivener”. The source application will assemble the print, save it as a PDF
file, and then transfer that file to your active project. Note that if this fails, you may
have accidentally attempted to import the PDF file into your draft folder. Make sure
another folder is selected before attempting to use this.
 Chapter 12

Project Planning

12.1 The Corkboard

The corkboard provides a familiar, visual way of viewing documents in your Binder.
You can arrange index cards in direct correlation with their order in the outline struc-
ture, or alternatively as a freeform corkboard where cards can be freely moved about
without directly impacting the structure of the book. We will explore the various
features in depth, shortly, but first let’s take a look at the index card itself.
In Scrivener, every document you create is a document and an index card and a
corkboard and an outline. This can be a little confusing at first, for in the real world,
an index card clearly cannot also be a corkboard. In Scrivener, though, you can choose
to view any document as a corkboard. Each index card on the corkboard represents
a document held within the selected document in the binder that is represented by
the corkboard itself. Another way of looking at it: the corkboard displays the sub-
documents of the selected document as editable index cards. At the same time, the
document displayed as a corkboard or outline also is also an index card (which holds
the synopsis of that document), and itself could also be viewed as an index card on a
corkboard or a row in the outliner.
If that is as clear as mud, I’d recommend going through the Quick Tour (chapter 6),
which introduces these concepts in an interactive tutorial fashion.

12.1.1 So What are Index Cards, Anyway?

One of the issues that takes some adjustment to get used to is the relationship between
index cards and the text of the book itself. You can type titles and text onto the card
just like you would the real thing, but there is sometimes confusion as to why that
text doesn’t get dropped into the book.
So let’s take a look at what an index card really is. There are really seven different
components to an index card, but depending on your preferences you might not see
them all at once.

1. The document icon

2. The document location numeral (optional)

87
88 CHAPTER 12. PROJECT PLANNING

Figure 12.1: A fully loaded index card using the rounded card theme.

3. The title of the document

4. The synopsis of the document

5. The colour label (colour swatch in top-right corner; optional)

6. The status stamp (diagonal text stamped across the middle; optional)

7. Keywords indicators (swatches along the right; optional)

At its most minimal, you’ll only see the icon, title, and synopsis, the three core
elements that cannot be removed. By default, keyword indicators will be shown, all
other items must be enabled in the View � Corkboard � sub-menu.
The icon, as you might have guessed, correlates directly with the icon that is visible
in the binder. In most cases, this will be one of the variations of a folder or text icon,
depending on its content status, but in some cases it might be a custom icon if you
have supplied it with one, or if you are viewing a corkboard outside of the Draft, it
might be some kind of media file icon.
The title is simply what you would expect: it is an editable name of the item as
it appears in the binder, or in the header bar when you are editing it or view its
corkboard. The title is also used by the compiler if it has been set up to consider it,
but we’ll come back to that in a later section.
The synopsis is meant to be a brief encapsulation of what the document’s purpose
is, but beyond that you can use it for whatever you like. Some people use it to keep
track of the things they need yet to do, others keep notes about what they’ve written
so far, and some don’t even fill them in at all either just leaving them blank or letting
Scrivener automatically generate a synopsis from the first few lines of text. Whatever
12.1. THE CORKBOARD 89

you end up using them for, it is important to realise that they are separate from the
actual text of the document, and in most cases what you type into them will not
appear in the final book. Use this to your advantage.
To edit either the title or the synopsis on a card, double-click in the text field you
wish to edit. Once editing, you can use Tab and Tab to navigate between cards and
their two editable fields, much like you would in a spreadsheet.

12.1.2 Linear Corkboard

The standard, or linear, corkboard displays a linked representation of one level in
your binder hierarchy. You can visualise this as a bit like looking at specimens on a
slide. Each slide has a slice of a tree branch on it. To look at a different (whether
deeper or higher) portion of the branch, you’ll need to load a different slide. The
corkboard displays one layer at a time, and by clicking up and down in the hierarchy
you can view different layers.
In the linear corkboard, moving items around will change the actual order of those
items in the binder. This makes it very useful for getting a “bird’s eye” view of a
section of your book, and enables you to affect changes upon the ordering of that
book with simple drag and drop. If you enable “drop-ons” in the Corkboard pref-
erence pane (section B.3), you’ll also be able to add cards to other cards, just as you
would drop items onto a folder. Many other appearance and behaviour settings can
be adjusted in that pane.

12.1.3 Freeform Corkboard

While freeform corkboards have the same “single layer” method of looking at your
binder structure, they do not have a rigid linked relationship with it. You can move
cards around freely and without any sort of grid constraints. To switch to freeform
view, click the small “stack of cards” icon in the segmented control in the lower-right
hand corner of the footer bar. Click the grid icon to its left to return to standard
linear mode.
You can freely switch between modes at will. Scrivener will store the position of
your cards in freeform mode even if you switch back to linear for a while. The two
modes remain discrete from one another, thought they do share some preferences
which you can read about in the following pages.

Commit Order
Freeform mode can be useful for playing with an ordering idea without actually im-
pacting binder order. You might wish to see how a sequence of scenes looks without
actually changing the order and confusing things up in the binder. If you reach a point
where you feel you have an improvement, you can choose to commit the freeform or-
der back to the binder. Click the Commit Order button in the footer bar.
90 CHAPTER 12. PROJECT PLANNING

Figure 12.2: Corkboard options pane

You will be given a few options to define your ordering style. Some work left to
right, other right to left; this panel will let you apply the ordering no matter which
way you work. Once you click the Okay buttton, nothing may appear to happen
unless you were paying attention to the binder. Committing the order will never
disrupt the cards position.
When using freeform corkboards for this purpose, you might find it useful to en-
able View � Corkboard � Show Card Numbers.

12.1.4 Corkboard Options

The Corkboard Options pane contains settings which are specific to each split.
Changes made to this pane will only impact the active split they have been made
in, letting you have two entirely different visual appearances per editor split. Any
changes made will be saved with the project.
To access the pane, click on the “Corkboard Options” footer bar button, as shown
(Figure 12.2).

Size There are two ways of arranging index cards within a corkboard. The first is to
set the size of cards and then let the corkboard wrap the cards as they fit, the
second is to provide a number of cards you always want to see in each row, and
let the corkboard resize the cards to fit that number. When the latter method is
in use (see below, for setting that), the Size control will be disabled.

Ratio Determines the size ration between height and width. By default this will
be 3 x 5, in order to emulate the appearance of real index cards. If you write
12.1. THE CORKBOARD 91

very long or very short synopses however, you might find that adjusting this to
produce shorter or taller cards will be of benefit.

Spacing The amount of space that will be drawn between index cards, both vertically
and horizontally. To pack more cards into the display at once, move the slider
toward the left. To spread out the cards and make them more readable, move
the slider to the right.
This option is only available in linear corkboards.

Cards Across Set this to the number of cards you would like to appear in each row.
When this option is anything but “Auto”. Setting this option will disable the
Size slider.
This option is only available in linear corkboards.

Keyword chips Set the maximum number of keyword colours to be “taped” to the
left side of the index card. When a document has more than that amount as-
signed to it, all keywords below the specified point will be ignored. You may
wish to adjust the Ratio to increase the height of the index card, if you want to
view large numbers of keyword chips at once.

Size to fit editor This option is not available when “Cards Across” is set to Auto.
When the Cards Across option is set to a number, this option will resize
the cards to fit the current editor width, which was the default behaviour in
Scrivener version 1. With this option off, the card size option will be used, and
cards will be forced to wrap at the specified number regardless of the window
size.
This option is only available in linear corkboards.

Use small font The small font settings can be configured in the Corkboard prefer-
ences pane (section B.3). Note that since you have full control over this and the
standard index card fonts, “small fonts” might not actually be any smaller than
the regular font size.

12.1.5 Stacked Corkboards

When more than one container of any type has been selected, the corkboard will
switch to a special stacking mode, displaying the contents of each container, separated
by a line. By default, this will wrap each container’s section as though it were a normal
corkboard; cards will be displayed according to your view settings. You can also select
between vertical or horizontal stacking by clicking on one of the left two buttons in
the segmented control, found on the right side of the footer bar, near the view options
button.
92 CHAPTER 12. PROJECT PLANNING

Horizontal mode will place all of the cards within each container on a single row,
so you can easily view them sequentially. Vertical mode will do likewise, but reserv-
ing one column for each stacked container. There is no functional difference between
these modes save for aesthetics and how they use screen space. Both are useful for
tracking the precise flow of index cards between a large selection of containers. You
might, for instance, use it to compare how scenes in a novel are balanced between
chapters, but using the label or keyword colours to scan for POV and character ap-
pearance frequency, or plot threads.
An optional numbering scheme can be applied with View � Corkboard � Number
per Section combined with the above option to “Show Card Numbers”, this will start
counting from one for each container stack. When disabled, cards will be numbered
sequentially even across container sections.

12.1.6 Placing Images on the Corkboard

When working in an area of the project outside of the draft folder, it is possible to
import graphics and other media into your binder. They will be supplied with spe-
cial icons, indicating the type of file they are. Graphics will be represented with a
small iconic image of a sunset photograph. When viewing a corkboard that contains
graphics, they will be drawn on the corkboard as a photograph, rather than the typ-
ical index card. This behaviour can be changed in the Corkboard preferences pane
(section B.3), if you prefer to see your summary synopsis for the image, instead.
You may also change how any item at all in the corkboard is represented in a way
which will always override the above preference. Even folders and standard text files
can be represented by a photograph, or vice versa, photographs can be represented
as index cards. For further instructions on how to do this, read the Synopsis Card
(section 18.1) overview, in the chapter on the Inspector.
This will only change the items representation on a corkboard. The text synopsis
will not be deleted, and can be edited using the outliner. The binder icon will not
change. If you graphic files have text icons, this means they have been dragged into a
text file, rather than imported directly. You can rectify this problem by dragging the
image from the text file back into the binder.

12.2 The Outliner

Outliner mode shows all of the subdocuments of the current document along with
their associated meta-data in a tabular format like a spreadsheet. The default configu-
ration will show the title and synopsis in the main column on the left. You can edit
either by double-clicking into the field you wish to edit. Once editing, you can move
between title and synopsis with the arrow keys, much like in an ordinary text editor.
Press Enter to confirm your changes.
12.3. PROJECT NOTES 93

You can expand or collapse the outline by clicking on the small arrow, or disclosure
arrow, to the left of the title. When viewing an outliner with only text documents,
you may not see any arrows. All items can be expanded completely with – 9. Con-
versely, all items can be completely closed with – 0. Additionally, you can hold
down the Option key and click on any arrow.
Most columns that allow you to edit their data will provide controls for doing so.

❧ Checkboxes: an example, “Page Break Before” will present a checkbox that you
can click to add a page break before that document when exporting. You can
impact many checkboxes at once by holding down the Option key and clicking
on a checkbox. All visible checkboxes will be impacted. This means if items
have been hidden with their disclosure arrows in the outliner, they will not be
impacted.

❧ Labels and Status will provide drop-down menus that you can use to adjust the
meta-data for a row. If you wish to impact more than one row at once, select
these rows first and then use right-click to access the contextual menu, instead
of clicking directly in the outliner.

❧ Columns with editable text, such as the Target column and custom-meta data
columns, will not provide a control, but you can simply double-click on the
field to change their value.

12.2.1 Adding and Removing Columns

To add or remove columns from the display, click the small >&gt; button in the col-
umn header bar, or use theView/Outliner Columns/‘ sub-menu. Column settings are
saved per editor split. So you can set up an outliner to perform a particular function
on the left side of your screen, and display extended information on the right side,
just to provide an example.

12.2.2 Sorting by Columns

To sort by columns, click on the column header. The first click will sort ascending,
clicking again will sort descending, and a third click will turn off sorting.
This form of sorting is “virtual”. It will not impact the actual order of the items in
the binder, so you can safely use it in conjunction with other methods of gathering
items or view them, without fear of disrupting your book structure.

12.3 Project Notes

As your project begins to take shape, you will no doubt have many ideas that you
wish to capture, but nowhere concrete to put them yet. Documents all have a sep-
arate note pane which can be accessed in the inspector, but if you don’t even have
94 CHAPTER 12. PROJECT PLANNING

an outline built yet, there are no documents to put notes within. There are a num-
ber of ways you could approach this problem, such as keeping notes as documents in
the Research folder or somewhere else outside of the Draft. You might also find the
Project Notes tool to be useful, as it is highly accessible from everywhere in the in-
terface. Project notes, like document notes, are a rich text field. That means you can
format within them however you please, even drag pictures into them. Project notes
can have different styling than document notes, making it easy to tell which you are
currently viewing or editing. These can be set up in the Appearances preference pane
(section B.2).

Project Notes and Exporting: Project notes are not set up to be easily exported.
There is no way to compile them at all, without physically copying and pasting
their contents into a document. Document notes can be included in various com-
pile options, as well as printing options, but project notes cannot; nor can they be
exported via any menu commands. So use project notes only for things which are
strictly internal to the project. If you intend to export or compile notes at some
point, it might be easier to take the original suggestion of using documents in the
binder, in a special folder just for this sort of thing.

12.3.1 Accessing Project Notes in the Inspector

For a simple example, open the inspector (click the blue ‘i’ button in the toolbar,
or press – I) and try clicking on anything in the binder that isn’t a document. A
good example of that is the Draft folder. The inspector will be replaced by a single
pane titled “Project notes” (if that didn’t happen, you might be viewing one of the
index cards in the corkboard that pops up. Just click once in the background of the
corkboard to de-select any cards. Type in a sample line here so we can track it around
the interface as we explore this feature.
This field is not only accessible from non-document items, but any document can
view the project notes in their inspector as well. Try click on one of those index
cards in the Draft corkboard and make sure the left-most button in the bottom of the
inspector is clicked (the one that looks like a little notepad). By default, this will show
you the document notes for that selected card. You can click on the header bar where
it says “Document Notes” and select “Project Notes” instead. The sample line that
you typed in above will become visible. You can easily flip between notes with – 6
while the inspector is open. You can see how accessible project notes are. Even when
viewing nothing at all they are visible, and they can always be selected when viewing
anything in the binder, even a movie.
There is another way to view project notes as well, and this will also allow you to
maintain multiple notepads. We’ll see how to access those in the rest of the interface
after we create a few. To view the project notepad, invoke the Window � Project Notes
menu command, or press – P. By default, this will look like a pad of ruled paper.
12.4. CAPTURING IDEAS WITH SCRATCH PAD 95

This can be adjusted in the Appearances preference pane. The text area is the same as
in the inspector, though since it is a window you can resize it easily to whatever size
you prefer.
See also: The Inspector (subsection 5.1.5).

12.3.2 Creating New Project Notepads

Along the top of the Project Notes window, you’ll see a tab labelled “General” and
on the right-hand side, a + button. Click that to create a new tab. Now you have two
project notebooks. These are completely independent from one another, and so can
be used to store different types of notes.
To rename a tab, double click on it. Tabs can also be re-ordered by clicking and
dragging on them.

12.3.3 Using Multiple Notepads in Inspector

Now that you have multiple notepads, you’ll probably want access to them in the
inspector as well. Navigating back to a document, click on the notes header again
and you’ll see the new tabs you created are available for selection. You can, as before,
use – 6 to flip between them all, and now – 6 is also available to rotate backward
through the list. Both of these commands wrap around the list so if you get to the top
or bottom they will keep going in the same direction in an endless cycle.

12.4 Capturing Ideas with Scratch Pad

The Scratch Pad is a floating window which can be called up or dismissed with –
� , or the Window � Show (Hide) Scratch Pad menu command. Read more about the
Scratch Pad Panel (section 11.3).

12.5 Custom Icons

If you wish to customise the appearance of your binder, it is easy to do so with custom
icons. All items can be modified, even three “core” folders: Draft, Research, and
Trash. Scrivener comes with many icons right out of the box. To see what is available,
simply click on the item you wish to customise in the binder, corkboard, or outliner,
and view the Documents � Change Icon � sub-menu. To reset an icon to its binder
default, select Documents � Change Icon � Reset Icon to Default. You can also set the
icon of the document you are currently editing. When using scrivenings, this will
only impact the document that your cursor is within.

Bulk Edits: Icons can be set to many items at once by selecting them all in the
binder, and right-clicking on them to choose Change Icon, or by using the Docu-
ments menu.
96 CHAPTER 12. PROJECT PLANNING

If you anticipate using a particular icon frequently, you might wish to make a docu-
ment template (subsection 8.5.3) for it, so that you do not have to constantly re-apply
icons to new files or folders.

12.5.1 Creating and Managing Custom Icons

It is easy to make your own icons, even if you do not know how to edit im-
ages in a graphics program. Load up the icon manager with Documents � Change
Icon � Manage Icons... and click the + button in the lower table, under “Icons in
Application Support” (we’ll explain what that means in the next section). Find the
graphics file you wish to convert to an icon on your disk with the file chooser, and
click the Open button. If the graphics file was larger than 16x16 pixels, Scrivener will
automatically resize it for you.

What to do about strange results: After you click the Open button, what you see
in the icon manager is what you will see in the binder and other views. If the icon
looks “strange” to you in this window, then it will look strange everywhere. Com-
mon problems are files with lots of white or transparent padding around them.
Open these files in a graphics editor (even Preview will do for simple cropping)
and use the software to cut out the excess padding. You can remove a bad attempt
and add it again using the above instructions until it looks right.
Another common problem is a white background. This may or may not be obvi-
ous in the icon browser, but will look bad in the binder. Removing a white back-
ground is more difficult. If you lack the expertise to do so, try selecting another
icon that is similar, from a different source.

Many icon packs for the Mac are distributed as Finder icons. If you would like to
use an icon that you have seen in the Finder, the easiest way to create a custom icon
for it is to follow these steps:

1. Select a file in the Finder that has this icon

2. Press – I to get info on that file

3. Click once in the small icon in the upper-left corner. You will see a halo sur-
round it when it is properly selected

4. Press – C to copy the icon

5. Open Preview.app and press – N to create a new file off of the clipboard

6. You will probably see several options to choose form in the sidebar, select the
smallest available option (Scrivener’s icons are only 16x16 pixels, so choosing a
large icon will actually result in less quality)
12.5. CUSTOM ICONS 97

7. Press – C once again to copy the single icon choice; and then –N to create
another new document from the clipboard
8. Now you can save this icon to your Desktop or some other convenient location.
It is best to use the PNG or TIFF format, leaving the “Alpha” box checked.

Optimum Icon Sizes: The “native” size of a Scrivener icon is 16x16 pixels, but
many of the built-in Scrivener icons are a few pixels smaller than that, to account
for a subtle shadow around them. Therefore if you want your custom icons to fit
in with the stock icons, it is best to size them a few pixels smaller than 16 pixels
square, but leave the graphic file that large; padding the extra space with transparent
pixels. For some types of icons, it will not be necessary to tweak the icon to fit in
like this, so you can easily leave it larger.

Icons can be dragged between the “Application Folder” section and the “Project
Package” section individually, or en masse. Icons in the lower list will be available to
all of your projects, past present and future. Icons in the top list will only be visible
to that project; however they can be duplicates of icons that are in the lower list. If
you’ve created an icon for a project, and later decide you’d like to use it everywhere,
you can simply drag and drop it into the Application Folder table. If you try to drag
an icon with an identical name from one list to another, you will be informed of the
collision, and confirmation will be required before it is replaced.
When Scrivener loads your project, it checks this location (which is printed below
the table in this sheet for your reference) for matching icon names, but before doing
so, it checks within the project package itself, first. This means any duplicate names
(not graphics) in the top list will override any names in the bottom list. This way,
you can set project overrides.

12.5.2 Custom Icon Portability

The final thing to consider is whether or not icons will be visible off of your com-
puter. If you’ve been adding icons to “Application Support” all along, if you take your
project file to another computer, when you load it all of those icons will disappear.
They will still be assigned, but since Scrivener cannot locate any replacement icons,
they will simply be ignored until you return to the original computer.
So when working on multiple computers, it is good idea to drag your Application
Folder list into the Project Package list. This way your icons will be available wher-
ever you go, and once you are on the second computer, you can drag them back into
its Application Folder list, installing them on that computer as well. Now you will
no longer need to put them in the Project Package list for them to appear on both
systems.
When collaborating with other individuals, it is a good idea to install custom icons
into the project package. This way everyone can see and use them.
 Chapter 13

Cloud Integration and Sharing

It is becoming increasingly important to have the ability to make your work instantly
available everywhere you go, no matter what device you might currently be using.
Sharing files amongst a circle of colleagues, proofers, and editors is also becoming
common. In conjunction with the Simplenote1 network, you can distribute copies of
text items from your binder to your note network, and access them from anywhere
using portable devices or other Simplenote-aware applications. In addition, a gener-
alised tool using simple files and folders has been provided, which can be integrated
with file sharing services such as DropBox2 , which can in turn be accessed by numer-
ous text editing applications on mobile platforms.
Synchronization should always be done with care, no matter what method you
use. Computers will always do exactly what we tell them to do, even if the outcome
wasn’t what our original intention was. Whenever using automated syncing tools, be
sure to double-check your settings, and backup frequently. Scrivener uses automatic
Snapshots to protect your work by default. This can mean a lot of automated Snap-
shots may build up over time, but given the unpredictability of all the many factors
involved, it’s generally a good idea to leave it turned on.

13.1 Simplenote
The Simplenote Sync wizard allows you to easily sync documents in your Scrivener
project with Simplenote, so that you can work on or create documents while on the
go using an iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or the Simplenote web application.
To use this feature, you will need to create a Simplenote account by downloading
the Simplenote app to your iPad, iPod or iPhone.

13.1.1 How It Works

Simplenote is a general purpose note-taking system and knows nothing of Scrivener
or Scrivener projects. When uploading documents to Simplenote, Scrivener therefore
places some information on the first line so that it is able to find and recognise these
1
http://simplenoteapp.com/
2
http://www.dropbox.com

98
13.1. SIMPLENOTE 99

documents again later, when you want to sync them. The information Scrivener
places on the first line is formatted like this:

MyDocumentName (MyProjectKeyword [ID])

--

“MyDocumentName” represents the document title as it appears in the binder,

“MyProjectKeyword” is the keyword you assign to the project in this wizard (see
below), and “ID” is an internal numerical ID that Scrivener assigns to all documents,
which users don’t normally see. In practice, it might look like this:

The Grand Finale (MyGreatNovel [756])

--

These three pieces of information in combination allow Scrivener to sync docu-

ments with Simplenote. You should therefore not edit this line in Simplenote. In
particular, if you edit the project keyword or numerical ID, Scrivener may not recog-
nise the Simplenote text as belonging to the current project, or worse, it may try to
sync it with the wrong document in Scrivener. It is thus generally recommended that
you leave this line alone. However, you can edit only the document title (the part
before the parentheses), which will update the title in Scrivener when synced, if you
really want to.

13.1.2 Getting Started

Login details The Simplenote Sync wizard will first prompt you to enter your login
details. Enter the e-mail address and password which you used to register for
Simplenote. You can check “Remember in keychain” to have your login details
remembered for the future.

Project keyword Along with your Simplenote login details, you must also enter a
project keyword if you have not already chosen one. This is used by Scrivener to
identify documents in Simplenote that are associated with the current project.
You should choose a keyword that is meaningful to the project, easy to remem-
ber, and that is unlikely to occur on the first line of documents in general. For
instance, you might use a wordsJammedTogether version of your project title,
such as “MyGreatNovel”.

NOTE: It is important to understand that Scrivener has no way of knowing which

documents in Simplenote are associated with which Scrivener project without this
keyword, so it is up to the user to choose a unique keyword for each project. If two
100 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

Figure 13.1: Simplenote Sync: Configuration

projects have the same keyword, you could run into problems, with each trying to
sync the other’s documents in Simplenote.
The project keyword is also very useful for viewing notes in Simplenote, because
you can use it as a search term to filter Simplenote so that only documents from your
project are shown in its file list. In addition, Scrivener will add this project keyword
as a tag to each document, so you can view by tags to isolate notes corresponding to a
specific project.
Once you have entered your login details and ensured that a project keyword has
been supplied, click on Continue. You won’t be prompted for the project keyword
or login details next time you sync the project with Simplenote, but if you need to
changing anything you can return to this pane by clicking on the Change Settings
button in Step 1. Note that the project keyword is shown in the top right of the
wizard in steps 1 and 2.

13.1.3 Step 1: Synchronizing Existing Documents

You will next be asked to choose which documents in the project you wish to sync
with Simplenote. You can choose to sync all documents in the current project or
13.1. SIMPLENOTE 101

Figure 13.2: Simplenote Sync: Step One

to specify individual documents. It is generally recommended that you don’t sync

all documents in a project, because this can clutter up Simplenote and severely slow
down synchronisations. Because Simplenote notes are stored on the cloud (that is,
online), Scrivener has to download them into memory every time you sync, so the
more notes you have in Simplenote, the longer the sync process will take.
If you choose to identify the documents you wish to sync (as recommended), you
are presented with separate lists for documents contained in the Draft folder and all
other text documents in the project (Simplenote is text-only so you can only choose
text documents). You should go through and tick the documents you wish to upload
to Simplenote for editing while on the go.
All documents that have already been uploaded and exist in Simplenote will be
ticked for syncing automatically. The icons next to the document titles will tell you
what will happen when you choose to sync, as follows:
The following options are available.

Take snapshots of affected documents before updating When ticked, Scrivener

will take a snapshot of documents being updated before overwriting them with
102 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

Icon Meaning
Green check The document is up to date both in the project and on
the Simplenote servers—the version in the project is the
same as the version in Simplenote.
Up arrow The document will be uploaded. This indicates either
that the version of the document in the Scrivener project
is newer than the one in Simplenote or that it has not yet
been uploaded at all and is now selected for syncing.
Down arrow The document will be downloaded. This indicates that
there is a newer version of the document in Simplenote
which will be downloaded in order to update the version
in the project.
Green asterisk The document needs updating in Simplenote. This green
asterisk appears if you choose (by deselecting) not to sync
a document that exists on the Simplenote servers but
which has been edited in Scrivener since the last sync.
If you select to sync the document, the asterisk will turn
into a green “up” arrow to indicate that it will be up-
loaded.
Red asterisk The document needs updating in Scrivener. This red as-
terisk appears if you choose (by deselecting) not to sync a
document that has a newer version available on the Sim-
plenote servers. If you select to sync the document, the
asterisk will turn into a red “down” arrow to indicate that
it will be downloaded.
No icon The document is not selected for syncing and does not
exist on the Simplenote servers.

the new version of the text. This ensures that you can return to the earlier
version if something goes wrong with the sync process. It is therefore highly
recommended that you keep this ticked, as it provides a good degree of protec-
tion against losing work in cases where you have inadvertently made changes to
the documents both in Scrivener and in Simplenote between syncs.

Delete from Simplenote any project documents not selected for syncing When
ticked, Scrivener will delete from Simplenote any files that were previously
uploaded from this project that are no longer ticked for syncing. This is
recommended in order to avoid clutter and slowing down Simplenote.

Once you are happy with the documents selected for sync, click Continue.

13.1.4 Step 2: Importing Documents From Simplenote

The final part of the wizard allows you to choose to import documents that exist in
Simplenote but which do not yet have corresponding files in the project. Given that
13.1. SIMPLENOTE 103

Figure 13.3: Simplenote Sync: Step two

Simplenote is a general purpose note-taking system, there may be many notes in your
Simplenote account that you do not wish to import, including notes belonging to
other Scrivener projects. This pane of the wizard therefore contains two lists.
The first list contains documents that seem to have been marked as belonging to
this project. These are documents that contain the project keyword (see above) on
the first line of the note enclosed in brackets, and which were not detected as already
belonging to the project. This makes it very easy to create a document in Simplenote
and mark it for importing into a particular Scrivener project: just write the document
title followed by the project keyword in brackets on the first line of the note, e.g:
MyNewNote (MyProjectKeyword)
--

(The two hyphens on the second line are optional.)

Note that there is no numerical ID in square brackets in this case because that is
something only Scrivener can assign (and when you sync these documents, Scrivener
will indeed add a numerical ID). Do not try to guess and assign your own. The doc-
uments in this first list are usually all ticked by default. The exception are documents
104 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

that Scrivener thinks might have been deleted from the project but are still on the
server—such documents appear in this list but are coloured red and are not ticked.
These are documents that contain the project keyword on the first line and a docu-
ment ID in square brackets, but for which the ID does match any existing documents
in the project. If you see notes coloured red in this list, the most likely explanation
is that you synced them in the past but have since deleted them from the project.
If you leave them unticked and have “Delete from Simplenote notes marked for this
project but not selected for syncing” checked, then these notes will be removed from
the Simplenote servers too.
The second list contains all other Simplenote documents, and these are not ticked
by default.
The following options are available:

Import selected documents into At the top of the “Import” pane you can choose
the folder in the project into which imported documents should be placed (the
Research folder is used by default). Only show containers in destination list
limits the documents shown in the list to folders and containers; if unchecked,
you can choose to import documents as the subdocuments of any file in the
project. (If you are unsure, just leave it ticked.)

Remove blank lines between paragraphs in imported notes Allows you to

choose whether or not empty lines should be removed in imported documents:
because Simplenote is plain text, it is common to separate paragraphs using
empty lines, but in Scrivener paragraphs are less likely to need blank lines
between them. (Note that when uploading documents to Simplenote, Scrivener
automatically places blank line padding between paragraphs to make them
easier to read in Simplenote.)

Delete from Simplenote notes marked for this project but not selected for syncing
When checked, any notes that appear in the “Notes marked for this project” list
that are not ticked for syncing will be removed from the Simplenote servers.
(Given that this could result in the deletion of the only copies of such notes,
you will be asked to confirm this deletion during sync.)

Once you are happy with the documents you have selected for synchronization
and import, click on Sync. You can choose Go Back at any point to make changes.

13.1.5 Clearing Out Simplenote

When you’ve reached a point in your project where you no longer require external
syncing, or would for any other reason like to clear off everything belonging to your
project, it is very easy to remove everything from the server pertaining to the project.
13.1. SIMPLENOTE 105

Before following these instructions, it might be a good idea to run one last sync
to make sure everything is up to date. Then, simply make sure the “Delete from
Simplenote notes marked for this project but not selected for syncing” is enabled in
Step 1 and Step 2, and then Click on any file checkbox currently enabled. This will
de-select everything and wipe out the related notes on Simplenote when you click the
Sync button. Note that nothing in the project will be impacted when you do this, it
will only clear out the associated notes on the Simplenote server.

13.1.6 Using Simplenote Tags

When syncing files, Scrivener will assign two tags to each file:

1. The tag: “Scrivener”, which will make it easy to find all files associated with
any Scrivener project.

2. A tag corresponding to the project keyword you selected above, making it easy
to filter your note list in the Simplenote application by project.

You can also add new documents to the project from Simplenote by simply adding
the project keyword tag to that document. When using this method, you needn’t
supply the project keyword in parentheses after the title; Scrivener will add it for
you.

13.1.7 Limitations
Formatting Note that Simplenote, like most mobile note-taking solutions, can only
store plain text, so all formatting—bold, italics, line spacing and so forth—will
be stripped in the versions of documents stored in Simplenote. Thus, when
updating documents in a project with corresponding versions that have been
edited in Simplenote, the following formatting limitations apply.

❧ Scrivener maintains the formatting of paragraphs within a note that have

not been changed.
❧ Any paragraphs that have been edited in Simplenote will lose their format-
ting in Scrivener.
❧ Images will be stripped from documents that have been edited in Sim-
plenote.
❧ To avoid having inline notation become confused with standard text,
Scrivener will export inline annotations by wrapping them in square ([
and ]) brackets. Inline footnotes will be similarly wrapped in curly braces
({ and }). However since Scrivener only updates changed paragraphs, unless
you edit a paragraph with one of these types, no loss of notation should
occur in the rest of the document. In the case that you do edit a paragraph
106 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

with notes in it, the bracket notation will be retained so that you can man-
ually fix the formatting. A helpful tip to remember is that you can copy
and paste from snapshots.
❧ Inspector comments and footnotes will not be exported. If the retention
of this information is important to you, it is recommended you use inline
notation with plain-text. You can easily convert your notes to inline with
the Format � Convert tools.

Number of Notes At the time of writing, Simplenote is limited to syncing 2,000

notes a day. Although this sounds a lot, if you end up syncing the entire con-
tents of ten projects that contain 200 text documents, you can soon end up with
a lot of notes in your Simplenote account. It is therefore strongly recommended
that you only sync the documents you need for working on while away from
Scrivener, and that you ensure the option is ticked to trim documents that are
not being synced. This will also help ensure that syncing remains as fast as
possible.

13.2 Synchronised Folders

Scrivener lets you prepare a special external folder on your disk, which it will use to
keep the text contents of a project up to date if (but not when) changes are made to the
contents of this folder. Because it works with simple flat list of files and a few built-
in folders, the format is uniquely suited for integrating with various folder sharing
services such as DropBox, SugarSync, MobileMe, and others. Using this feature, you
can share your work in progress with collaborators, agents, or editors, and later read
back any changes they have made directly into your project. Additionally, you could
use the feature in conjunction with mobile applications which are aware of DropBox,
making it possible to edit your project’s content on an iPad or iPhone, and later merge
those edits with your main project.

Important Note: This feature is not intended for keeping two versions of the same
project in sync and should not be used in such a manner - you should never try to
sync two different projects with the same folder. Rather, this feature is intended
to allow you to edit or share project files with other applications or on other plat-
forms, and then to have any changes made to the shared files reflected in your
Scrivener project. It also cannot be used to perform structural or outline order
modifications, just simple text content modifications.

13.2.1 Setting it Up
To access the feature, select the menu item, File � Sync � with External Folder.... A sheet
will drop down in the active project with some basic settings.
13.2. SYNCHRONISED FOLDERS 107

Figure 13.4: Sync External Folder Sheet

The first thing you will need to do is select a new, empty folder which Scrivener
will take over and use for syncing files with this project from this point forward.
Click the Choose... button (1), and navigate to the location where your cloud service
keeps your computer synchronised. For DropBox users, this will be the DropBox
folder in your home directory. Keep in mind that the folder you create will need to
be dedicated to this Scrivener project, and so must be initially empty. When you sync
documents with this folder, Scrivener will create one or more of the following three
subdirectories to store the synced files:

❧ “Draft” - stores documents contained inside Scrivener’s Draft folder.

❧ “Notes” - stores text documents contained elsewhere in the project.

108 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

❧ “Trashed Files” - stores documents that had been synced but have since been
removed from Scrivener, or which had some sort of conflict. You should occa-
sionally review these files and trash them if they are no longer required.

Do not select a folder which has already been used to synchronise another
Scrivener project! The only time you should choose an existing Scrivener sync folder
is if you are certain it is for the same project, and that you have total control over the
project (it isn’t being edited by anyone else with a copy of the project). It is safe to
transfer your Scrivener project from one computer to another, and then use the same
sync folder to share changes made on the second computer. While the project will
save your sync folder selection, the second computer might have a different address
to that spot and require you to reselect it. In that case, you will get a warning when
choosing the folder, but you can dismiss the warning and safely continue.
Using this feature in an attempt to merge projects, or to have more than one person
using a copy of the project, could result in lost data or confusing results. When in
doubt, always create a new folder.
This feature provides the following options:

Sync the contents of the Draft folder Enabled by default, the entire Draft folder
will be kept in sync with the folder when this is on.

Sync all other text documents in the project Keep the rest of the project up-to-
date with this option. Note it will only work with text files. Enabling this
option also activates the Import settings, below.

Sync only documents in collection If this is selected, only documents that are con-
tained in the collection specified in the pop-up list next to this checkbox will be
kept in sync with the folder. This essentially acts as a filter for the other two
above “Sync” options. For instance, if “Sync the contents of the Draft folder” is
selected but “Sync all other text documents” is not, and if this option is selected,
then only documents that are contained in the Draft folder and in the specified
collection will be synced.

Use file numbering By default, Scrivener will prefix each filename with a numeral
corresponding to its position in the binder. This will keep your files in the same
order as the binder, making them easier to find. Disabling this will remove the
number and the contents of the folder will be subject to ordinary alphanumeric
sorting based on the names of your binder items.

Take snapshots of affected documents before updating Enabled by default. With

this option turned on, Scrivener will automatically generate snapshots of each
document if it requires updating. If you prefer to handle snapshots manually,
you may want to turn this off. However be aware that leaving it on is the safest
13.2. SYNCHRONISED FOLDERS 109

option, particularly when both items have been accidentally edited separately.
Since Scrivener cannot determine which is meant to be the most up-to-date
other than by the file modification date, having snapshots available will allow
you to review the specific changes and decide how to manage conflicts should
they occur.

Check for changes in external folder on project open Enabled by default. When
this project is opened, it will briefly scan the contents of the external sync folder
and alert you if there are any changes detected, offering you the ability to update
your project immediately.

The Import section allows you to choose where files that have been created in the
Notes folder outside of Scrivener will be imported. You can select a target container
(Research by default), or uncheck the “Only show containers” option to choose any
item to become a container for imported files. This section will be disabled if “Sync
all other text documents in the project” is turned off, above.
The Format section determines how the files will be created in the sync folder.
Because script writers might not want to use a script format for notes and research
documents, there are separate options for files stored in the Draft folder and other
files in the project. There are three file formats available, and depending on your
intended purpose, selecting the right option will be important:

❧ Rich Text (RTF) This provides the cleanest transfer of information. Most format-
ting will be retained, especially when used in conjunction with a word processor
that handles all of Scrivener’s RTF features, such as Word or Nisus Writer. This
is the best option for collaborating with other individuals who do not have ac-
cess to Scrivener, or for working in a multi-platform setting yourself. (Note
that all versions of Microsoft Word fully support the RTF format.)

❧ Plain text (TXT)Formatting will be stripped when using this option. The
resulting files will be standard, plain-text files in the UTF-8 format. If they
are edited outside of Scrivener, when synced back in, all custom formatting in
paragraphs that have been edited will be lost. Scrivener will protect those areas
of the files which have not been edited, wherever possible. Scrivener does its
best to retain as much formatting as possible when re-syncing, but if formatting
is as important to your workflow as synchronising, then you will either need to
find a solution that can take advantage of RTF files, or save formatting for the
final stages in your writing project.

❧ Final Draft (FDX) Those working with Final Draft and scriptwriting mode
should use this setting, as it will retain all special script formatting in a round-
trip.
110 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

Automatically convert plain text paragraph spacing When this option is engaged,
Scrivener will intelligently convert your documents’ paragraph spacing to bet-
ter suit the intended environment. Since Plain-text editors cannot display
pseudo-spacing between paragraphs, this option will insert a second carriage
return to help set them apart from one another. Upon import, these extra car-
riage returns will be removed for you.

Using Folder Sync with the iPad and iPhone: If you intend to use this feature
in integration with Dropbox and the iPad or iPhone, you should always use the
plain-text format. At the time of this writing, there are no Dropbox aware editors
on the iOS that can read RTF files.

Keep this setting turned off if you require a certain standard, one way or the other,
and do not want Scrivener to adjust things for you. In particular, those working
in the MultiMarkdown workflow require double-spaced paragraphs, and so will not
want Scrivener to remove these spacings upon import. Note that this option only
affects plain text (TXT) documents.
Additional settings which impact export and import can be found in the applica-
tion preferences, under Import & Export. If you prefer to work with inline annotations
and footnotes, make sure the default setting in this pane has been changed, otherwise
your RTF comments will all become Inspector comments after a sync cycle. For
further documentation on this pane, see Import & Export Preferences (section B.9).

13.2.2 Usage
After clicking the Sync button for the first time, Scrivener will export a copy of every
item according to the options above. If the export folder is located in an area where it
is accessible to other computers and mobile devices, you can log on to DropBox with
your external application and start browsing the files as soon as they finish uploading.
Note that folders in the Scrivener project will appear as ordinary files in the sync
folder, because Scrivener folders can contain text.
Scrivener will export all items associated with your manuscript into the Draft folder.
If you choose to export non-Draft files, everything else will be placed into the Notes
folder. If you intend to start editing these files immediately, it would be a good idea
to close your Scrivener project at that point. While Scrivener will make scrupulous
copies of everything it changes (unless you’ve disabled snapshot generation), it’s best
to work in an alternating pattern to reduce confusion between which file is the most
up to date.
In a collaboration environment, it may not be possible to wait until the other per-
son is finished. It is safe to work in both the project and the exported copies at once,
so long as changed files are looked over after syncing. In most cases Scrivener will
select the best option for you, but in cases where both you and your colleague have
13.2. SYNCHRONISED FOLDERS 111

changed the file in between syncs, you might need to resolve the differences using
Snapshots and the Compare feature. For more information on using Snapshots, see
the Snapshots Pane (subsection 18.4.4).
When performing a folder sync, only resources which have changed (either in the
project or on the disk) will be synchronised, to save time. In the case where project
binder items have been updated from the disk, a list of these changed items will be
presented to you upon completion. The list will not contain items which have only
changed on the disk. Use this tool to browse through the changed items and review
them with the Snapshot Compare feature. This interface is much like Project Search,
and can be dismissed by clicking the X button in the bottom corner of the binder
footer bar.
For those that want to dig a little deeper, this is really a Collection that will be
created and titled “Synced Documents”, with each changed project document added
to it. Every time sync needs to change project files, it will look for a Collection named
“Synced Documents”, and replace the contents of it with the results of the latest sync,
so if you wish to retain a list of changed files for future reference, change the name of
the Collection to something else.
New files can be created while you are away from your project. Simply name
them whatever you would like them to be called in the binder, and save them to
the Draft or Notes folder. Scrivener will import files created in the external Draft
folder into the project’s Draft folder, and files created in the external Notes folder
into the designated auxiliary container (Research by default), when you sync. Initially
they will be imported at the bottom of their respective containers, but once you sort
them to their proper location, they will sync from that point forward in an ordinary
fashion.
When you have returned to your computer and wish to integrate any of the changes
made, simply load the project in Scrivener. It will, by default, check for any changed
files and alert you that your project is out of date. If you have this option disabled, or
the project is already open, you can manually activate the sync panel again, using the
menu item, and click the Sync button. Moments later, your project will be updated
with all of your external changes.

13.2.3 Tips for Working with Synced Folders

Here are a few guidelines which, if followed, will prevent problems in everyday use:

❧ Alternate between external files and the project. This is a rule of thumb, not a
strict rule. Scrivener reads the modification date of each file, and uses the latest
one to determine which should be the binder copy. It does not examine the
contents of files. It is thus best to alternate between using the external files,
and the project folder, rather than working in both separately for a while, and
trying to merge them later.
112 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

❧ Never try to sync one project’s folder with another. Even if those two
projects originally came from the same identical project, over time there will
be differences in each project that you cannot see, and these differences will
lead to confusing results at the best, and a loss of data at the worst. A sync
folder is meant to allow you to work without Scrivener for a while, and then
come back later and update your project with those changes. If you try to break
this rule, you will be warned by a dialogue box.

❧ When working from multiple computers sharing the same sync folder, always make
sure your project file is the most current. It is perfectly safe to use the same project
to sync to a shared folder from multiple computers provided you are always
using the most recent version of the project and are not trying to bend the
feature to sync two different versions of the project (see above). You will receive
a warning dialogue the first time you try on each system, but in this one case it
can be ignored.

❧ Avoid editing the filename. The numeric value on the very end of the filename
enclosed in hyphens, such as “-78-” (the precise number will be different for
each item), is vital to keeping the file identifiable by the item it is linked with
in the project; damaging the number could produce unintended duplication, or
data loss in some cases3 .

❧ Session target goals will include synced changes. When updating project files with
external edits, the session target will be incremented by the amount of text that
has been added. If you wish to keep track of your session target separately, you
might wish to reset the counter after updating your project.

❧ If using mixed inspector comments and inline annotations: When using sync fold-
ers, it is best to use either all Inspector footnotes and comments, or all inline
annotations and footnotes, and set your Import & Export preferences accord-
ingly. In some rare cases, comments adjacent to annotations can result in one
of the notes getting lost, due to the limitations of the RTF format.

Dropbox and iOS: When using Dropbox with the iPad or iPhone, you can elect
to have documents stored on your device. Ordinarily, you need an active Internet
connection to view files, but when a file has been marked as a “Favorite” it will be
stored on your device for perusal at any time. Note that if you are using a third-
party editor to interface with Dropbox and allow remote editing, this trick will
3
You can safely edit the filename so long as the dashed number is untouched. When a file has been
edited in the sync folder, if the binder name portion of the filename is changed, the sync function will
update the binder with the new name. This is considered an advanced feature, however, to be used with
care. Note that changing the sequence number will have no effect on the binder order. Also note that
if all you changed is the filename, nothing will happen due to the way modification dates are stamped
on the filesystem. Advanced users could use the UNIX command, touch, to force an update.
13.2. SYNCHRONISED FOLDERS 113

not work, but many of these editors store their text files on your device as well,
and any changes made to them will be synced the next time you have an Internet
connexion.

If you are using this feature in conjunction with another author or editor, make
sure to communicate these ground rules with them where relevant. Since it is not
possible for Scrivener to guess at your intentions, good communication over where
new files should go, and what is being independently worked upon will be beneficial.

13.2.4 Limitations
RTF Format Limitations: When using the RTF export format, you can expect zero
to minimal loss of formatting information when used in conjunction with a good
word processor. There are a few features in Scrivener that have no comparison in
RTF, such as multi-colour annotations and comments, and Scrivener links, which
will be normalised or lost, respectively.

❧ If you use sequential annotations separated only by colour, it would be a good

idea to move them so that they have a word or two in between them, or separate
them by putting them on different lines.

❧ Expect loss of some features when using RTF editors that do not fully support
the RTF specifications, such as TextEdit, Pages and similar. Footnotes, com-
ments, lists, images, and tables are the most common items which have limited
support. Using fully-featured word processors with good RTF support, such as
Word or Nisus Writer Pro will help you avoid this, and even be quite useful as
comments can be used to aid in the collaboration process.

Plain-text Limitations: Since it is impossible to convey formatting in plain-text

without some sort of visible mark-up, Scrivener takes steps to protect as much of
your formatting as it possibly can. As with RTF, only those files which have been
edited will be transferred back to your project, but further, each changed file will
be analysed at the paragraph level and only replace those paragraphs that have been
changed, leaving the rest of the file untouched with its original formatting.

❧ To avoid having inline notation become confused with standard text, Scrivener
will export inline annotations by wrapping them in square ([ and ]) brackets.
Inline footnotes will be similarly wrapped in curly braces ({ and }). However
since Scrivener only updates changed paragraphs, unless you edit a paragraph
with one of these types, no loss of notation should occur in the rest of the
document. In the case that you do edit a paragraph with notes in it, the bracket
notation will be retained so that you can manually fix the formatting. A helpful
tip to remember is that you can copy and paste from snapshots.
114 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

❧ Inspector comments and footnotes will not be exported. If the retention of

this information is important to you, it is recommended you use inline no-
tation with plain-text. You can easily convert your notes to inline with the
Format � Convert tools.

❧ Inline images will be stripped from documents that have been edited outside of
Scrivener.

13.3 SimpleText.ws
The SimpleText.ws service is very simple, and only supports one-way import access
to files which have been created with tools that support the SimpleText.ws4 environ-
ment.
The feature can be found in the File � Import � From SimpleText.wsmenu item (sub-
section 11.1.5).

13.4 Index Card for iPad

Index Card for the iPad is a corkboard and outlining app that was partly inspired by
Scrivener. It allows you to create projects comprising index cards (each of which holds
a title and synopsis, just like Scrivener’s index cards) which can be moved around and
edited on a virtual corkboard, or in a list view resembling Scrivener’s outliner. It
is therefore an ideal companion application, and using Scrivener’s “Sync with Index
Card for iPad” feature you can package up parts of your Scrivener project for editing
and restructuring in Index Card on the iPad.
The synchronisation process involves creating a collection in Scrivener, saving it as
an .indexcard file that can be read by Index Card on the iPad, and later updating the
collection in Scrivener from the updated .indexcard file written out by Index Card
after you have made changes on the iPad. There are therefore four steps involved in
syncing with Index Card:

1. Creating a Collection to hold the documents to sync.

2. Saving an .indexcard file to your Dropbox folder.

3. Opening, editing and saving the .indexcard file in Index Card on the iPad.

4. Updating the Collection in Scrivener with any changes you have made.

Because syncing with Index Card relies on Dropbox, before you begin, you will
need to ensure that you have Dropbox installed on both your computer and your
4
http://www.simpletext.ws/
13.4. INDEX CARD FOR IPAD 115

iPad. (Dropbox is a service that allows you to sync files between different devices,
which has a free option.) You can download the desktop version of Dropbox5 .
The iPad version can be downloaded from the App Store.
You will of course also need Index Card6 installed on your iPad.

13.4.1 Creating a Collection

Index Card projects consist of a single stack of index cards that can be moved around
on a corkboard. Because Index Card expects a flat list of cards, it is not possible to
sync the entire structure of a Scrivener project, or even all of the contents of the Draft
folder, which will most likely contain documents inside folders several levels deep.
For this reason, the Collections feature is used to sync with Index Card. The Col-
lections feature allows you to maintain different flat lists of any documents in the
project, and which can be ordered however you wish. You should thus create a col-
lection before you sync with Index Card. After editing your project in Index Card,
you can easily assign your new arrangement of documents to the binder.
To create a collection, first select the documents you wish to take to Index Card in
the binder. Next, click on the “Collections” icon in the toolbar to reveal the collec-
tions pane if it is not already visible (or select View � Collections � Show Collections).
Finally, click on the + button in the collections header bar.
A new collection will be created that contains the documents you had selected. You
can rename the collection to anything you like, but something meaningful such as
“Index Card Sync” might be a good idea. (You can change the colour of the collection
by double-clicking on the colour chip in its tab when the collection is active.)

Adding Whole Folders To Collections: If you wish to include the contents of

an entire folder in the collection, select the folder and hold down the Option key
down while clicking on the “Add Collection” button.

To add other documents to the your collection, you can just drag them from the
binder onto the collection tab.
Read Using Collections (section 8.4) for more information on collections.

13.4.2 Saving the Index Card File to Dropbox

We have now set up a collection ready for syncing with Index Card. The next step is
to create a file in our Dropbox folder that Index Card will be able to read. To do so,
use File � Sync � with Index Card for iPad...
Choose the collection you created in the first step from the “Collection” pop-up
button, and then click on “Create or Update Index Card File. . . ”.
5
http://www.getdropbox.com
6
http://www.denvog.com/iphone/IndexCard
116 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

The “Save As” panel will appear, and it should automatically point to the “Index-
Card” folder inside your Dropbox folder. Index Card creates the “IndexCard” sub-
folder in Dropbox whenever you sync, so if you haven’t saved any files from Index
Card yet, it may not exist. If it doesn’t, create it yourself—navigate to your Dropbox
folder, click on “New Folder”, and name the new folder “IndexCard” (with no space).
Choose a name for the .indexcard file (or use the default one that has been entered
automatically) and click on “Save”. At this point, an .indexcard file will be saved into
the Dropbox/IndexCard folder, and the sync sheet will close. You are now ready to
fire up your iPad and edit your index cards on the go.

13.4.3 Editing the File in Index Card on the iPad

To open the .indexcard file on your iPad, ensure that you have both Dropbox and
Index Card installed, and then follow these instructions:

1. Open the Dropbox app on your iPad.

2. In the Dropbox app, navigate to the .indexcard file you saved in the previous
step.

3. Select the .indexcard file so that it opens in the Dropbox preview pane. It will
open as an XML document (plain text with a lot of greater-than and less-than
symbols). We’re not worried about this, though.

4. Click on the “Open In” button in the top-right of Dropbox—you will be given
the option of opening the file in Index Card.

Click on “Index Card” to open the project in the Index Card app. You should now
be presented with the documents from your Scrivener collection as index cards on
Index Card’s own corkboard. The title of the Index Card project will be the title of
your Scrivener project with the name of the collection you synced in brackets.
You can now move the cards around, edit their titles and synopses, and create new
cards, just as you would in any Index Card project.

13.4.4 Updating the Collection in Scrivener

When you get back to your computer, you’ll want to update your Scrivener project
with the changes you have made in Index Card. To do this, you’ll first need to update
the .indexcard file in the Dropbox/IndexCard folder, as follows:

1. Click on the “Send” button in the top-right of the header bar in Index Card and
select “Share via Dropbox” from the list that appears.
13.4. INDEX CARD FOR IPAD 117

2. At this point, Index Card, detecting that the file already exists, may ask you
whether you wish to overwrite the existing file or save using a different file
name. Choose to overwrite the existing file.

3. Now, back in Scrivener, go to File � Sync � with Index Card for iPad... again.
The collection we chose to sync should already be selected for us in the pop-up
button.

4. This time, choose “Update Collection from Index Card File. . . ”, because we
want to update our project with the changes we made in Index Card.

5. The standard Open panel will appear, and the .indexcard file that you edited
should already be selected for you. If not, select it. Then click “Open”.

The collection in your Scrivener project should immediately be updated to reflect

the changes you made on your iPad—the order will be changed if you moved things
around, the titles and synopses of any documents you edited will be updated, and any
new index cards you created will appear as new documents in the collection. (When
you return to the binder, you will find any new documents that were created have
been placed in a folder below the Research folder, which will be named using the title
of the collection followed by “Unsorted” in parentheses.) Note that if you deleted
any index cards in Index Card on the iPad, they will be removed from the collection
in Scrivener but will not be deleted from the binder.

Committing Rearrangements to the Binder

Collections exist in parallel to the binder, allowing you to gather disparate documents
from all over the binder in arbitrary lists in any order you wish. If you’ve spent a lot of
time in Index Card on the iPad rearranging the cards and finding their most effective
order, at some point you will want to take that arrangement to the binder rather than
having it sectioned off in a collection. This is easy to do, and there are several ways of
doing it. Here are the easiest:
With the collection visible, select all of the documents in the collection list. Then,
either:

❧ Ctrl-click on the selection, select “Move To” from the contextual menu that ap-
pears, and then choose a folder into which to move the documents. When you
do so, the binder will reappear to show the documents in their new location.

❧ Drag the selected documents onto the “Binder” tab in the Collections pane and
hold them there. After a second, the collections list will disappear to be replaced
by the binder, and you can drag and drop the documents wherever you want to
place them.
118 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

Note that in both cases, the collection remains unaffected, and continues to exist
separately.
When you next want to take your work with you on the iPad, once more ensure
that the collection contains the documents you want to take, and go through the pro-
cess again, overwriting the old .indexcard file with one generated from your updated
collection.

Syncing Multiple Collections: It is possible to sync more than one collection in

a project with Index Card—each collection will appear in Index Card as a separate
project. However, bear in mind that if any documents appear in more than one
collection, any edits you make to them in one Index Card project could get over-
ridden were you to later sync with an Index Card project created from another
collection that contains some of the same documents.

Also note that Scrivener will warn you if you try to sync with an Index Card file
that was not created with the selected collection.
Part III

Writing

119
120 CHAPTER 13. CLOUD INTEGRATION AND SHARING

When it comes to the process of writing itself, nobody can tell you how it should be
done. Each author has their own methods, their own rituals, and their own favourite
tactics. Scrivener was designed to recognise that everyone is different, and as a result
the program features an extraordinarily amount of flexibility and interface power.
You will find workflows and tools for all manner of writing projects, from a doctoral
thesis, the next blockbuster screenplay, to a novel, to a collaborative scientific article,
to biographies, and much more. Because of this, you will find that there are many
features you just won’t need! That is fine, because Scrivener has also been designed to
keep these features out of your way unless you need them.
This section contains a few chapters which could be considered optional. In partic-
ular, screenwriting and bibliographies can be safely skipped unless your works require
these functions.
Everyone should read the first chapter on Writing and Editing, as this will intro-
duce the full power of the editor, and if you haven’t already done so, at least skim the
prior part on preparation. Vital concepts have been introduced there, and many of
the following chapters will build off of those concepts.
The topics that will be covered in this part are:

❧ Writing and Editing (chapter 14): Full documentation of the various editor
views, full screen, formatting, layout, and tools to enhance the editing and revi-
sion processes.

❧ Page View (chapter 15): An alternate writing environment that emulates the
printed page. Useful for workflows which revolve around page counts, or just as
an aesthetic way of watching your work build pages, instead of a single scrolling
view.

❧ Full Screen (chapter 16): Scrivener’s full screen feature. Wipe aside all distrac-
tions and just write!

❧ Annotations and Footnotes (chapter 17): Learn how to comment as you write
using either Scrivener’s exclusive in-line annotation tool, or linked comments.
Also covers footnotes/endnotes; marker highlighting; and revision pens.

❧ Inspector (chapter 18): All about the inspector, which displays document meta-
data, notation, references, and more.

❧ QuickReference (chapter 19): Taking QuickLook to the next level. Open items
in persistent, editable windows. When two splits aren’t enough, use QuickRef-
erences.

❧ Scriptwriting (chapter 20): While Scrivener is not meant to replace an indus-

trial strength scriptwriting tool, it can still function as a very adept first-draft
13.4. INDEX CARD FOR IPAD 121

scriptwriting solution, and produce exports which will work seamlessly in in-
dustry standard applications, like Final Draft.

❧ Using MultiMarkdown (chapter 22): If you prefer to write in a structured or

semantic style rather than with a rich text focus, MultiMarkdown provides a
simple, easy to read way of defining and using styles which can be exported to
word processors, web pages, and LATEX.
 Chapter 14

Writing and Editing

Scrivener uses the standard OS X text engine for rendering its text, and therefore all
of the features of OS X’s rich text editing system (which are showcased in Apple’s
TextEdit application) are available1 . Scrivener also provides some extra basic word
processing features. Most of these features are available via the Text menu, so it is
recommended that you familiarise yourself with the Text menu help section (sec-
tion A.3).

The text engine, and Mac OS X: Please note that because Scrivener uses the OS
X text system, its behaviour in this regard is defined by Apple. The way double-
and triple-clicking on text works, the occasional awkwardness of features such as
tables and bulleted lists, font changes and so forth, are all governed by the OS X text
system, which is programmed by Apple and is out of my hands. On the other hand,
this also means you get access to many sophisticated tools which would otherwise
take years to program.

14.1 Rich Text Editing Philosophy

Scrivener supports a rich text editing environment, which means that it is loosely
“what you see is what you get”. Unlike word processors or desktop layout applica-
tions, however, the precise formatting that you use when writing in Scrivener may in
fact look nothing at all like the final product. The compiler will be covered in greater
detail in a later section (chapter 24), but suffice to say that you can work in one font,
say the default Optima, but publish in an industry standard font like Courier, with-
out having to change your source text. What this means for you is that certain aspects
of your editing can be conveyed through the compiler, like a range of italicised text,
while the base font itself can be changed beneath that. Scrivener’s editor can thus
be used like a typical word processor, but with the knowledge that rich text format-
ting can be altered later on to produce different results. Scrivener is not intended
to be a full-blown word processor, but rather a word generating environment. It is
1
The only exception to this is that in Scrivener, you are not allowed to paste QuickTime files
into the text. This is because of a bug in OS X that can cause crashes or strange behaviour when a
QuickTime file is contained inside a single piece of text that is being viewed in two panes, such as
Scrivener’s split view.

122
14.2. EDITING BASICS 123

not a layout tool, but a tool for cutting the text that will become your book. Many
authors who have stricter formatting requirements, such as scriptwriters, will start
their projects in Scrivener, and end in a word processor or desktop publishing, or
some other specialised application.
You might be wondering if Scrivener offers a plain-text editing environment as
well. There is no plain text option, as Scrivener is a writer’s tool rather than a strict
text editor, and many of the tools that are made available to you for writing rely upon
rich text to function, such as highlight, annotating, and marking revisions. Even if
you do not require formatting, you will probably find the formatting tools useful in
the writing process, especially if you are compiling to plain-text, where they will all
be safely stripped out and invisible to the reader.

Emulating plain-text: If you find working in a plain-text environment to be more

productive, you may wish to set the default font in Formatting Preferences to one
that does not support rich text features, such as Monaco (Monaco 10-point is used
by most plain text editors on the Mac), and change the ruler settings so that there
are no indents or paragraph spacing. This set-up will emulate a plain-text environ-
ment whilst still allowing features such as annotations and highlighting.

Someone writing a novel or short story could very well do the whole thing in
Scrivener, including the final print for submission and export to Word format for
sending an electronic copy. Other writers are likely to export from Scrivener and
then use an intermediary tool dedicated to the sort of formatting they require to
prepare the final draft. Scrivener concentrates on the drafting stage of a long text; it
is not intended to replace your word processor entirely.
When using MultiMarkdown to format your work, you will find that some for-
matting, such as inline images, footnotes, and so forth will be converted to MMD
markings during compile. Most formatting, however, will be stripped and thus can
be useful in an annotation setting.

14.2 Editing Basics

If you are unfamiliar with OS X’s standard text engine, it might be a good idea to
take a look at the Help file of TextEdit (which can be found in your computer’s
Applications folder), which covers the basics of text editing on OS X in some detail.
The bare essentials can be found below.

14.2.1 Keyboard Shortcuts and Modifier Keys

❧ ArrowKeys: Extend current selection in the direction of the arrow key that is
used.

❧ LeftArrow or RightArrow: Extend the selection by word.

124 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

❧ UpArrow or DownArrow: Extend the selection by paragraphs.

❧ – UpArrow: Select from the caret position to the top of the editor.

❧ – DownArrow: Select from the caret position to the bottom of the editor.

❧ – LeftArrow or RightArrow:Select from caret position to beginning or end of

line respectively. Note the definition of line is not paragraph. To select to the
beginning or end of the paragraph, use UpArrow or DownArrow.

❧ MouseDrag: Extend the current selection using the mouse.

❧ – MouseDrag: By holding down the Command key and selecting using the
mouse, you can select several areas of non-consecutive text.

❧ Double-click: Select word. Can be used in conjunction with dragging to select

a range by word.

❧ Triple-click: Select paragraph. Can be used in conjunction with dragging to

select a range by paragraph.

14.2.2 Contextual Menu for the Text Editor

The text view’s contextual menu contains the standard OS X text view contextual
menu commands such as Cut, Copy, Paste, Spelling and so forth, along with several
commands specific to Scrivener. Several common tools, such as Spotlight searching,
dictionary access, and selected word/character counts2 , and so forth have been moved
to the Writing Tools sub-menu. If a selection has not already been made, right-clicking
will select whatever word was under the mouse pointer.
In addition to the basic system tool, there are also a number of additional com-
mands available. The Scrivener-specific commands (the appearance of which will de-
pend on the selection) are listed below:

Text Editing Contextual Menu

❧ Split at Selection: Splits the current document into two documents at the se-
lection point (the current blinking cursor point, or the initiating edge of the
selection, which will be on the left by default, or on the right when using right-
to-left languages).

❧ Split with Selection as Title: Splits the current document into two documents
using the current selected text as the title for the newly created document. The
selection will remain after splitting, making it easy to remove the redundant
2
If you have used version 1, you will want to note that the footer bar now counts word and charac-
ter counts for the active selection, whenever a selection is made in the editor. The old contextual menu
counter is available for scriptwriters, and others who have disabled the footer bar view.
14.2. EDITING BASICS 125

title text if necessary, or style it like a header. For more details on splitting doc-
uments, read Managing Documents with Split and Merge (subsection 14.3.2).

❧ Append Selection to Document: Provides a menu of all documents in the binder.

Selecting a document from this menu will cause the selected text in the editor to
be appended to the document selected from the menu. Read Gathering Material
(chapter 11) for more tips on moving text around and organising information
in the Binder.

❧ Set Selected Text as Title: Sets the title of the current document to the text se-
lected in the editor.

❧ Add Selection to Auto-Complete List: Adds the selected text to the project’s
auto-complete list, which can be maintained with the Project � Auto-Complete
List... menu command. Read more about this feature in Auto-Completion (sec-
tion 14.10).

❧ Scrivener Link: Allows you to create a link to another document in the project
within the text. Read more about linking items together in Scrivener Links
(section 9.5).

❧ Text Color: Provides the text colour menu, from which you can select from
the built-in colours, or those custom colours you have saved into your colour
palette.

❧ Highlight: Provides the highlight menu, allowing you to select a highlight

colour for the selected text, or to clear it. Read more about this and the above
feature in Text Colour and Highlights (section 17.4).

Images Contextual Menu

These options appear when right-clicking on an image that has been placed within
the text stream (subsection 14.4.6).

❧ Save As Picture. . . : Available if you have clicked on an inline image. Allows you
to save the image to disk. You can also drag images into the Binder.

❧ Scale Image. . . : Available if you have clicked on an inline image. Brings up the
image scaling panel. Read more about Inline Images, here (subsection 14.4.6)

Linked inline images (section 14.4.6) also provide the ability to edit the image in
your default image editing software, via Open in External Editor.
126 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

Tables Contextual Menu

When right-clicking within a table in the editor, additional options will be provided:

❧ Table. . . : Accesses the standard OS X table palette, which provides formatting,

cell dimension, and nesting, and cell split and merge features.

❧ Add Row Above/Below: Will insert a new table row of empty cells above or
below the row in which you right-clicked.

❧ Add Column Before/After: Inserts a new table column of empty cells to the left
or right of the column in which you right-clicked.

❧ Delete Row/Column: Will delete the entire row or column in which the cell
you right-clicked upon is located.

❧ Borders: This sub-menu provides some handy border tools.

❧ Distribute Rows/Columns Evenly: Adjusts the height or width of all rows or

columns so that every cell has the same dimensions.

Lists Contextual Menu

Only one extra option over the base text system has been added for list management:

❧ Re-number List: In rare cases, especially when pasting lists from other word
processors like Word, list numbering will sometimes not register properly. Use
this command to attempt to repair these lists.

14.2.3 Spell Checking

Scrivener uses OS X’s built-in spell checker. Spell checking as you type can be turned
on or off via the Edit � Spelling and Grammar � sub-menu or by hitting – \. You
can use the contextual menu to target misspelled words, and get suggested spellings,
or use the spell checker (also available in that sub-menu). When “Check Spelling as
You Type” is turned on, words that OS X thinks you have misspelled are underlined
in red.

14.3 Editing with Scrivener

Beyond the basics of text editing, which are common to many applications, Scrivener
provides further tools, specifically designed for writers, in its editor interface. The
rest of this chapter will focus on these tools in a comprehensive fashion, where you
can glance through the list of topics covered and pick which items you feel are best
suited to your writing style and the task in hand. You could read this section cover
to cover, but it is mean to be a collection of individual nuggets that you can learn
independently, as you gradually build up your knowledge of the application.
14.3. EDITING WITH SCRIVENER 127

14.3.1 Scaling Text

The text of the editor can be scaled up and down, without affecting the font size, via
the ability to zoom the scale of the text. Each split can have its own zoom setting;
additionally the full screen mode can have its own independent zoom setting as well.
All of these settings are preserved between sessions and saved into the project file
itself.
In the standard text editor interface, zoom can be set using the zoom tool in the
footer bar (section 14.6). In full screen, this same tool is provided within the HUD
(section 16.2). You can also use the menu commands:

1. View � Zoom � Zoom In ( – .) to increase the size of the text.

2. View � Zoom � Zoom Out ( – ,) to decrease the size of the text.

If you prefer to always work from a certain zoom setting, the default zoom level
for both standard editors and the full screen editor can be adjusted in the Editor
preference pane (section B.6), and the Full Screen preferences pane (section B.4), re-
spectively. Note that this setting will impact all new projects, or recently upgraded
projects, not projects that have already been created.

14.3.2 Managing Documents with Split and Merge

The ability to expand and contract the outline in a fashion which best suits how you
work is important, and Scrivener provides several tools which make it easy to fashion
your outline into as broad or detailed a map as you require.
Before discussing the specific tools which let you cut apart documents or sew them
back together, it would be useful to also discuss a few methods that you can use to
mitigate the regular need for these tools.
When you wish to merge two or more documents together, it is good to ask
whether or not this action is necessary. With most applications, and thus the habits
we have cultivated from using them, the answer to whether or not one should merge
is, yes. However Scrivener offers two powerful answers for the merging problem.
First, for visualising smaller pieces of a document as a single document (section 14.12),
but only temporarily, you can select any container in the binder, or even just a scat-
tering of items, and choose to view and edit them as a single document. Second,
the compilation (chapter 24) system enables you to publish your final manuscript as a
single document, no matter how many pieces it may be divided into within Scrivener.
For splitting long documents, in some cases you may be able to utilise two im-
port tools which do most, if not all, of the splitting for you. The first tool,
File � Import � Import and Split..., will let you supply a separator, or a string of charac-
ters. Whenever Scrivener encounters this separator, it will automatically start putting
the remaining content into a new binder item, continuing to split into new binder
128 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

items until it runs out of material. The second tool, special for MultiMarkdown users,
is File � Import � MultiMarkdown File.... This tool will examine the incoming file for its
header structure, and not only split files between headers, but title them according to
those headers, and even reconstruct the hierarchy of the original document.
For most other cases, read on.

Splitting The Document

Often, when importing material that you have composed in other applications that
do not support an easy to use built-in outline, your text will arrive in Scrivener in one
large chunk. Where you choose to break this long document apart is up to you, and
the split tools make it easy to do so.
To split in a document into two pieces, you will first need to place the caret at the
precise point in the document where you wish to split it in two. If you select a range
of text, the start of the selection will be considered the caret point, for purposes of
splitting. Once the selected location has been chosen you can use one of two methods
to split the document:

Documents � Split � at Selection ( – K) This will create a new document directly be-
low the current document in the outline. The new document will contain ev-
erything that follows the caret position, and this material will be removed from
the original document. It can be useful to think of splitting in terms of “above”
and “below” the selection. Everything above the caret (and also to the left if in
the middle of a line) will remain in the original document, while everything to
the right and below of the caret will be moved to the new document.
After splitting, you will be given the option to name the new document in the
Binder.

Documents � Split � with Selection as Title ( – K) This alternative method will only
appear when a range of text has been selected in the editor. This method works
identically as at Selection does, only the selected text will automatically become
the title of the new document. This text will remain selected after you split,
making it easy to remove it, or style it as a header.

Pro Tip: You might also find the ability to search by formatting (subsection 21.4.3)
to be of use as well, as often the places you will want to split the document will
coincide with headers. While the Find by Format panel is open, you can use the
Split with Selection as Title function without closing it, and then quickly go to the
next search result within the portion that has been split off. If you wish to use
keyboard shortcuts, this means you can alternate between using – K to split the
found text, and – G to skip to the next search result.
14.3. EDITING WITH SCRIVENER 129

When splitting documents, all meta-data will be carried over to both documents.
The only exception to this will be any snapshots. They will remain attached to the
original document (everything falling before the split point), and can thus be useful
in seeing what a document looked like before it was split up. It is thus a good idea to
set up any common meta-data before you start splitting up a document.
It is not possible to undo a split action, but you can use the Merge feature to effec-
tively undo any unwanted splits.

Merging Documents Together

In opposition to splitting, the ability to select two or more documents and merge
them together into a single document is also made easy with Scrivener. Unlike the
split function, merging is a super-document level action, and thus requires a selection
to be made in a Corkboard, Outliner, or Binder view, or from within a Collection.
Documents do not have to be in consecutive order, they can be picked from
throughout the project. When selecting non-linear items, here are some tips to de-
termine ordering:

❧ If the view you are picking documents from is based on the outline order (such
the Binder, Outliner, or Corkboard3 ), then the merged document will retain
the original outline order.

❧ When using a Collection to select items, the collection order will be used to
established the structure of the merged document.

When it comes to merging, Scrivener will attempt to retain as much meta-data is is

logically possible. The Synopses, Notes, Keywords, and References will be concate-
nated together, much in the same fashion that the main text will be. Meta-data which
cannot be combined (such as Title, Label, any custom meta-data, compile option flags,
and so forth) will use the top-most document as a reference point. For example:

❧ Document A

– Synopsis: “This is the first document”

– Keyword: “Apples”
– Status: “First Draft”

❧ Document B
3
Note that for this purpose, a freeform corkboard is still considered to adhere to Outline Order, as
is depicted by the card number (View � Corkboard � Show Card Numbers) on the index cards.
If you wish to impose a new order based on the freeform spatial placement, make sure to use the
Commit Orderbutton (section 12.1.3), first, and then merge.
130 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

– Synopsis: “This is the second document”

– Keyword: “Carrots”
– Status: “ToDo”
– Notes: “Mix these two together in a blender for a great tasting, healthy
beverage.”

Both Document A and Document B are selected in the Binder, and Docu-
ments � Merge is invoked ( – M), producing the following single document (with
the bold items indicating material used from Document B):

❧ Document A

– Synopsis: “This is the first document

This is the second document”

– Keywords: “Apples”, “Carrots”

– Status: “First Draft”
– Notes: “Mix these two together in a blender for a great tasting,
healthy beverage.”

When merging, the main text will be combined according to the preferences you
have set in the General preferences pane (section B.1), under the Separators section.
Merged documents can be combined with a single line, a full empty line (useful in sit-
uations where plain-text is in use and paragraphs need to have an empty line between
them), or a custom separator, which allows you to type in any sequence of characters.
Note you can add carriage returns and tabs to this field by holding down the Option
key and typing in the special character.

14.3.3 Typewriter Scrolling

You can turn “typewriter scrolling” on for the main editors, QuickReference panes,
and for the full screen editor independently via the Format � Options � sub-menu
( – T). Typewriter scrolling was an innovation of the Blue-Tec Group’s Ulysses.
When it is switched on, just as with a typewriter, the line of text you are typing
will remain centred vertically in the editor. This means that your eyes do not have to
be glued to the bottom of the screen all the time when typing in a long piece of text.
14.4. FORMATTING TOOLS 131

Figure 14.1: Example Ruler Settings

14.4 Formatting Tools

14.4.1 The Ruler
The text editor in Scrivener uses a slimmed down ruler, which can be shown or hidden
via Format � Show(Hide) Ruler or – R. This will present a simple margin, indenting,
and tab stop interface (Figure 14.1).
The following elements can be found in the ruler:

Tab Stops Stops can be created by clicking on the line between the grey and num-
bered area, or by right-clicking in the grey area and choosing a type. Once
placed, they can be moved via click-and-drag, and the numerical value of its
position will be printed above the mouse pointer as you drag. These will be
depicted by type using icons. The various tab stop types available are:

❧ Left: This is the standard, default type. Text will be left-aligned, with the
first line indented to the position of the tab stop.
❧ Center: Text will be centre-aligned, using the position of the tab stop as
an anchor point; this can be anywhere on the line.
❧ Right: Will right-align text with the right-indent set to the point of the tab
stop.
❧ Decimal: Most often used for aligning rows of numbers, so that the system
decimal value is lined up vertically with everything before the decimal
being right-aligned, and any fractional values left-aligned.

To remove a tab stop, simply drag it out of the ruler.

Ruler Conversions: When working with units in Scrivener, keep in mind that its
ruler starts at margin zero instead of paper zero. Since Scrivener is, by and large,
not “aware” of paper settings and page layout, it counts its ruler settings from the
beginning of the text on the left end of the page, not the beginning of the paper
132 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

Figure 14.2: Format Bar: displayed in sections

itself. This is in contrast to many word processors, which start measuring at the
paper left edge, and show the print margin buffer in the display of the page.
Consequently, to convert most standard measurements to useful values here, you
will need to factor in the standard amount of print margin. This becomes more
complex with Page View. If Page View settings precisely match the print-out, then
the rule can be used verbatim, but if the settings are artificial and for aesthetic
purposes only, the results can be erratic. If you require precise measurements on
the ruler, it is recommended you either conform your Page View settings to the
actual print-out, or use the standard editor with the above conversion. Optimally,
your formatting can be deferred and set in the compiler, where formatting and
paper dimensions can be operated upon on concert.

Using tab stops while writing is as simple as pressing the tab key to advance to the
next available stop. If there are no more tab stops available on that line, the system
will wrap around to the next line at the first tab stop. This allows you to enter tabular
information into a single line, without creating multiple paragraphs. To remove a tab
from the line, simply delete it as you would any other character. Tabs can be viewed
as symbols with Format � Options � Show Invisibles.

14.4.2 The Format Bar

The Format Bar is a new addition to Scrivener which provides easy access to common
formatting features, typically found in fewer quantities with the combined tab and
margin ruler in other applications. If you are looking for the tab and margin control,
you can still toggle that per text view with – R. The visibility of the Format Bar is
toggled with – R.
The first section (Figure 14.2) of controls handle font face, size, and variant. All
of these tools act immediately on the currently selected text. If no selection is given,
then they will alter how you type from the current caret position onward.

❧ The first drop-down menu lets you select from all of the available font families
on your system.

❧ The second menu provides the available variants available for that family. Note
that not all fonts come with a full complement of variants. If for some reason
14.4. FORMATTING TOOLS 133

you cannot change a selection of text to bold or italic, check this menu to make
sure that the current font supports these variants.

❧ The third menu provides a quick list of common font sizes. If you need a cus-
tom size that is not available on this list, use the Font Panel... item at the bottom
to access the standard OS X font palette (subsection 14.4.4).

The next three buttons (section 2 (Figure 14.2)) provide toggling shortcuts to the
most common text format tools, bold, italic, and underscore, respectively. When
the caret is in a range of text that matches the format style, the buttons will appear
activated.
The next portion in this section allows control of paragraph-level text alignment.
Paragraph-level alignment comes in three flavours:

❧ Left Align (default)

❧ Centre Align

❧ Right Align

❧ Full Justification

In all cases, these adjust the entire paragraph. If you need multiple alignments on
a single line, you will need to add special alignment tab-stops to the standard ruler
( – R).
In the third section (Figure 14.2), the left colour selection drop-down will alter the
foreground text colour. Click the button once to set the selected text to the depicted
colour (black by default), or right-click to access further options. You can opt to strip
out all colour code from here, and at the very bottom of the menu (which may be
hidden if you have a lot of colour favourites added), access the standard colour palette.
For more information on using the colour palette, see Text Colour and Highlights
(section 17.4).
The second colour selection drop-down works in an identical fashion to the first,
but it sets the background highlight colour for the selected range. Click once to toggle
the current highlight (or use – H), or use right-click to access further options as
described above.
The final, fourth section (Figure 14.2) of the Format Bar accesses paragraph and
line spacing, lists, and favourite styles.
The line spacing drop-down provides some quick presets, but for more complex
multi-type spacing preferences, select the Spacing... item at the bottom of this menu.
The list tool provides most common Western list formats. For custom and interna-
tional formats, select the Other... menu item. Lists can be enumerated or bulleted in
134 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

a variety of methods. They will transform the current paragraph (even if empty) into
the first list item, and will continue generating new list lines until you enter a blank
line. While entering lists, it is possible to indent or outdent lists with Tab and Tab.
Finally, the Presets menu hooks into Scrivener’s formatting preset system. As
with Apple’s default system, it is important to note that these are format and ruler
“brushes”, not word processor stylesheets. They apply saved formats to the selected
text or the caret position, but once these have been applied they will not automati-
cally update later on if you change the preset. To read more about Scrivener’s style
system, see Formatting Presets (Styles) (subsection 14.4.3).

14.4.3 Formatting Presets (Styles)

Previously known as “Styles”, the new system changes the name to avoid confu-
sion with word processor styles, which keep assigned ranges of text up to date with
stylesheets. The new system improves upon the management of presets, and increases
the reliability of custom keyboard shortcuts when applied to them, by placing the
styles into the Scrivener menu itself, rather than in solely in toolbars.
These can be found either in the Format Bar, under the Presets... drop-down menu,
or in the Format � Formatting � Apply Preset � sub-menu.
There are two different types of presets available:

1. Paragraph style: This will save all of your ruler settings, as well as alignment
and line-spacing attributes, and anything else found in the Format � Text � sub-
menu.

2. Character attributes: This will save any format level adjustments, like bold,
underscore, kerning, or anything else found in the Format � Font � sub-menu.

These two types can be used exclusively, or combined into a single Preset, control-
ling all aspects of the text appearance, and both can optionally also apply font size and
font family information. The Preset menus will display small icons in blue, next to
each entry, indicating whether the style will impact one or both of these types when
applied to your text.

Applying Presets
The method of application will depend upon the type of preset. For character at-
tributes presets, you must select the text you wish to apply the preset to, just as you
would when using bold or italics. For paragraph style presets, the caret can be any-
where in the target paragraph and no selection need be made. Of course, if you wish
to change many paragraphs at once, using the selection tools will allow you to do so.
Note that whatever paragraphs the selection falls into will be impacted, even if they
are not fully selected.
14.4. FORMATTING TOOLS 135

Presets which contain both character and paragraph attributes will apply all stylings
to the entire paragraph, regardless of selection. If you wish to only apply font styles
to a portion of your paragraph, then you will need to create a character attribute
preset to do so. For example, if you saved the bold attribute into the paragraph and
character preset, the entire paragraph will be emboldened, regardless of the selection
you’ve made.
You may also, in addition to the menus, right-click on a selection and use the Apply
Formatting Preset � sub-menu to select an existing preset.

Creating New Presets

To create a new preset, you will need some exemplar text in your editor, containing
the styling you wish to preserve for future use. If you intend to create a paragraph
style, the caret should be placed anywhere within the paragraph you intend to use as
a default. For character attributes, you will need to place the caret in the text where
that format appears. It is often best to not select any text for this procedure, as doing
such will increase ambiguity where multiple styles and attributes are employed.
Invoke Format � Formatting � New Preset From Selection. You will be presented
with a sheet that will let you name the new style, choose whether it will impact
character attributes, paragraph styles, or both, and optionally if font settings should
be stored as well. If you do not want the preset to change the underlying font family
or size, then make sure these checkboxes are disabled. Once a name has been added
to the sheet, you will be able to save the preset for future use. It will appear in the
Format Bar menu, as well as in the application menus.

Modifying a Preset
Adjusting an existing preset is easy to do. If you want to make a minor modifica-
tion to a preset, the best way to do so is to apply the preset to some text and then
modify the styling of the text. With the caret still located in that text, use the For-
mat � Formatting � Redefine Preset from Selection � sub-menu to select the preset you
wish to modify.
You will be presented with the same sheet you used to create the preset, only the
information you saved into it will be pre-populated into the sheet. In most cases you
will not need to change anything here, and can just submit the form to apply the
formatting changes you’ve made. If you do wish to change the parameters of how
much the style saves, you can make these changes to the sheet, or even change the
name of it.
If you wish to create a derivative, instead of replacing an existing preset, use the
preset to style your text, modify it, and then use the Format � Formatting � New Preset
From Selection menu command to create the new version.
136 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

Deleting a Preset
Deleting a formatting preset can be done at any time by using the For-
mat � Formatting � Delete Preset � sub-menu. This command cannot be undone, but
if you do accidentally delete an important preset, you can re-create it by finding an
example in your text, and creating a new one from scratch.

14.4.4 Font Palette

The font palette is a standard tool provided by Apple, and can be toggled with For-
mat � Font � Show Fonts and � Hide Fonts. You can also use – T to toggle this view
at any time. This palette provides full access to the font typesetting engine, including
access to many OpenType features and custom font effects. For basic font changes,
the Format Bar (subsection 14.4.2) will suffice.
The precise appearance of the palette will change depending how large you make it.
As the size of the palette increases, more options will be made available to you. Since
this palette is provided by Apple, please refer to the help files provided by TextEdit,
for details in using it.
To use the font palette to change the appearance of your text, you will need to first
select the text you wish to change, and then call up the palette. Any changes you
make will be immediately reflected in the editor.

14.4.5 Preserve Formatting

If you are planning on letting Scrivener’s compiler do all of the final formatting for
you, it can often be useful to preserve ranges of text from the effects of the format-
ting engine. A common example of this might be the use of block-quoting as a left
and right indent. Technical writers might find it useful to set apart blocks of text
as “code”, using a special font and layout. In the past, you had to break out these
special sections into their own documents and preserve the formatting of the entire
document. Now you can define these ranges right in their original context.
To specify a range of text for preservation, select the text in the editor, and then
invoke the Format � Formatting � Preserve Formatting menu command. This will draw
a dashed box around the text, which can be worked around and within like any other
type of formatting range. Also like other formatting tools, to toggle a preserved range
off, simply select the entire range and use this same menu command.
Preserved formatting will also protect your text when using the Docu-
ments � Convert � Formatting to Default Text Style tool, which is useful for homogenis-
ing the look of your document according to your editor preferences. Any text con-
tained within these blocks will retain their original formatting and not be touched by
this tool.
MultiMarkdown users can define preserved formatting ranges to define code
blocks. Any paragraphs located within a Preserve Formatting range will have a tab
14.4. FORMATTING TOOLS 137

character added to the front of the line, informing the MMD engine to treat the text
like a code block.

14.4.6 Inline Images

While images themselves cannot be placed into the Draft, you can insert an image into
the text either by dragging an image file in from the Finder, dragging an image docu-
ment in from the Binder, Outliner or Corkboard, or by selecting Edit � Insert � Image
From File.... The image will be placed at the current cursor position. Images placed into
documents in this fashion will create a new copy of that image, even if it was dragged
in from the Binder. This becomes important when working with placeholder images.
If you intend to later edit your images or replace them with updated copies from a
graphic designer, you may wish to use Linked Images instead (below).

Viewing inline images full-size: To view an image contained inside text on its
own, you can drag the image from the text into the header view of one of the
editors. You can then double-click on the image and zoom in or out on the image.
Note that any changes made here will not impact the embedded image in the text.

To resize the inline image, double-click on it. This will bring up the image scaling
panel. Drag the sliders left to shrink the image or right to increase its size, and then
click on OK. Unchecking “Lock aspect ratio” allows you to move the sliders inde-
pendently and therefore distort the image. Clicking Cancel restores the image to its
former size. Note that some images types cannot be resized; double-clicking on such
images will do nothing.
To save the image to the disk, right-click on the image and select Save as Picture....

Printing with Images: There is a bug in the OS X text system whereby if your
text contains an image that is much wider than the page, when printing, the page
containing the image and all subsequent pages may not get printed at all. If you
find that Scrivener is not printing all of the pages it should, check that you haven’t
got an image scaled too large in the text - if you have, fix it by double-clicking on
it and resizing it. This bug can be reproduced in TextEdit by placing a very large
image in the text and switching to “Wrap to Page” mode - the image and anything
after it will disappear.

When using MultiMarkdown, inline images (and linked images for that matter)
will be converted to MMD syntax, and the images themselves will be gathered into
the compile folder for you.

Working with Print-Ready Images

If you’ve been provided full size, print ready graphics for publication, it is best to
not embed them directly into your document. Embedding images in the document
138 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

is good for small placeholders, but since the images are saved into the RTF file itself,
adding very large high resolution graphics to your files will dramatically slow down
Scrivener’s ability to load and save your file while you work on it. If you need to
work with print-ready graphics, read the following section on linking your images to
the document, rather than embedding them directly.

Linked Inline Images

Linked images are useful when the actual graphics in your project text are incomplete
or placeholders for larger, production-ready graphics. If you are familiar with desktop
publishing tools like Adobe InDesign, then the manner in which linked images work
will be familiar to you. For those not aware, linked images are the placement of
graphics in your text in such a way that the representation of the image in your editor
is being generated by files outside of the file.
Note that for increased performance, Scrivener uses a cached version of your image
when you create a link to it while the project is open. Whenever you re-open the
project, this thumbnail will be updated with the current image on the disk.
To create a linked image, use the Edit � Insert � Image Linked to File... menu com-
mand.
When compiling with linked images, the current version of those images on disk
will be used to create the embedded copies used in the compiled version. Since nearly
all of the compilation formats do not support active image linking, Scrivener must
take the current version and embed it in the final copy. So if you are in a workflow
that involves external help from designers, be sure to get your external images up to
date before producing final compiled copies.

14.5 Header Bar

The header bar appears at the top of each editor pane, and can be toggled on and off
via View � Layout � Show (Hide) Header View. It contains a number of useful naviga-
tion tools, displays the current title of the edited document(s), and provides a tool for
splitting the editor.
The header bar has three colour states:

1. Grey: when no split is active, this is the default state. If splits are turned on, the
inactive editor will be grey.

2. Blue: when splits are active, this denotes the active split. Any actions taken
which will impact the current editor will be made to the blue document. The
title itself will also be underlined for the active split.

3. Red: when an editor has been locked, it will turn red to remind you that clicks
in the Binder will not load any files into the editor.
14.5. HEADER BAR 139

14.5.1 History
On the left-most side of the header bar are the navigation arrows. Use these to navi-
gate backward and forward through the navigation history. If you right-click on the
either of the arrow buttons, a menu will be provided, making it easy to jump straight
to something far back or forward in the history without having to go through each
point in between.

14.5.2 Item Icon Menu

Next to the navigation buttons is the document icon, which shows what type of doc-
ument is being displayed (and its content status if it is a folder or text file). Clicking on
this icon brings up a menu containing some useful shortcuts to oft used commands:

Reveal in Binder ( – R) Will show the location of the currently edited file in the
binder, disclosing containers as necessary to do so. This is most useful when the
method you used to arrive at the current document did not involve clicking in
the binder (such as using the history navigation buttons), or if you are currently
viewing a collection and wish to find where the file is actually located in your
project outline.

Path Reveals the location of the current document in descending order. The top en-
try will always be the current document; the entry below that its immediately
parent; and so on until the top of the project binder is reached. These can be
selected to immediately jump to any ancestor of the current it.

Go To Offers an alternate way to jump to a specific binder item without using the
binder. If the binder is hidden, or hoisted, for instance, will let you navigate to
other areas of the project without having to alter your settings. Your favourites
(section 9.6) will be placed in the top of this menu, making it easy to jump to
them from anywhere in the project.
When viewing a Scrivenings session, the contents of this menu will be replaced
with the contents of the current session only, thus providing a miniature “table
of contents” for the current session.

Pro Tip: If you want to use the Go To menu to access other portions of the Binder
while viewing a Scrivenings session, quickly isolate the current document by itself
with Cmd-4. Once you are in single document viewing mode, the standard Go To
menu will be revealed.

Bookmarks Displays any text bookmarks (section 14.11) that have been added to the
current document in a handy menu. Header style bookmarks will be offset and
set to bold, making it easy to cut a larger document into sections of bookmarks.
140 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

If you are viewing a Scrivenings session, all of the bookmarks in the entire
session will be displayed together.

Bookmarks can be added to your document using – B, or from the

Edit � Insert � sub-menu.

Take Snapshot This command will take a snapshot (section 14.9) of the current text
and store it for later use.

Match Split Document(s) Will open the currently viewed item in the inactive split.
This command will not be available if no splits are open.

Lock In Place ( – L) Locks the editor (or split) so that no Binder clicks will affect
it. When an editor is locked, its header bar will turn a shade of red.

14.5.3 Header Bar Title

Next to the icon is the title of the current view. This is a dynamic label depending
on what you are viewing. In the most simple cases, it will display the title of the
document you are currently viewing or editing. Whenever the presented title consists
of only the title itself, you may edit the name of it by clicking within the text, and
pressing Enter to confirm.
When you are viewing a collection of items in a corkboard or cutliner, the name of
the viewed container will be displayed. That is, if you click on a folder in the binder,
the name of that folder will be displayed in the header bar, regardless of which index
card or outliner row you have currently selected.
When viewing the result of multiple item selections in the binder, the view will dis-
play the title, “Multiple Selection”. This is a unique view which lets you know that
the corkboard or outliner you are viewing doesn’t “exist” anywhere in the project.
You are viewing a selection of items, but you will not be able to add new items or
re-arrange existing items because there relationship amongst each other does not cor-
relate with anything in the Binder.
In the case of a Scrivenings session that comes about as the result of clicking on a
container, the name of the container will be displayed first followed by “(Compos-
ite)”. Suffixed to this will be the name of the current document you are editing within
that session. When the Scrivenings session is the result of a Multiple Selection, it will
be stated as such, and the name of the currently edited document within the session
will be suffixed to that reminder.
In all cases where the title is a composite of information, you will lose the ability
to edit the name of the document. You will need to use the inspector or the binder to
make this change, or enable View � Editor � Show Titles in Scrivenings.
14.5. HEADER BAR 141

14.5.4 Sidebar Navigation

Moving to the right-hand side of the header bar, you will find two arrows pointing
up and down. These arrows allow you to navigate within the project sidebar (be it
the binder, Search Results, or Collection that is currently viewed), as though it were a
flat list. This form of movement is unique in that the binder selection will update. In
most cases, when you navigate to documents using the menus or the various controls
available in the header bar, the binder selection will not update to follow your select,
by design. In this case however, these two buttons are actually synonymous with
clicking on documents in the sidebar.
Clicking the up-arrow will move you to the document immediately above the cur-
rent document in the sidebar. Ordinarily, this will be the binder. The selected docu-
ment will always be the one immediately above, even if that item is currently hidden
and on an entirely different hierarchal level. Clicking the down-arrow will always
move you to the document immediately below, in the current sidebar list.
If you are viewing a container as a Scrivenings session, the behaviour of this feature
will modify slightly. The nature of selection will still be the same in terms of linear
above/below selection, but the current session will not be dismissed. It thus can be
used as a form of navigation within a Scrivenings session. Note that if you navigate
above or below the boundary of the selection, it will be dismissed. This feature is
an augmentation of the basic behaviour. It is not available to multiple selection based
sessions. If you wish to navigate within a multiple selection based Scrivenings session,
use the Go To menu instead.
These two buttons can also be activated with the keyboard shortcuts, – UpArrow
and – DownArrow, respectively.

14.5.5 Split View Button

Finally, the last button on the right-hand side is a multi-purpose button which changes
depending upon the current layout of the application and your last preferred split
orientation.
When no splits are open, a small line will be drawn through the icon in the hor-
izontal or vertical orientation to let you know which way the editor will be split if
you click upon the icon. If you hold down the Option key, this will switch to the
opposing orientation, and that preference will be saved for future splitting as well.
When a split is already open, the icon will appear blank. Clicking on it in this state
will close the opposing split. This means you should click on the icon in the header
bar for the document view you wish to retain once the split has closed. Either side
can be dismissed by clicking on the opposing header bar button. Additionally, if you
hold down the Option key while a split is open, a vertical or horizontal line will be
drawn, allowing you to switch split orientations without otherwise disturbing your
layout. Both splits will remain open, only the orientation will shift.
142 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

14.6 Footer Bar

Below each editor pane is a footer bar. This is the most dynamic part of the editor, in
that it will change depending on the type of document visible and the current editor
mode. When a text document is being viewed, for instance, it will display the word
and character count along with a pop-up button for changing the text scale and a
button for setting document targets. When a QuickTime document is displayed, it
shows the current playing time. And so on. This section will cover the tools available
to the standard text editor.

❧ For information on the various other document footer bars, see Viewing Media
in the Editor (section 14.7)

❧ For details on how to use the footer bar in script mode, see Scriptwriting (chap-
ter 20).

❧ Read the chapters on The Corkboard (section 12.1) and The Outliner (sec-
tion 12.2) for details on how to use the footer bar in those view modes.

14.6.1 Text Zoom

You can make the text in the text editor bigger or smaller without changing the font
by using the text scaling pop-up in the left side of the footer bar. See Scaling Text
(subsection 14.3.1) for more information.

14.6.2 Quick Text Statistics

In the middle of the footer, the current word and character account of the text you
are editing will be displayed in real-time as you type. This counter works for all
visible text, even if it would otherwise not be compiled, and will aggregate all text
together when using Scrivenings view. This counter will also display the statistics for
the current text selection if one exists. When the counter is displaying selected text, the
colour will turn blue to indicate that it is no longer counting the entire document(s)
text.

Pro Tip: If you want to easy grab the word count for the current section you are
working on within a Scrivenings session, you can use the selection counting fea-
ture mentioned above in conjunction with the Edit � Select Current Text command,
which can be enabled by holding down the Option key, or pressing – A. This
will quickly select only the text of the current section you are editing, showing the
word and character count in the footer.

14.6.3 Text Goals

When you are editing a single document, a small target icon will appear on the right
side of the footer bar. This button brings up the target options for the document
14.7. VIEWING MEDIA IN THE EDITOR 143

which will let you set a numeric word or character goal that you intend to achieve
with the section. You can optionally use Growl notification to let you know when
you’ve reached your goal. These notifications work in both ways, whether you are
working up to a number while writing, or working down to a number while editing.
When enabled, the footer bar will acquire a progress bar next to the target icon
which will fill as you type, gradually changing colour until you reach your quota.
These targets can be set individually for each document. You may also monitor and
set them using the Outliner, by revealing the “Target”, “Target Type”, and “Progress”
columns.
To disable the goal metre, enter a value of “0” into the target configuration for the
document.

14.7 Viewing Media in the Editor

The editor is capable of viewing most of the file types that you will need to interface
with for research and creative use. The footer bar will often change to provide tools
for working with different media types. Note that Scrivener is, by and large, not
intended to operate as an editor for all types of files. It would take years to design these
features, and in most cases your existing applications will do a better job of editing
PDFs, movies, and images. Consequently, a convenient button will be provided in
most media views making it simple to load the document in an external editor of your
choice. Changes made to the file will be saved within the Scrivener project when you
return.

14.7.1 Viewing Images

The image view is displayed whenever an image document is selected, allowing you to
zoom in and out and rotate it. If the image is larger than the viewable area, click and
hold the mouse on the image and move the mouse to drag-scroll the image around.
To zoom in and out and rotate, double-click anywhere within the image or the grey
area around it. This will bring up the image tools HUD.
The slider at the top of the HUD allows you to scale the image. The button on the
left of the slider zooms the image as far out as it will go (that is, makes it as small as
possible) and sets the slider to the far left; the button on the right of the slider zooms
the image as far in as it will go (makes it as large as possible) and sets the slider to the
far right. Below the slider, you can check a “Scale to fit” option which will disable the
slider and always size the image according to how big the editor is.
There are three tools available: there is a button for rotating the image (rotating
it 90 degrees clockwise, or anti-clockwise when Option-clicked); a button for fitting
the image to the current viewable area; and a button that returns the image to 100%
magnification.
144 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

In the footer bar, click the toolbox button to open the image an your default exter-
nal editor. If you wish to open the file in another program, right-click on this button
to select an alternate from a menu. This menu is provided by the operating system,
so if your favourite program isn’t showing it, you can resolve this by sorting out why
it isn’t showing up in the OS (making sure it is in the Applications folder will solve
most issues of this nature). Beside this button you’ll see a reload button. You will
need to click this after saving your edits in the external image editor in order to see
the changes.

14.7.2 Viewing PDFs

The PDF view is displayed when a PDF document is selected. Its main view looks
and acts exactly the same as Preview.app. You can control the display of the PDF
document via the View � Media � PDF Display � sub-menu, and you can zoom in and
out of it using the “Zoom In” and “Zoom Out” controls in the View � Zoom � sub-
menu. You can also access many of these tools via right-click on the PDF display
itself.
The footer bar contains arrow buttons on the left, which allow you to browse back
and forth through the pages of the PDF document, and text in the centre showing the
number of pages the PDF document has and which page you are currently viewing.

Annotating PDFs: As with ordinary text, you can select ranges of text in a PDF
file and highlight them with – H. This tool is limited to the yellow colour. It
is not possible to insert comments into a PDF using Scrivener. To give a PDF
file advanced treatment, view it in an external editor, such as Preview, or Adobe
Acrobat. Any changes made to the PDF, once saved, will show up in Scrivener
after you refresh the file display.
Note that Skim, a popular PDF viewer, uses its own system for annotation which
does not show up in Scrivener and most other viewers. Consult the Skim docu-
mentation for details on how to save embedded annotations.

As with images, you can open PDFs in external editors for annotation or more full-
featured browsing, and use the reload button to load PDFs from the disk if changes
are not showing up immediately.

14.7.3 Viewing QuickTime Documents

The QuickTime view is used to display movie and sound files. It should be familiar
to most OS X users. From the control bar beneath the viewing area (above the footer
view), you can play or pause the movie, change the volume, or step backwards and for-
wards through it. On the lower right, you’ll see a rewind symbol with a pause button
in the middle of it. This is an optional mode which will show up as blue if engaged,
14.7. VIEWING MEDIA IN THE EDITOR 145

which will rewind your media by a set number of seconds whenever you pause. This
interval can be configured in the Navigation pane (section B.5) of preferences.
To further aid in transcribing, you can use the – Return shortcut key to pause and
resume a media stream in an alternate split, while you are typing in the other editor,
never having to leave the keyboard.

14.7.4 Viewing Web Pages

The web view displays imported web pages. Note that clicking on any links in a
page displayed in the web view will open the link in the system’s default internet
browser. Scrivener does not allow internal browsing simply because this would mean
integrating many of the features of a browser into the web view (such as back and
forward buttons, a refresh button, maybe even a download manager. . . ) and this is
outside of Scrivener’s scope.
When the web view is shown, the content of the footer will display the original
URL a as a link that can be clicked on to open the original page in the system’s default
browser.
You can increase and decrease the size of the web page font using the standard
View � Zoom � sub-menu.

Pro Tip: If you archive search forms, such as http://www.google.com/, and

searches that you perform will have their results opened up in your web browser.
Thus it can be useful to store a number of common research portals in your Binder
for quick access. Note that since this uses an archived version of the web page, if
the host site changes their searching protocol, your archived search might break
(this generally only happens rarely).

14.7.5 Viewing Unsupported Document Types

By default, Scrivener will not let you import files into the Binder that it cannot dis-
play in the editor. You can remove this restriction by disabling “Import supported
file types only”, in the Import & Export (section B.9) preference pane. When unsup-
ported file types are dragged into the Binder, they will use whatever icon they have
been assigned by the system.
When loaded in an editor, the file icon and its filename will be displayed. Double-
click on the icon to load the file in its default external editor, or right-click on the
toolbox icon to select an alternate application. The toolbar will also feature a Quick-
Look icon. Clicking this will produce the same effect as using QuickLook in the
Finder.
As with supported files, unsupported files are imported into the project package
itself.
146 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

14.8 Splitting the Editor

Scrivener’s editor uses a powerful technique known as editor splitting. You may have
encounter split screen editing in other applications, but the level of integration and
power between the two splits in Scrivener is likely to be unfamiliar to new users.
Rather than arbitrarily splitting the interface any number of times and ways, the
editor uses a two-way split system so that you can actually control the flow of infor-
mation in the opposing split while you work, in a number of ways.

14.8.1 Horizontal and Vertical Splits

The editor interface can be split in one of two orientations. In vertical mode, the di-
vider will be drawn down the middle of the screen, and is most suitable to viewing two
documents side-by-side as it maximises vertical space. Horizontal mode creates a split
that is familiar to many applications like Mail with content on the top and bottom.
In either case, both sides of the split have the same degree of power in loading various
views, media types, and text editing. You can easily switch between orientations by
choosing the opposite split type in the View � Layout � sub-menu, or Option-clicking
the split icon in the header bar (section 14.5).
When the editor has been split, a header bar and footer bar will be created for each
split. This means that each side has its own history queue, view modes, zoom settings,
and so on. Everything that you can do to a single editor window can be done to a split
window, and those changes will be remembered for that side of the split. An example
of this would be view modes. With a single editor interface, if you choose to view
containers using the Corkboard model, every time you click on a container or select
more than one item, a Corkboard will be presented to you. However, when splits are
engaged, each side has its own view preference. This means the left side (in a vertical
orientation) can be set to Outliner, and the right side set to Scrivenings.

Quickly switching between editors: It is easy to jump between splits without

using the mouse, by using – E and – R. When the split orientation is ver-
tical, E will access the left editor and R the right; when the split orientation is
horizontal, E will access the bottom editor and R the top.

14.8.2 Controlling the Opposing Split

There are a few commands that you can use to impact the editor your are not cur-
rently working in, reducing the need to flip back and forth between them. These are
located in the View � Editor � Other Editor � sub-menu, and have shortcuts for handy
usage.

Remote scrolling To scroll the other text editor up and down, use – UpArrow
and – DownArrow. This command does not work when the other editor
14.9. USING SNAPSHOTS 147

is viewing Corkboard or Outliner views, or media that would not otherwise

respond to scrolling.
Note that this form of scrolling is based on the scrollbar, not actual text posi-
tion, so the position of the scroll point will not be saved when using in con-
junction with the history button, like cursor position is. The exception to this
are PDF files, which are always saved by scroll-point, not cursor position.

Remote history access Just as you can quickly flip through the history with – [
and – ], you can cause the other editor the jump back and forth in its own
history queue with – [ and – ]. A nice trick here, when working with
a sequence of reference documents, is to “pre-load” them into your reference
split by clicking on each one sequentially. Now they are loaded into the history
queue and easily accessible while you write in the other split.

Controlling media While typing in one split, you can start and stop QuickTime
movies and audio tracks with – Return, making this setup extremely useful
for transcription. If you have Rewind on Pause enabled (subsection 14.7.3),
this shortcut will also rewind the piece by a set amount (3 seconds by default),
making it easy to catch up.

14.8.3 Swapping Splits and Matching Editors

If you wish to swap the actual position of the material in the editors, so that the con-
tent on the left now appears on the right, for example, use the View � Layout � Swap
Editors menu command.
To match the content of the alternate split to the active split you are working in,
click the document icon in the header bar, and select the Match Split Document(s)
command. This will duplicate your current view selection in the other editor. So if
you are in a Scrivenings session, that session will be duplicated; if you have a Multiple
Selection view, that selection will be duplicated in the bottom view—and the current
view mode in the active split will be used instead of the active default for that split
(and will thus set the default for that split to the acquired view model).

14.9 Using Snapshots

Snapshots provide a way of backing up and saving different versions of individual doc-
ument. Taking a “snapshot” of a document takes a copy of the text of that document
as it exists at that exact moment in time and stores it so that you can return to it, or
restore it, at a later date. Using snapshots, you never need worry about making major
edits to a document, because you can take a snapshot of it before you begin editing
and then restore the older version later if you change your mind about the changes
you have made. Note that snapshots only affect the text of documents (not notes,
148 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

synopses or meta-data), and are therefore only available for documents that contain
text (files, folders and saved searches).
You can tell if a text document has any associated snapshots by its icon. Documents
that have had snapshots taken of them have the top-right of the paper icon folded
down.
There are two primary ways to manage snapshots: using the Docu-
ments � Snapshots � sub-menu, and the Inspector pane (subsection 18.4.4), the lat-
ter of which will be covered in the reference section. You can also conveniently use
the – 5 keyboard shortcut while editing a document to take a quick snapshot in the
background.

14.9.1 Creating Snapshots

While working on a document, there are three easy ways to snapshot it for future
reference.
The key thing to understand with Snapshots is that they provide a way to set mile-
stones for individual documents. They are not a tool for providing an overall snap-
shot of the entire project, structurally speaking, and are probably not the best tool
for taking a quick snapshot of your entire draft. In most cases, large scale backups
like this would be best created using the File � Back Up � Back Up To... menu item.
That aside, it is easy to quickly snapshot multiple documents. Simply select the doc-
uments you wish to snapshot in the binder sidebar, corkboard, or outline, and press
– 5, or Documents � Snapshots � Take Snapshots of Selected Documents to create a
snapshot of each. Snapshots can later be accessed individually in the Inspector pane.
You can jump straight to them with – M, or Documents � Snapshots � Show
Snapshots.
A second way of taking snapshots is to supply them with a title as they are created.
This can be done for single or multiple selections. In the latter case, the title will be
added to each document in the selection. Snapshots can be titled at a later time using
the Inspector.
The third method for creating snapshots is from the Snapshot pane itself in the In-
spector. Simple click the + button in the header for this pane to create a new snapshot,
and you’ll see it appear in the list below.

14.9.2 Managing and Comparing Snapshots

Existing snapshots are all managed in the inspector pane. To jump to snap-
shots, click the button with a camera in the Inspector footer bar, use the Docu-
ments � Snapshots � Show Snapshots menu item, or press – M. You can read
more about the particulars of the interface (subsection 18.4.4), to learn more about:

1. Deleting existing snapshots

14.10. AUTO-COMPLETION 149

2. Running comparisons between the current text and a snapshot, or between two
snapshots

3. Reverting your changes to an older snapshot.

14.9.3 Viewing Snapshots in the Editor

It is possible to load snapshots as read-only text into the main editor splits. To do this,
simply drag the snapshot you wish to view into the header bar for the editor split you
wish to load it in. You can also load the snapshot in comparison mode by holding
down the Option key as you drag the snapshot into the header bar.

14.9.4 Automatically Created Snapshots

Some functions in Scrivener will create automatic snapshots for you. When a docu-
ment is scheduled to be changed to a sync action, the default behaviour is to create a
snapshot before updating the document with the remote changes. This makes it easy
to find what has changed with the external document. This behaviour can be sup-
pressed within the sync configuration panes if you wish to keep the snapshots area
for your milestones, only.

14.10 Auto-Completion
There are three primary forms of auto-completion in Scrivener:

1. Typesetting: adjustments made to the characters as you type them in, such as
setting quotes to typographer’s “curly” or “smart” quotes, as they are alterna-
tively called; or adjusting stand-alone i’s at the start of a sentence to capital form

2. Word and phrase completion: as you type, you can have Scrivener suggest
words for you either automatically, or with a shortcut (the default); custom
phrases can be added to each project, such as character names and locations, or
existing title names from the binder

3. Scriptwriting abbreviations: common scriptwriting abbreviations such as

“O.C.”, “Ext.” and so on, can be suggested as you type. These are generally
defined in the script formatting definition (Format � Scriptwriting � Script Set-
tings)

14.10.1 Typographic and Grammar Adjustments

With typographic adjustments, you can set which characters will be replaced as you
type. Scrivener uses a combination of built-in enhancements, plus Snow Leopard’s
substitution engine, if available. These can all be set in the Auto-Correction prefer-
ence pane (section B.8). Each option is documented more fully, there.
150 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

These adjustments always happen automatically as you type.

14.10.2 Custom Auto-completion

Word and phrase completion can be set to suggest completions as you type, but more
commonly you will use a keyboard shortcut to trigger the completion menu. – .,
Esc, and Esc (all by itself) work on most systems, but on some only one will work.
In particular, Esc is frequently set to open Front Row on most Mac laptops.
Each project has it’s own custom auto-completion list, which adds words and
phrases to the stock dictionary that is provided. There are two ways to add items
to this list:

1. The menu item, Project � Auto-Complete List... and use the + button to add new
lines to this table.

2. Select the text word or phrase you want to add, in the editor, then right-click
on it and select Add Selection to Auto-Complete List.

If you would like for Scrivener to suggest custom phrases to you as you type, set
“Suggest completions as you type” in the Auto-Complete preference pane, and then
disable “In script mode only”; making sure the third option is enabled, otherwise the
entire language dictionary will be unlocked and most will find this to be too intrusive.

14.10.3 Binder Title Completion

If you have started typing in the name of a title that is found in your binder, you can
request a list of completions from Scrivener by pressing a different shortcut, Esc. A
list of all the titles that are still candidates for a match will be presented. As with the
above, you can use the arrow keys to select and item and hit return to insert the full
title.
This feature is particularly useful in conjunction with the “wiki style” Scrivener
link option. Simply type in [[ start typing in the title name, hit Esc, select a title,
and then close with ]]. A Scrivener link will be automatically created for you.

14.10.4 Scriptwriting Auto-Completion

By default, scriptwriting mode engages the more aggressive auto-completion code,
which scans as you type and looks for completions, matching the behaviour of most
scriptwriting programs on the market. Most of the script formats that are shipped
with Scrivener come stocked with many common phrases and abbreviations, which
will be contextually tied to the element you are currently working in. For example,
“MOMENTS LATER” will appear whilst typing in a Scene Heading element, but
will not appear in a Dialogue element.
14.11. TEXT BOOKMARKS 151

Most script formatting settings will also automatically add anything typed into
certain key areas of some elements into the project’s master auto-completion list.
Character names, locations, and so on will be checked for and added, making rote
data entry more efficient as you write.

14.11 Text Bookmarks

Text bookmarks are useful when you wish to quickly mark a spot in your text in a
way that can be easily recalled later on, or for marking out sections of text in longer
documents. There are two types of bookmarks:

1. Bookmark Annotation: This is your standard bookmark. Great for quickly

marking a spot for later editing, quick navigation, or whatever you require.

2. Bookmark Header Annotation: Will create an offset label in the bookmark navi-
gation menu, indenting regular bookmarks beneath it until another header style
bookmark is encountered. Useful for documents with many bookmarks.

Bookmarks work by placing a special marking at the beginning of a paragraph or

line, and there are two tools for doing this without disrupting your writing process.
Use the Edit � Insert � Bookmark Annotation menu command, or – B to place the
marker at the front of the current paragraph without moving your cursor.
Use Edit � Insert � Bookmark Header Annotation to insert a header style annotation
in a similar fashion as a standard annotation.

Custom bookmark labels: Bookmarks are simply an inline annotation starting

with an asterisk and a space. The first few words of the line following will be used
to label the bookmark in the navigation menu. If you wish to provide a custom
label, add it to the annotation after the asterisk and the rest of the line will be
ignored.
The same holds true for header style bookmarks. These use two asterisks and then
a space, so to give them a custom label, enter the label into the annotation after
these asterisks.

In addition to formal bookmarks, any annotations that appear on a line by them-

selves will be added to this menu as well, regardless of whether or not they have an
asterisk in front.

14.11.1 Navigating to Bookmarks

Once bookmarks have been created, they can be viewed in the header bar icon menu,
under Bookmarks, or View � Text Bookmarks menu. To navigate to a particular book-
mark, select it from this menu.
152 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

When viewing several documents in a Scrivenings session, all of the bookmarks

found within the individual documents will be used to populate this menu.
To remove a bookmark, simply delete the inline annotation on the respective line.

14.12 Editing Multiple Documents (Scrivenings

View)
The “Scrivenings” view mode (View � Scrivenings) allows you to edit multiple text
documents as though they were one long document4 . This way, you can write in
small chunks and then combine them in any way you like to see how they work
together. For instance, you might write lots of small scenes for a chapter, and then
view (and edit) them all together in an Scrivenings session to see how the chapter
works as a whole.
As an example of how Edit Scrivenings might be used, imagine that the Draft folder
in the binder has four documents in it. Normally, if one document is selected, the
text of this document will be displayed in the main editor, as below. This is similar to
how many notebook-sidebar applications work. In Scrivener, you can select several
documents and then edit them all together, or a folder (like the Draft itself).
Scrivenings mode is only available when the entire selection (or contents of the
selected container) are text or folders.

14.12.1 Viewing Multiple Texts as One Document

Scrivenings mode is, like corkboard and outliner view modes, another way to view
multiple selections of documents. How you view more than one document changes
depending on your approach. Viewing more than one document can be as simple as
clicking on a folder. By default, this will view the items within that folder as index
cards on a corkboard. However using the Group Mode segmented control, you can
easily switch your view over to Scrivenings, the left-most icon showing a stack of
papers. Another way of switching is to use the View � Scrivenings menu command,
or pressing – 1 on your keyboard. As with corkboard or outliner, you can also
form scrivenings sessions by selecting multiple items in the binder, or clicking on the
header bar of a collection or search result.

Usage Tip: Unlike corkboard and outliner, scrivenings can be taken into full
screen mode. Simply press the Full Screen button in the toolbar ( – F) after
setting up the session.

You can tell when you are in Scrivenings mode by the gradated horizontal divider
lines that will be drawn between each section represented in the session. Meanwhile,
4
This feature was known in prior versions as Edit Scrivenings, but it has been renamed as the
feature is no longer an action you have to set up.
14.12. EDITING MULTIPLE DOCUMENTS (SCRIVENINGS VIEW) 153

the header bar will state the name of the currently viewed container followed by
“Composite” in parenthesis—or “Multiple Selection” followed by the title of the doc-
ument you are currently editing within the session. As you switch from document to
document, the inspector will follow along and the header title suffix will update.
Scrivenings sessions are one of the few areas in Scrivener that consider your text
from a “flat” perspective, or how it will appear once it has been compiled. There
is no indication of depth while editing documents. This is intentional, so you can
concentrate solely on the same flow of text that your readers will have.
The footer bar will switch to an alternate mode which disables the per-document
goal meter as it no longer has any meaning in a multiple document setting. Addi-
tionally, the word and character counter in the footer will count the entire session,
making Scrivenings a great way to quickly view the word count of a particular section
of your book.
If you would like for titles to be displayed more prominently, you can enable them
by switching them on in View � Editor � Show Titles in Scrivenings. The appearance
of these titles will be dictated in Formatting preferences pane (section B.7). These
titles can be edited in the same fashion as editing any other piece of text in the editor
(though formatting will not be allowed).

14.12.2 Editing with Scrivenings

For the most part, editing in Scrivenings mode is no different than editing a single
document one at a time; most of the tools that you have learned thus far will be
available to you. You can select all of the text and format it, copy and paste it to
another application, create snapshots of individual portions of the session, and so on.
You will not be able to do the following:

❧ Select text from more than one document and delete it; this includes implied
deletions, like selecting some text and then typing over the selection.

❧ Select the entire last paragraph of any document and delete it; to do this, be
careful to only select the characters of the paragraph, not the the whitespace at
the end.

These limitations are unavoidable. Each block of text is separated by protected

characters which separate the documents and draw the divider line (and the title if
this option has been turned on). These characters are, of course, not part of any
document, so deleting them has no meaning. Moreover, if you were to delete a range
of text that spanned two or more documents, Scrivener would have to guess where
one document now ended and the other now began - and if the whole of the text
of one document had been deleted in the process, Scrivener would have to decide
whether to delete that document, too. These are all decisions that are better left to
the user - hence the limitation.
154 CHAPTER 14. WRITING AND EDITING

Since Scrivenings is now a proper view, it affords a greater latitude in how inte-
grated it is with the outlining process, especially with a locked editor ( – L).

❧ While editing, new documents can be created with – N, inserting them below
the current document that is being edited; likewise with splitting documents.
❧ With titles turned on, it is possible to create new items without ever switching
back to the Binder, making this combination of actions one of the most seamless
ways to flesh out your outline while you write.
❧ Moving documents around in the Binder will automatically update the order in
which they appear in the Scrivenings session.
❧ Deleted documents will be removed from the session.
❧ Merging documents from the Binder will make this change in the session

14.12.3 Useful Tips

Navigating with the sidebar navigation buttons If you click one of the navigation
buttons (subsection 14.5.4) in the header bar, and that navigation action will
result in movement within the boundaries of the active session, you will be
navigated from section to section without disturbing the session. If you leave
the boundaries of the session, or if the original selection was the result of a
non-linear multiple selection, it will be dismissed.
Using the Go To menu to navigate While the active split is in Scrivenings mode,
the View � Go To � sub-menu and the duplicate of that menu in the header bar
icon menu will display only the contents of the current Scrivenings session.
Selecting items from that list will jump you straight to that document like a
small table of contents.
Selecting only the document you are editing Use – A to select the entire text
area for only the document you are actively editing within the session. Standard
– A will always select the text of the entire session. Selecting by section is also
a useful way to get a quick word count of the active document in the footer bar.
Jumping to the end or beginning of a section In conjunction with the above tip,
a neat trick for jumping to the very beginning or end of the current section is
to select the section with – A, and then use the LeftArrow to jump to the
beginning, or the RightArrow to jump to the end, as this is standard behaviour
for any selection.
Isolating the current document If, in the course of editing a scrivenings session,
you find you wish to isolate the current document so you can focus on it ex-
clusively, you can simply tap – 4, or use View � Go To � Editor Selection. To
return, you can use View � Go To � Enclosing Group, or use – R.
14.12. EDITING MULTIPLE DOCUMENTS (SCRIVENINGS VIEW) 155

Lock in Place navigation If you are in an Edit Scrivenings session and lock the ed-
itor containing the Scrivenings view in place (using “Lock in Place” from the
View � Editor � Lock In Place or header view icon menu), clicking on documents
in the sidebar that are in the Scrivenings session will move the insertion point
to the beginning of that document in the editor (just like Go To).

Meta-data grouping Some forms of meta-data will group themselves when using
scrivenings. footnotes and comments (section 17.2) will be displayed all to-
gether in the inspector in a single large stack, allowing you to quickly see if
any of the constituent articles within the session have notes. Text Bookmarks
(section 14.11) will also be grouped together in their access menu.

Vertically accurate scrivenings divider If for reasons of taste, or formatting neces-

sity, you require a zero-height scrivenings divider, you can toggle on a slim
mode in the Formatting preference pane (section B.7). This mode will draw
small “crop marks” in the margins instead of using a divider across the middle.
If vertical accuracy is a necessity, you will also want to avoid usage of titles in
the scrivenings session. When in slim mode, the height of the page should be
preserved for purposes of rough preview with the Page View editing mode.
 Chapter 15

Page View
By selecting View � Page View � Show Page View while editing a text document, you
can transform the visual presentation of the editor to using a virtual page. This will
place your text in a to-scale representation of your print and margin settings if you use
the View � Page View � Use Printed Page Size option. The option to use “Preferences
Page Size” lets you set up a page of any dimension, and so could be used to optimise
the appearance for you screen, so long as you do not require it to have any bearing on
accuracy. For most uses, Page View is for simulating the look and feel of writing on
real pages, and is thus an aesthetic preference, not a print preview tool.
While not intended to provide a 100% accurate print preview, when used in con-
junction with export fonts and formatting and accurate page dimensions, the resulting
page estimate (which will be calculated in the footer bar statistics area) can be quite
close to the actual end product, and thus will be of considerable use to anyone who
requires pages as a metric, such as scriptwriters. Do note however that page number-
ing will always be relative to the section of text you are viewing. It is not intended to
be a method of finding “page 83” from a stack of printed out papers by your desk. It
would be computationally prohibitive to provide this information in real-time, based
on the fact that Scrivener is fundamentally not a “What You See is What You Get”
editor, like a word processor.
To increase page count accuracy in a scrivenings session, you should use the “Sepa-
rate with single line breaks” option in the Formatting preferences pane (section B.7).
This alternate method for showing the boundaries of documents in scrivenings mode
uses no height, and so will not vertically distort the size of the session. The use of
titles in scrivenings should also be avoided as they will add extra height that may not
be in the final composite.

156
 Chapter 16

Full Screen
Full screen mode allows you to edit your text in a distraction-free environment. You
can view any text document (or Scrivenings session (section 14.12)) in a full screen
mode akin to the one in iPhoto, so that you can compose and refer to your notes
without the noise of the rest of your desktop or even Scrivener itself. Consequently,
you’ll find that Scrivener “disables itself” to a degree, while in full screen mode. Menu
commands that would otherwise be available are turned off—in most cases these are
commands which would have no meaning at all, such as commands for merging two
selected items in the Binder, or enabling Corkboard view.
To enter full screen, you must have a text document as the active document (you
cannot view images or any other type of media in full screen), and it must be visible as
text (that is, the corkboard or outliner modes must not be active). Launch full screen
either by hitting – F, or select View � Enter Full Screen.

Pre-loading History In Full Screen: The one instance in which you can enter full
screen if the corkboard or outliner is visible is if you have selected multiple items
in the binder. In this case, the currently selected document in the corkboard will
be displayed in full screen mode, and all of the other documents on the corkboard
will get loaded into the full screen navigation history. This is a good way of loading
multiple documents so that you can easily flip between them in full screen using
the – [ and – ] keyboard shortcuts.
This behaviour will be disabled if the editor is already displaying exactly what has
been selected in the binder. In this case, full screen will use the scrivenings session.
The only time this will be in conflict is when the active editor is not in scrivenings
mode, or is in some other way not showing the binder selection.

When you first enter full screen, you will see your document in the middle of the
screen set to a pinkish-grey paper colour, and blocking the rest of the screen, a black
background. Nearly every aspect of this experience can be changed, some right within
Full Screen mode. You will also briefly see the Full Screen HUD (detailed below). To
retrieve it, slide the mouse pointing down to the bottom of the screen and let it sit for
a moment. So long as the mouse remains in the HUD area, it will stay visible. Once
moved back up, it will disappear out of view.

157
158 CHAPTER 16. FULL SCREEN

The menu bar can be accessed by similarly sliding the mouse pointer to the top of
the screen. After a momentary pause, the menu will appear. This is a useful way to
access advanced formatting tools, and even navigate around in your project using the
View � Go To � sub-menu without leaving full screen.

16.1 Using a Background Image

You can replace the default solid background colour with an image of your choosing,
by accessing the View � Full Screen Backdrop menu. The image will be scaled to fit
your screen using the maximum height or width, whichever is better. This can mean
that if the image does not match your screen’s aspect ratio, the background colour
may still be visible along the sides or top and bottom.

16.2 Full Screen HUD

The full screen control panel contains various controls for manipulating the interface
elements available in full screen. All of these settings operate on a project-by-project
basis, as opposed to the global scope of Preferences.
In order from left to right:

Text scale This operates in an identical fashion to the text scale zoom in the stan-
dard editor. The only difference is that full screen stores its own scale setting,
independent of the editor splits.

Paper Position Allows you to choose where the “paper” (the column of text) should
appear on the screen: on the left, in the centre or on the right. You may want
it in a non-central position, for instance, if you have a lot of notes to which to
refer and you want the inspector open (and wide) next to the text.

Paper Width Use this slider to change the width of the text. You can set it so that
the text takes up the whole width of the screen or appears as a column.

Paper Height To access this slider, hold down the Option key. It will replace the
Paper Width slider, above. This sets how tall the paper column should be,
giving you a “letterbox presentation” at its more extreme settings.

Keywords Brings up the standard Keywords HUD (section 10.2) which you can use
in conjunction with the inspector (below) to assign keywords to the current
document.

Inspector Brings up the full screen inspector HUD panel (see below).

Dynamic Controls & Statistics The middle portion of the HUD changes depend-
ing upon your editing mode. In standard editing mode, this will display the
16.3. FULL SCREEN INSPECTOR HUD 159

word and character count for the document. As with the standard editor, this
will also display the counts for any selected text, using a blue label.
In scripting mode, this portion of the HUD will display element hints (much
like in Final Draft and Montage) as well as the element selection menu (which
you can always call up with – Y).

Background Fade Fades the background (everything outside of the text column—
black by default but customisable via Preferences) in and out. Useful if you
want to refer to material in other applications open in the background whilst
remaining in full screen. When using a backdrop image this slider will do noth-
ing.

Exit Full Screen The button at the far right will exit full screen mode. You may also
press the Esc key, or – F to dismiss full screen.

16.3 Full Screen Inspector HUD

The full screen version of the inspector gives you near full access to the inspector data.
Use the top-drop down menu to access the different data views. Label and Status
will always be visible at the bottom of this window. For a full discussion on these
views and what they represent, read Meta-Data Types (section 10.1), and Inspector
(chapter 18).

16.4 Customising Full Screen Appearance

Most appearance controls can be set in the Full Screen preference pane (section B.4).
Refer to the documentation provided for this pane for greater detail on available op-
tions. Most colour settings will be found in the full screen sub-section of the “Cus-
tomizable Colors” area in the Appearance pane (section B.2).
Due to limitations in the OS X text system, it is not possible to temporarily over-
ride the font family in full screen. The text colour can be overridden, but changing
the font would be an irreversible adjustment to your formatting.

16.5 Using Full Screen with Multiple Displays

When using two monitors, you can configure Scrivener to use the secondary display
as the full screen window instead of the primary display. This can be adjusted in
preferences.
Also, if you don’t mind taking a performance hit, you can choose to leave the main
Scrivener interface open on the primary display. When doing so, Option-clicking
on text or folder items in the Binder will load these items into your live full screen
session. As with the standard editor, using the Command and Shift keys will select
160 CHAPTER 16. FULL SCREEN

multiple documents and form a Scrivenings session. To utilise this in the active full
screen window, just add the Option key to these modifier keys.
 Chapter 17

Annotations and Footnotes

As a tool designed for the production of texts, there are many methods for facilitat-
ing not only the writing process, but the editing process, and the “public notation”
process which is typically expressed via some form of page footnoting, or endnoting
at the conclusion of the work. This chapter will cover all of the various methods that
Scrivener provides for these needs. We will cover:

❧ Annotation and Commentation: the ability to place production notes within

the document, making it easy to communicate changes or needs to yourself,
collaborators, your editor, or to receive the communications from others.
Scrivener supports the RTF standards for commentation, and will convert any
word processor applied notes to your preferred notation style, which can be
configured in the Import & Export preference pane (section B.9).

❧ Footnotes and/or Endnotes: being a drafting tool, Scrivener makes no attempt

to typeset either of these as you write, however it is easy to insert notes pre-
cisely where you need them, and when you compile they will presented ac-
cording to your exacting demands. As with comments, RTF standards are sup-
ported and incoming notes will be converted to your preferred footnotation
style. Scrivener supports two note streams, allowing you to output both foot-
notes and endnotes, if required.

❧ Text colours and Highlighters: to aid in increasing the visibility of passages,

you are provided with an extensive complement of tools for highlighting and
marking your text in colour.

❧ Revision markings: the automatic application of text colour, as you edit and
write, can be assigned individual colours for up to five revisions, making it easy
to make sure your colleagues know what you have changed and vice versa.

Marking your text is one thing, finding those markings amongst a 100,000 word
draft is another. The robust Find by Format and Text Function (subsection 21.4.3)
makes it easy to quickly step through your draft, point by point, isolating and ad-
dressing issues or reviewing changes that you’ve made.

161
162 CHAPTER 17. ANNOTATIONS AND FOOTNOTES

Annotations and footnotes (this document will refer to all notes as footnotes, even
if their intended result will be endnotes) come in two different flavours. Inline nota-
tions, which are added directly to your text, and linked notes which are attached as
a special form of “link” to the base text of your book, with the content of the note
stored off to the side in the inspector, much as in many word processors. Which of
these to use will remain up to you and your preferences in most cases. You might
even find that a mixture of methods will suit you, using inline notation for short
comments to yourself about prose, and linked notes for other types of comments.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each method:

❧ Inline notes are always visible in your text; there is no way to ignore them. So
for some forms of notation, this can be an advantage in that you cannot defer
or easily ignore them. This also makes it easier to see your notes and your book
at the same reading speed—there is no need to look off to the side to get a feel
for the “meta” book.

❧ Linked notes do not disturb the flow of text, no matter how large they may be.
This means even the lengthiest of notes can be placed into your text without
having to scan from word to word in order to read the underlying book text.

❧ Inline notes, being within the text itself, do not require any additional interface
to use and never require the mouse to read. They thus work well with a slim
workflow, or in situations where screen space is at a premium.

❧ Linked notes can act a little like bookmarks. Clicking on them in the inspector
will whisk you right to the spot in the text where they are anchored.

❧ Inline notes can be placed anywhere you like (especially annotations), even in
between paragraphs or at the very beginning or end of a section, whereas linked
notes require something to “anchor to”. This makes them more useful when
jotting down notes in sections before you’ve even started to write.

❧ Linked notes can be easily viewed together in a collected interface no matter

how far apart they are physically spread apart. This becomes especially advan-
tageous in scrivenings view. A note on page 50 has the same prominence as a
note on page 1, when viewed in scrivenings mode.

❧ Inline notes are only visible in the current contextual surroundings. Notes that
are pages away and do not presently concern you in your writing and editing,
are hidden by the same virtue that hides these irrelevant texts from you: the
sheer bulk of your words.

❧ Linked notes can be easily copy and pasted as regular text. Simple select the
note(s) in the inspector, press – C and then paste these into a text document.
While the same can be said of inline annotations, since they are not all presented
17.1. INLINE NOTATION 163

together at once, it is more difficult to gather them all quickly. In the following
pages you’ll find a way to export annotations and comments to a file, which
will help with this.

❧ Inline notes exist around your text and do not depend upon it to exist. This
means you can edit the text the note refers to freely, without worrying about
losing your comments. This is in opposition to linked notes, which are an-
chored to the text—if the text is removed or entirely altered, the note will be
deleted. By corollary, inline note quantities can exceed the textual capacity of
the base text. For most authors this will not become an issue, but in some fields,
such as qualitative data analysis, where the amount of annotation can exceed the
text, running out of suitable anchor text could become a problem with linked
notes. Inline notes, being unanchored, have no limits.

These are just a few examples, and hopefully that gives you an idea of the indi-
vidual unique merits in these formats. In some special cases, using all four methods
together will afford you with additional compile powers, such as handling multiple
note streams, or using annotations as “functional” text and linked comments strictly
as notes. The next two sections will address each of these types in more depth.

17.1 Inline Notation

Since its earliest versions, Scrivener has sported a unique method for taking notes
and indicating footnotes, by placing them directly into the main text stream itself.
It mimics the natural annotation process that one applies when working with paper,
where notes as scribbled below the problem lines themselves, into margins, or any-
where else they will fit in. It means you notes remain prominent and easy to find,
so long as they remain issues worthy of attention. The same treatment can be given
to footnotes as well. Keeping the actual text of the footnote directly in-line with the
text it augments can increase productivity and help keep your meta-book relevant
and cohesive. Further advantages are in entry speed. Since notation is done directly
in the text while you are typing or editing, it is easy to flow from “editor” to “writer”
without disrupting the process with floating windows, margin bubbles, or the many
other mechanisms that applications use to attach notes.
Despite the advantages, there are still cases and tastes which would prefer to keep
notation out of the main text area. If you have interest in commenting on your work,
or adding footnotes to it, without adding text to the main editing area, please skip
down to Linked Notation (section 17.2).

What They Are: Inline notation is fundamentally a form of formatting, just like
any other formatting range in your document, such as bold or italic. Yes, Scrivener
has tools for working with them in unique ways, but they will respond to many
164 CHAPTER 17. ANNOTATIONS AND FOOTNOTES

of the actions that are designed for working around formatting, such as Paste and
Match Style. When cutting and pasting text into and out of annotations, try to
think of them as analogous to bold text. To paste some external text into a foot-
note, you’ll need to use Paste and Match Style for the text to acquire the footnote
formatting. The same is true going in other direction. Additionally, ranges can be
toggled on and off for a section of text, just as you could with an italic range.

For both annotations and footnotes, how you interface with them is identical at the
writing phase. The only difference between the two will be which one you employ,
based on what you require of the text.
Since inline notation works just like ordinary formatting, creating a note or foot-
note from existing text is just as easy as selecting the range of text you wish to adjust,
and clicking on the appropriate menu command or toolbar icon. To create an anno-
tation, you can use Format � Inline Annotation or press – A on your keyboard. As
with other formatting tools, this works in a toggle fashion. If you select some text
that is already set to be an annotation and use this command, it will be returned to
regular text. For footnotes, everything is the same only you would use Format � Inline
Footnote or – F.
To create a new footnote or annotation from text that does not yet exist, you can
use these same commands to start typing in the desired notation mode, wherever your
cursor already exists.
Moving notes around is a simple matter of cutting and pasting the text itself. Since
notations are formatting, they will move along with the text no matter where you
take them, unless you use Paste and Match Style.

17.1.1 Inline Annotations

To create an inline annotation, select the text you wish to turn into a note, and use
Format � Inline Annotation, or press – A. This will cause the selected text in the
editor to become an annotation. By default, this means that the text will turn red and
a red “bubble” will appear around it. If the selected text is already an annotation, this
changes it back to normal text. If there is no selection, this command will affect what
is typed next at the insertion point.
You can change the colour by placing the cursor anywhere within it and using the
colours palette, which is toggled via Format � Font � Show Colors, or – C. To split
an annotation into two pieces, select the portion you wish to split off, and assign it
with a different colour.

Formatting Annotations: To ensure your text exports as expected, you must

check that the text surrounding your annotation would make sense were the an-
notation not present, including how you set out your whitespace (spaces, newlines
etc). In other words, if you place an annotation between two sentences, make sure
17.1. INLINE NOTATION 165

that there is only one space (or two if you use two spaces between sentences) sepa-
rating the sentences outside of the annotation. All spacing within the annotation
will be preserved, when you choose to compile the document.

Since you can choose to omit annotations from the text when you export or print
it, so they are very useful for jotting down notes and ideas inside the main text that are
not really part of the main text, but which would be better placed next to the section
of text to which they refer rather than in the notes pane. When you export to RTF
format, annotations can also be converted to RTF comments that appear in marginal
boxes in Microsoft Word rather than being omitted, if you so wish. Annotations are
really the electronic equivalent of taking a red (or any colour) pen and jotting notes
over your page. For details on what options are available for omission or conversion
during compile, see Footnotes/Comments (section 24.15).
While it is possible to use annotations to create footnotes, this compile-time con-
version has fewer options available to it than standard footnotes. For fully featured
footnotes, see below.

Important note: Although you can create tables and bulleted lists inside anno-
tations and footnotes in Scrivener, they are not supported inside annotations and
footnotes in the RTF, RTFD and Word exporter. This means that if you create
tables or bulleted lists inside annotations or footnotes in Scrivener, when you ex-
port to RTF you will find that the tables and lists are stripped out. This is because
certain limitations in the OS X system can cause crashes or strange results during
the RTF conversion process in situations where tables and bulleted lists clash with
the boundaries of annotations and footnotes. If you require such elements, it is
thus recommended that you format them at a later stage of the draft in a dedicated
word processor.

If you would prefer to store the content of the comment somewhere other than
within the base text itself, read Linked Comments, in the following pages.

17.1.2 Inline Annotations and MultiMarkdown

Since inline annotations are embedded right in your text, this makes them exceptional
as a form of marking blocks of text for special typesetting or other purposes. A good
example is this manual that you are reading now. Periodically you may see a “tip
box”, a portion of text set apart from the rest of the text with a thick black border on
the left. This is a special typesetting block that has been defined in the MMD export
engine for this book, and is triggered by setting an annotation in Scrivener, prefixed
with the term, “TIPBOX:”. While linked comments can be used to achieve a similar
result, they are in general less flexible for advanced purposes.
166 CHAPTER 17. ANNOTATIONS AND FOOTNOTES

If included in your compile options, annotations are placed into the MMD file as
span or div ranges with inline CSS colour styling applied to match the appearance in
Scrivener. The default result is a text that looks similar to Scrivener, albeit without
the bubble around it.
For more details on how to set up your own typesetting blocks, read Functional
Annotations and Comments (section 27.1).

17.1.3 Inline Footnotes

The creation of inline footnotes is quite similar to annotations, use Format � Inline
Footnote or – F to set the selected text or next characters typed as a footnote (or
turns the text back into normal text if it was a footnote already). In most ways,
footnotes act identically as annotations. The main difference lies in the fact that an-
notations are meant to be omitted upon export or print-outs (though do not have
to be) whilst footnotes become “real” footnotes upon export, and thus have more
options available to them for styling footnotes, particularly with the RTF format op-
tion. Visually, the difference is that footnotes are not coloured but are surrounded
with a black bubble and have a grey background.

Formatting Footnotes: Unlike annotations, any whitespace on the front or back

of the text will be stripped out. This allows you to insert “buffer space” around
the footnote and help set it apart from the regular text. As with annotations, the
placement of the bubble is important in that the text around it should flow sensi-
bly, but with footnotes you also need to take into account that if the bubble were
collapsed, that is where the footnote reference mark would be. Try to visualise the
entire bubble as a single number, and this will help you with placement.

Note that, as a drafting application, Scrivener does not do typeset footnotes itself;
rather, you define ranges of text that you want to be exported as footnotes. Thus,
when the above text in Scrivener is exported to RTF format and opened in Microsoft
Word (or just copied from Scrivener and pasted into Word) it will take on the familiar
appearance of a numeral reference linked to a line at the bottom of the page with a
matching numeral. Footnotes will also be exported in a variety of fashions for other
formats as well, such as eBooks, MultiMarkdown syntax (and therefore as proper
footnotes in LATEX), as look-alike footnotes in HTML and plain-text, amongst others.
For all options available, read Footnotes/Comments (section 24.15).
If you would prefer to store the content of the footnote itself somewhere other
than within the base text, see Linked Footnotes, in the following pages. Also note, if
you require more than one note stream, you can couple linked footnotes with inline
footnotes and treat them separately during compile.
17.2. LINKED NOTATION 167

17.1.4 Finding Inline Notation

Scrivener provides tools for stepping through your entire project, searching for an-
notations and footnotes. Read more about this feature in Find by Format and Text
(section 21.4.3).

17.2 Linked Notation

Creating and reviewing linked notation is made very simple with Scrivener’s innova-
tive sidebar approach. Unlike methods which use positional margin areas to display
the note, or typesetting driven methods which attempt to display a footnote exactly
as it will appear in print, linked notes give you the power of placing meta text outside
of the base text, while presenting this information in a “stack” which, while ordered
as they appear in the document, does not other reflect the spatial distance between
notes. This means a footnote on page 12 will appear right alongside a footnote on
page 27. This stacking method makes it easy for you to see all of your notes at once,
and by clicking on individual notes in the stack, jumping straight to that portion in
the text. Individual notes can be collapsed, so if one note is quite long, it doesn’t mo-
nopolise the space. Best of all, they will all be stacked together indiscriminately, but
in order, when viewing a larger portion of text in a scrivenings session.
Meanwhile, the “anchor point” in the text where the note is attached will be drawn
with a prominent coloured rectangle around the word, making it easy to spot the
location of notes as you scroll through your text, given a distinctive advantage over
hunting for small superscript numbers in a word processor. Clicking on any anchor
highlight will highlight that comment in the inspector, opening it if necessary to do
so. There are two other places notes will be positioned:

1. In QuickReference panels, comments and footnotes will be placed into a split

view below the main text editor within the panel.

2. In Full Screen, comments and footnotes have a dedicate pane in the full screen
floating inspector.

3. Snapshots will save their notes when you take the snapshot, and you’ll be able
to see the anchors in the snapshot viewer, but to read the notes you will need to
drag the snapshot to a header bar in one of the available editor splits.

So, to use linked notes, you must have an anchor position to place the note. Most
often, this will just be whatever text you wish to comment upon, or in the case of
footnotes, the position where you want the footnote to ultimately appear. If you
wish to jot down pre-writing notes in a blank document, it might be easier to use
inline annotations instead.
168 CHAPTER 17. ANNOTATIONS AND FOOTNOTES

Moving Linked Notes: Most often, it will be easiest to move a linked note if you
first convert it to an inline note and then use cut and paste to move the text. After
doing so, you can convert it back to a linked note. For small edits, it is possible
to change the working “beneath” the note, so changing the wording within and
around the note anchor will suffice for small moves.

To create a new note of any time, either:

1. Select the text you wish to notate and then invoke the appropriate menu com-
mand or keyboard shorcut. To make a comment, use Format � Comment or
– 8. To make a footnotes, use Format � Footnote or – 8. This method is
quite useful for comments, as the highlight range doubles as the specifier. If you
intend to address a piece of prose in your text, the highlighted text is immedi-
ately obvious as the problem area.

2. Place the caret in or after the word you wish to notate and use one of the above
commands or shortcuts. This is the easiest method to use while writing, as you
don’t have to switch to selecting. If you reach the point in your phrase where
you wish to insert a footnote, you can merely finish typing in the word and
press the shortcut key.

In addition to the menu and shortcut commands, you can also click either the +
button or the +fn button in the header bar of the Comments & Footnotes inspector
to add comments and footnotes, respectively.

Getting Back to the Text: Once you have finished typing in the content of the
note, you can swiftly return to where you were typing by hitting the Esc key. In
the case where you have pre-selected text to be notated, the cursor will be returned
to the end of the prior selection.

Since linked notes are a kind of link, they cannot be placed atop a range of text
that is already linked, without removing the underlying link. The same holds true
in vice versa: if you have a selection of text already linked to another document with
a hyperlink or Scrivener Link, trying to annotate on top of that link will destroy
the link, as test can only be linked to one destination at a time. To annotate a link,
consider using inline notes, or place the link anchor around the linked text, rather
than on it.

17.2.1 Managing Linked Notes

Deleting notes can be accomplished by selecting the note(s) in the inspector and then
clicking the - button; by clicking the small X button in the top-right of each note; or
by simply deleting the text that the note is anchored to, in the editor.
17.2. LINKED NOTATION 169

To move a note’s anchor position within the text, select the text in the main text
editor you wish to re-anchor the note to, and then right-click on the note itself in the
inspector (not on the old anchor in the text, that will change your current selection).
You will find a menu command to move the note’s anchor to the selected text, Move
to Selection. This can also be a useful way of temporarily setting aside a note so you
can edit a paragraph freely. When used in a scrivenings session, this technique also
allows notes to be moved from document to document.

17.2.2 Linked Comments

Linked comments, as with inline annotations, can be assigned a custom colour. By
default, when you use one of the previously mentioned techniques for adding a note,
the highlighter anchor box in your text will be yellow, as will the corresponding note
in the inspector. These two colours will always match, making it easier to see where
you are in your text in relation with your notes.
To change the colour of a note, a convenience tool has been designed into the right-
click contextual menu when clicking on the note in the inspector. Six default colours
have been provided for rapid usage, but you can also opt to use the colour palette to
change the colour to a custom preference. This can be done either by selecting the
note and pressing – C as per normal, or selecting Show Colors from the contextual
menu. You can adjust the colour of many comments at once by selecting more than
one before opening the colour palette, or right-clicking on any of the selected notes.
As with inline annotations, the primary usage for comments will be to add meta
commentary to your text; commentary that isn’t intended to appear in the final cut.
However it is possible to adjust this behaviour in the compiler, and even opt to com-
pile comments as footnotes. Read Footnotes/Comments (section 24.15) for further
details on available options.

17.2.3 Linked Footnotes

As with inline footnotes, linked footnotes will by default appear with a grey back-
ground, and will likewise appear grey in the inspector. Footnotes cannot be indi-
vidually changed, though you can adjust the global application default for footnote
presentation in the Appearance preference pane (section B.2).
Unlike comments, the positioning of the anchor point in the text is important, as
it will be used to place the reference mark in your final text once you compile. The
positioning point is at the end of the anchor highlight area, not the beginning. So if
you wish to place a note at the end of a sentence, you would highlight the last word of
that sentence. This will be done for you automatically if you place the caret anywhere
in that word or at the end of the word, and create a footnote.
See Inline Footnotes (subsection 17.1.3) for general tips on footnotes in Scrivener.
170 CHAPTER 17. ANNOTATIONS AND FOOTNOTES

17.2.4 Finding Linked Notations

Scrivener provides tools for stepping through your entire project, searching for in-
spector comments and footnotes. Read more about this feature in Find by Format
and Text (section 21.4.3).

17.3 General Usage Tips for Notation

17.3.1 Stripping Out All Notation
If you wish to strip out all (inline and linked) notes from a text at once, this can be
easily done by copying the text with Edit � Copy Special � Copy Without Comments
or Footnotes, or – C, and then pasting directly over the copied text. Do note this
will also destroy footnotes, so use this command with care.

17.3.2 Resetting Linked Note Formatting

Both comments and footnotes are rich text fields. This means you can apply whatever
formatting you wish into these, and they will be exported with this formatting when
you compile. Consequently, adjust the Formatting preferences (section B.7) for notes
will not immediately impact them, as this might wipe out your formatting. You can
however, just as with documents, reset the formatting to the application default by
right-clicking on selected notes and choosing Convert to Default Formatting.

17.3.3 Exporting Annotations and Comments

You can export all of the inline annotations and linked comments in your project
into an RTF file with File � Export � Comments \& Annotations. Optionally, you can
restrict this down to the selected items in the sidebar, rather than the entire project.
You can also choose to export titles along with the comments, making it easier to find
where they came from.

17.3.4 Notation with Copy and Paste

Within Scrivener, you can copy or cut, and paste ranges of text that contain any style
of notation, and it will be carried along with the selection. This can even be done in
between projects.
When pasting into other programs, however, the footnotes and comments will be
converted to several styles that the receiving program can choose from. For word
processors, most will select RTF formatting. Thus, to get the most benefit from
pasting, you should use applications that can read RTF formatting. A good rule of
thumb is, if it can import footnotes and comments, they will work with copy and
paste, too. If a range of text with comments and footnotes of any style are pasted into
Word, they will be converted to margin notes and typeset footnotes.
17.4. TEXT COLOUR AND HIGHLIGHTS 171

Pasting into many Mac OS X applications will produce a different result, as most
do not support either footnotes or comments. In this case they will use RTFD format-
ting, which is a “flattened” version that looks like footnotes and inline commentation,
but in effect just formatted text. Since these applications cannot use real footnotes and
comments in the first place, this is an acceptable compromise.

Pasting Into Word 2011: Microsoft has changed how Word accepts pasted text to
prioritise the use of the RTFD method instead of RTF, even though it can handle
RTF just fine. This means you’ll end up with flattened notation as though Word
cannot support them. If you use Word 2011, you’ll want to enable the “Use Word-
2011 compatible copy” in the Import & Export preference pane (section B.9). Do
note that when this option is enabled, it will cause standard applications which
would ordinarily use RTFD to fail, as that flattened version will no longer be pro-
vided. So only enable this option if Word is your primary processor.

Finally, pasting into a plain-text editor, like TextMate, BBEdit, or TextEdit in plain-
text mode, will produce a plain-text flattened alternative, which uses brackets and
line-spacing to achieve a footnote and comment effect.
If you wish to copy and paste text without any notation at all, use Edit � Copy
Special � Copy Without Inline Annotations or Footnotes, or – C.

17.4 Text Colour and Highlights

Arbitrary text colour can be applied to your document in a fashion similar to any
other formatting range. Select the text you wish to change the colour on, and either
call up Format � Font � Show Colors ( – C), or use the left-most colour chip in the
format bar to set the colour. The format bar will remember the last colour you have
used, so it easy to rapidly apply the same colour to multiple text selections with a
single click. If you wish to change the colour, click and hold (or right-click) on the
colour chip. The menu will be divided into four main sections:

1. Remove Color

2. Built-in presets (black; red; dark green; blue; and tin)

3. Custom swatches

4. Show Colors (accesses the colour palette so you can select a custom colour)

Custom swatches are imported from your colour palette in the custom colour shelf,
which can be seen here (Figure 17.1). These are named automatically by the Mac OS
X system. You may find similar colours will acquire the same name, this is normal;
they should be considered conveniences, not identifiers.
172 CHAPTER 17. ANNOTATIONS AND FOOTNOTES

Setting a highlight to a range of text is quite similar, only you will use the right-
most colour chip on the format bar, instead. As with the text colour chip, clicking
once will re-use the last highlighter colour, and holding the button down or right-
clicking will access the full menu. For highlighters, this can also be accessed in the
Format � Highlight � sub-menu. In addition, the last colour used will be assigned to
the keyboard shortcut, – H for rapid application at any time.

Colours and Compiling: It is important to know that both text colour and high-
lights will be exported when compiling, to most formats. They cannot be auto-
matically removed, and so should be used either when it is your intention to have
them in the final draft, or as temporary tools that you periodically strip out when
done with them. Some formats (and some word processors) do not support colour
and highlights, and so even if they are compiled in, they may not always show up.
When using a workflow that omits these tools, you can feel safer in leaving them
in when it comes time to compile.

Scrivener provides tools for stepping through your entire project, searching for text
colour and highlighters. Read more about this feature in Find by Format and Text
(section 21.4.3).

17.4.1 Naming Text Highlights

The default text highlight marker names can be changed to something less generic,
on a universal level. When you first ran Scrivener, it installed a custom colour swatch
file. Swatch groups are OS X’s way of letting you create selections of colours and
giving them useful names. To change the highlighter colours, show the Color Palette
( – C), and select the third icon from the left.
Next, from the “Palettes” drop-down menu, select the group titled, “Scrivener”.
You should now see something resembling the above screenshot. Double-click on any
of the provided highlights to rename it. Your changes should be visible immediately
in the Scrivener interface, where applicable.
Your own colours can be added to any of Scrivener’s various colour selection
menus, as well. If necessary, click and drag downward in the location marked above,
“Custom colour shelf”. You should see a row of white squares appear. You can drag
out as many rows as you like.
The easiest way to create new custom colours is to use either the colour wheel
(first icon) or the sliders (second icon). When you find a hue that you’d like to use as a
highlight, text colour, or annotation colour, drag from the large colour preview area
at the top of the pane, and drop into one of the empty slots in the custom shelf.
If you check one of Scrivener’s colour menus right now, you’ll see that it has already
been added below the base sets. To change the name of your custom colour, click on
17.4. TEXT COLOUR AND HIGHLIGHTS 173

Figure 17.1: Scrivener swatch set

174 CHAPTER 17. ANNOTATIONS AND FOOTNOTES

Figure 17.2: Custom named colours

the swatches icon again, make sure the Scrivener set is active, and drag the colour from
the custom shelf into the list. Now that it is there, you can double-click to rename it.
Note that due to the way colours are estimated, if you have several subtle variations
they will all get the same name. To avoid this, create a new named colour swatch for
each variation. This is a purely aesthetic feature though. Names are not used for
anything, except for your own reference.

Mac OS X Tip:If you wish to share your colour sets with other users, or transfer
them to another computer, you will find a file in your user Library folder, un-
der Colors, named Scrivener.clr. Place this file into the same folder on the second
computer and it should become instantly available.
17.5. MARKING REVISIONS 175

17.5 Marking Revisions

Scrivener uses a basic technique for making revisions visibly distinctive from one an-
other and the base text. At its core, the feature is simply a formalised method for
apply text colour as you type. The formal nature of this is in both the selection of the
tool, rather than picking some arbitrary colour from the Format Bar, and a collection
of tools for working with that particular colour at a later time.
Whenever a revision level has been enabled in a project, it will impact all primary
editor views where text editing is possible (it will not impact notes or other ancil-
lary fields). The cursor colour will be changed to that colour, to remind you of this
fact, before you start typing. In addition to colour the text as you type, usage of the
strikethrough format will colour the strike-out in accordance with the revision level,
too.

Limitations: Revision levels are not to be considered equivalent to “track changes”,

as seen in version controlled software, or Microsoft Word. They are very simple,
low bandwidth tools, that only mark modified or new text. Removed text will not
be marked in any way. If you wish to track all changes between a document and
its revised state, take a look at the snapshot feature (section 14.9). Stricken text,
while it will display the revision level from when strikeout was used, will need to
be manually removed later on.

17.5.1 Setting a Revision Level

There are five revision levels available, and each are accessible in the Format � Revision
Mode � sub-menu. Simply click on the coloured menu command you wish to use as
your revision mode, and begin editing the document. As you type in new text, it will
be automatically coloured with the revision level, as if you had typed it in and then
selected it, and applied a text colour with the Format Bar. If you wish to paste text
into the editor using the revision colour, use Edit � Paste and Match Style.

17.5.2 Marking Existing Text

There are times when you may wish to mark existing text with a revision level. To do
so you must already have a revision level set, then select the text you wish to mark,
and use the Format � Revision Mode � Mark Revised menu command. This menu com-
mand will only appear when active text has been selected, so if you do not see it,
ensure that the text you have selected is in the active editor.

17.5.3 Removing a Revision Level

Once you have reviewed a document’s revisions, you will probably wish to remove
the revision markings from that document. This can be very easily done by selecting
the appropriate revision level from the menu, and then without selecting any text, use
176 CHAPTER 17. ANNOTATIONS AND FOOTNOTES

the Format � Revision Mode � Remove Current Revision Color menu command. This
command will work on the entire text session that is in the active editor, so if you
are editing multiple documents in Scrivenings, ensure you wish to wipe out markings
for all visible documents. If you only wish to strip out marks from a portion of the
session, use – 4 to isolate the document, first.
You can also use this command in conjunction with a selection, to remove only
a portion of the revision markings from the document. Make sure that the selec-
tion only contains text marked with that revision, and use the same menu command
above.
Since revision levels are nothing more than coloured text, if you happen to have
other text in your document that is coloured identically, this command will strip out
those colours too. In general, it is a good idea to reserve these colours for revisions
only, if you intend to use the feature heavily.

17.5.4 Removing all Revision Markings

When you’ve reviewed all revisions are are ready to return the document to a default
colour state, you can use Format � Revision Mode � Remove All Revisions to strip out
all revision level markings in the active text session. The same warning from above
applies: this will impact all documents in a Scrivenings session. Likewise, the same
warning about overlapping colour usage applies as well: any colours matching any of
the revision levels will be stripped from the documents.

17.5.5 Changing the Revision Colours

It is possible to change Scrivener’s associations for which colours are which levels.
These can be configured in the Appearance preference pane (section B.2), in the Revi-
sion Colors tree of the Customize Colors section.
Once changed, Scrivener will no longer associate existing coloured text as being a
part of a revision, even if a revision mode was used to apply that text in the past. In
particular, the tools for stripping out revision colours will cease to work on docu-
ments marked up with the original colour scheme, and the tool for finding revision
markings (below) will no longer uncover these markings. It is thus advisable to not
touch these settings if you intend to use revision markings in a collaborative environ-
ment. If multiple authors are using different preferences, none of the special tools for
working with these modes will function correctly. Either establish a standard set of
colours between all involved parties, or agree to use the defaults.

17.5.6 Finding Revision Markings

Scrivener provides tools for stepping through your entire project, searching for revi-
sion levels. Read more about this feature in Find by Format and Text (section 21.4.3).
17.6. TEXT MARKINGS AND MULTIMARKDOWN 177

17.6 Text Markings and MultiMarkdown

Since MultiMarkdown has scant tools for working with text formatting, many of the
above marking techniques have no direct analogue, with the exception of footnotes.
In the case of annotations and comments, it is possible to use embedded XHTML
coding to simulate comments, and they will be marked in such a way that it is easy
to get both the colour information and the fact that they are comments, from an
XSLT stylesheet. In fact, the default MMD XSLTs have been designed to work with
Scrivener’s annotation format in a simple way. Other markings, such as text colour,
highlighting, and revision levels, will be completely dropped from the compile.

17.6.1 Using Comments with MultiMarkdown

Both inline annotations and inspector comments work very similarly when compil-
ing with MultiMarkdown. Both can be independently stripped from the document
during compile, making it possible to leave one as “functional” and the other style as
pure commentary.
Since there is no directly analogue for comments1 , Scrivener employs the usage of
MMD’s ability to handle raw XHTML coding in the document. When using MMD,
it has always been possible to pass XHTML through the parsing engine so that it
lands directly in the XHTML document, either in its transitive state toward another
format, or as a final product.
This behaviour can be disabled in the compile settings, and comments will be
passed through to the document in the same manner that they are using the plain-
text export, wrapped in square brackets.
For advanced usage tips on using comments and annotations in a functional capac-
ity, as a way of dynamically expanding MMD’s base syntax, read Functional Annota-
tions and Comments (section 27.1).

17.6.2 Using Footnotes with MultiMarkdown

When compiling a draft using MultiMarkdown, the compiler can be instructed to
produce proper footnote syntax for all of your inline and linked footnotes in the
project. This will be done using MMD’s referencing syntax, where a footnote refer-
ence is placed at the point of the note in the text, and the content of that note is placed
at the bottom of the file with a link to that reference marker. Scrivener will general
all of the reference tokens for you, making it exceptionally easy to do this. Unlike
with a standard text editor, you don’t have to worry about coming up with unique
1
While it is true, MMD uses XHTML, and XHTML has a perfectly valid syntax for comments, it
is not viable to use it because MMD already has an advanced secondary usage for XHTML comments,
in that raw LATEXcan be passed directly through the parsing engine and land in the final .tex file.
Thus, usage of the XHTML comment engine for general comments or other purposes would cause
undesirable side-effects.
178 CHAPTER 17. ANNOTATIONS AND FOOTNOTES

footnote reference IDs as you write. Just use Scrivener’s footnote tools, compile, and
you’ll have a completed document with footnotes.
If you do not wish to see footnotes in the final product, you can disable this func-
tion in the compiler, under the Footnotes/Comments pane, by checking off the “Re-
move footnotes”.
Additionally, you can deselect “Convert Footnotes to MultiMarkdown syntax” in
this same pane, to produce “plain-text” footnotes. Scrivener will emit simple plain-
text style reference numbers in your text, and then generate a list at the bottom of
the document, corresponding to these markers. This option could be useful in cases
where footnotes are not supported by the target format, and the XSLT hasn’t been
designed to handle them otherwise.
For advanced usage of both inline and inspector footnotes as multiple note streams,
read Multiple Footnote Streams with MMD (section 27.2).

17.6.3 Text and Highlight Colour with MultiMarkdown

In short, nothing is done to export Scrivener’s text colour (including revision levels,
which are just a formalised way of using text colour) and highlighting features to
MultiMarkdown, as there is no suitable analogue for these tools, and in most cases
since they represent a function of a document’s meta commentary, are not considered
to be suitable for semantic transfer. If there are cases where you would like to use
colour in your compiled documents, you might wish to take a look at advanced inline
annotations, above.
Rather than looking at this as a limitation, you can consider it to be a feature. As
with most purely rich text features in Scrivener, they can be used liberally to annotate
and comment upon your work, without fear of them every showing up in the final
product.
 Chapter 18

Inspector

The inspector displays all meta-data associated with the document shown in the editor
pane that most recently had the keyboard focus. Note that the special root folders in
the binder - Draft, Research and Trash - have no meta-data associated with them, and
therefore the inspector just shows the project notes or references when these items are
selected.
You may toggle the appearance of the inspector with View � Layout � Show|Hide
Inspector, or by pressing – I.

18.1 Synopsis Card

At the top of the Inspector (for the Notes, References and Keywords panes) you will
find a depiction of the document’s index card, using whatever index card theme and
appearance options you have set in preferences (Corkboard specific display features
will not be rendered on the card, such as the pin, stamp, or keyword colours). As
with the index card on the corkboard, you can edit the title and synopsis right on the
card, updating the documents corresponding representation on the corkboard.
To the right in the header bar you’ll see a drop-down menu with an index card
graphic in it. Click here to select between text synopsis and graphical synopsis. In
graphical mode, you can drop an image from the Finder (or the binder) which will
be used to “represent” this document on the Corkboard. The text synopsis will not
be erased, and in fact will still be used on the outliner and various export methods,
but in the Inspector and Corkboard, the graphic will be used instead. Read Placing
Images on the Corkboard (subsection 12.1.6) for further information.
When in text synopsis mode, the button on the far right will automatically generate
a synopsis based on the current text in the document. It will take the first few lines of
text and place it into the card for you. Clicking this button is synonymous with the
Documents � Auto-Generate Synopsis menu command.

The Synopsis section can be collapsed to make space for the other elements of the
Inspector.
See also: So What are Index Cards, Anyway? (subsection 12.1.1)

179
180 CHAPTER 18. INSPECTOR

18.2 General Meta-Data View

This collapsible section appears in the Notes, References and Keywords panes of the
Inspector. It displays the basic document meta-data and provides controls for editing
it. Read Meta-Data Types (section 10.1) for further detail.

18.3 Custom Meta-Data View

Click on the header bar for General Meta-Data to reveal the Custom Meta-data con-
trol. You can also alternate between General and Custom meta-data by pressing – 7.
The interface presents a table with the meta-data field name in the left column, the
editable values you may supply on the right. If custom colours have been assigned to
any fields, they will be rendered here as text colour. Also, word-wrapping will impact
this table. Read Custom Meta-Data (subsection 10.1.6) for more information.
If no custom meta-data has been configured for the project, this panel will not be
available.

18.4 Document Support Panes

The five panes of the inspector present further access to notes, reference links, key-
words, text snapshots, and linked comments and footnotes, respectively. The first
three share space with the synopsis and meta-data panels, the last two take up the
entire inspector interface.
The five panes can be accessed at any time by clicking on the icons in the bottom
of the inspector, using the View � Inspect � sub-menu.

18.4.1 Document and Project Notes

Document notes provide a rich text writing area that is outside of the main text area.
You can use notes to store any auxiliary information about the current document
for reference whilst writing. Clicking the header bar of the notes area will bring up
a pop-up menu from which you can select “Document Notes” or “Project Notes”.
Document notes are always attached to the current document.
Project notes are similar to document notes, except they are visible to the entire
project, no matter what document you have selected. In addition, you can also create
multiple project notepads, using the Project Notes window (section 12.3). When
more than one notepad has been created for a project, you will see them appear in
this menu as well. There will always be at least one project notepad.
You can cycle forward and backward through all available document and project
notepads with – 6 and – 6.
18.4. DOCUMENT SUPPORT PANES 181

18.4.2 References
The References table allows you to hold links to related material within the project
itself, elsewhere on your hard drive or on the internet. Drag documents from the
binder or the Finder and URLs from the internet into the table to create links, or use
the buttons in the References header bar to add and remove reference links. Double-
clicking on the icon of the reference, or selecting it and hitting Return, will open
the document, either inside Scrivener or in the default application depending on the
reference type. Clicking the header bar of the references area will bring up a pop-up
menu from which you can select “Document References” or “Project References”.
As with notes, document references are attached to the current document whereas
project notes are global and remain the same no matter which document you are
viewing.
References to files on your disk which are supported by Scrivener’s editor can be
dragged into a header bar for viewing, even without importing them into the project.
URLs and unsupported file formats will not allow a drop on the header bar.
When you create a Scrivener Link to a document in any way, a Reference back
to the originating document will be placed in its references list. This way you can
easily track “back links” while browsing your project. These links are, however, not
dynamic. They are created once upon linking, and can later be removed or altered.

Pro Tip: If you change the “URL” for internal links (which otherwise just state
“[Internal Link]” in the URL field) to a single asterisk, that item will be placed
at the very top of the header bar icon menu. If accessed from there, it will load
that file in accordance with your navigation settings for internal references. Use
this to create a more visible “soft link” between one or more documents, such as
frequently used research material, instructions for preparation, and so on.

18.4.3 Keywords Pane

You can associate keywords with documents to help you find them when performing
a project search. Use the buttons in the header bar above the keywords table to add
and remove keywords (or you can drag words and phrases from text to the keywords
table to create a new keyword). You can also use the Keywords HUD, which stores a
repository of all keywords used in the project, to assign keywords by dragging them
from the HUD into the keywords table in the inspector. You could use keywords to
hold character names, locations, themes, or anything else. This way, you could assign
the name of a theme to a document as a keyword, and then later you could perform
a keyword search to find all documents that deal with that theme (especially useful as
you are unlikely ever to use the name of a theme directly in the text itself).
There are several ways to add new keywords to your document:
182 CHAPTER 18. INSPECTOR

1. Drag the keywords from the Keywords HUD to keywords table in the inspec-
tor

2. Drag the keywords from the Keywords HUD to the document header bar, or its
name in the binder (this latter use allows you assign keywords to many selected
documents at once)

3. Click the + button in the keywords table header bar to type in a new keyword.
If the keyword already exists, auto-completion will be used to help you with
data entry. You can also use the Enter key in the table to add new keywords.

4. Using the gear menu in the keywords table header bar to access the Add Keyword
menu, which will contain a sorted list of all keywords in the project Keywords
HUD.

5. Right-click anywhere in the keywords table itself for quick access to this menu,
as well.

Keywords can be unassigned from a document by selecting them in the keywords

table and clicking the - button, or pressing the Delete key on your keyboard.
To change the order of the keywords, simply drag and drop them in this table. This
can be useful if you are viewing keywords on the corkboard as colours. Since only
the first few (the precise number of which you can modify) will be shown, it is good
to move the most important keywords you intend to track to the top of the list.
See Also:

1. Using Keywords (subsection 10.1.4)

2. Keywords HUD (section 10.2)

18.4.4 Snapshots Pane

This section of the Inspector gives you easy access to all of your existing snapshots, the
ability to create new ones, delete old ones, and load up comparative displays between
snapshots or the current editor.
At the top of the Inspector, you will find two buttons. Clicking the + button will
create a new untitled snapshot for the current document. To remove a snapshot, select
it in the table below, and click the - button. To read the contents of a snapshot, click
on any of the rows and its text will appear in the text preview area below the table.
The Compare button lets you analyse the differences between versions of your text.
There are two ways of using this:

1. Compare with current: Simply select the snapshot you wish to compare against
the current text, and then click the Compare button. The changes will be high-
lighted in the text preview area.
18.4. DOCUMENT SUPPORT PANES 183

2. Compare two snapshots: Select two snapshots in the table and then click the
Compare button. The differences between those two versions will be high-
lighted.

While in comparison mode, the text preview area will switch to plain-text so that
only actual changes to the content can be analysed. To return to standard viewing
mode, click the Original button. The two arrow buttons which will appear in com-
parison mode let you jump from change to change. You can use – [ and – ] to
navigate between changes, as well.
In some cases, the level of editing will be as such that the comparison mode pro-
duces confusing results. The method of analysis can be fine-tuned by clicking the
down-arrow beside the comparison button at any time. In many cases, removing
word-level analysis will produce a cleaner result, when extensive edits have been made.
These options work in a descending fashion, meaning that the lowest selected option
overrides the options above it.

1. By Paragraph: any changes made within a paragraph will trigger the entire para-
graph as having been modified.

2. By Clause: any changes made within a clause (as in a sentence) will mark the
entire clause as having been modified.

3. By Word: individual words will be marked, producing the most precise (and
thus “noisy”) results.

The Roll Back button will revert the current editor text to the text in the selected
snapshot. To use it, select the snapshot you wish to revert to, and click the Roll Back
button. Scrivener will request confirmation from you, and give you the opportunity
to snapshot the current text if you wish. Note this cannot be undone.
Read more about using snapshots here (section 14.9).

18.4.5 Linked Notes Pane

The final pane keeps track of all the comments and footnotes that appear in the cur-
rent text view. This means that in Scrivenings mode where multiple documents are
represented, this display will show a combined view of all notes across the documents,
in the order that they appear.
Along the top of the pane, you will find three buttons which in order of appearance
from left to right do the following:

❧ Add a new comment in the text at the current text position or selection

❧ Add a new footnote in the same manner as above

184 CHAPTER 18. INSPECTOR

❧ Delete the selected comment(s) for footnote(s).

Select multiple items in the same fashion you would select multiple documents
with the Cmd and Shift keys. Notes can be independently collapsed or revealed by
clicking the triangles beside their title. Opt-clicking these arrows will collapse or
expand all notes. Likewise the – 0 and – 9 universal shortcuts for collapse all and
expand all work as well.
Press the Esc key to return to the main text editor at any time, even while editing a
note.

Using notes as bookmarks: Clicking on a note will scroll the text editor to the
position that they appear in within the text. This means you can use notes as a
form of bookmark, or quickly jump through your text point-by-point to areas that
need addressing.

Right click on any of the notes to convert between footnote and comment, or to
reset their formatting to the application default, which can be set up in the Formatting
preference pane (section B.7). Additionally, comments can have their colour changed
by right-clicking on selected comments. This will also change the anchor highlight in
the main text.
See also: Linked Notation (section 17.2) for full usage notes on the comments and
footnotes themselves.

18.5 Locking the Inspector

You can lock the inspector to the current editor so that when the other editor in
the split view receives the focus, the inspector does not change contents but instead
continues to display information about the document in the first editor. To lock it,
just click on the icon of the padlock in the bottom right of the inspector (in the footer
view, near the window resizing area).

18.6 Advanced Inspector Keyboard Usage

The following keyboard shortcuts may be used to access the individual Inspector
panes:

❧ – H — Notes

❧ – N — References

❧ – J — Keywords

❧ – M — Snapshots
18.6. ADVANCED INSPECTOR KEYBOARD USAGE 185

❧ – K — Comments and Footnotes

These five keys are all placed under the right hand in ascending order, making it
easy to memorise them and use them without leaving the home-row. These shortcuts
have two modes of operation. If the pane in question is not visible, the Inspector
will open if necessary and switch to that pane. If the keyboard shortcut is pressed
while the particular pane is already visible, it will be focussed. This means you can
always start typing in notes, even if the Inspector is hidden, by quickly tapping the
corresponding keyboard shortcut twice. The focus model is used in the panes like so:

1. Notes: Immediate access to existing text so you can start writing and editing
in notes immediately. Switch between notepads with – 6 to select the next
notepad in the list, and – 6 to select the previous notepad in the list. These
shortcuts will “wrap around” the list so you can continue to use one of them to
cycle through all notepads.

2. References: Selection is moved to the list so you can navigate with arrow keys;
tap Enter to activate a link; or Del to remove a link from the list.

3. Keywords: Selection is again moved to the list. Use arrow keys to navigate
between existing keywords; tap Enter to add new keywords; tap Del to remove
keywords.

4. Snapshots: Focus is moved to the text preview field so you can quickly copy
and paste from here if necessary.

5. Comments & Footnotes: Focus is moved to the note list. Use the up and down
arrow keys to move between notes and jump to their corresponding position in
the main document; Enter to edit the text of an existing comment or footnote;
left and right arrows to collapse or reveal a note; and Del to remove notes.
 Chapter 19

QuickReference
QuickReference Panels give you the ability to open more than two documents at
once. They are in a way similar to Mac OS X’s QuickLook, but rather than limiting
you to only one QuickLook panel and a view-only model, many QuickReference pan-
els can be opened simultaneously, and when viewing items which would otherwise
be editable in the standard editor, allow full editing capability. They also provide full
editing access to most data you can get in the Inspector, with the notable exception of
snapshots (more on that below). Once opened, QuickReference panels will remem-
ber their size and position on the screen, as well as their meta-data viewing options
for the duration of the session only.
There are two easy ways to open a document in QuickReference mode:

1. Select one or more documents in the sidebar or a view and tap the Spacebar. If
more than one document is selection, multiple QuickReference windows will
be opened at once.

2. Use the View � QuickReference � sub-menu to navigate your project binder

and open a document from anywhere, without disturbing your existing editor
views or requiring an editor lock. This method is also accessible from Full
Screen mode. This menu functions in a similar manner to the Go To menu.
Each item in the Binder will have an entry, and you select a container entry just
as easily, to open that container in its own QuickReference window.

The panel itself is composed of four major parts, one which is hidden by default. At
the top you have quick access to the Label and Status meta-data fields. In the middle
is the editor/viewer. This is an editable, full-power text editor when viewing standard
file or folder documents, and a standard media viewer just like the main editor when
viewing PDFs, images, or QuickTime documents1 . Below the editor/viewing area
you will find a compact footer bar which will display a word and character count for
standard file or folder documents. Beside that, a drop-down menu will give you access
to some document meta-data.
1
Unlike loading film and audio in a split, the remove pause and resume commands will not work
in QuickReference panes, as you can have many audio files open at once, and Scrivener would not
know which one to trigger.

186
19.1. QUICKREFERENCE MINI-INSPECTOR 187

Text Zoom: You can independently zoom the text scale within a QuickReference
window, either by using the keyboard shortcuts, – , and – . or by using the
View � Zoom � sub-menu.

You might want to take a moment to examine the Navigation pane in preferences
(section B.5) to see how you can use QuickReference panels to open things you might
otherwise have thought you could only open in standard editor splits.
See also:

❧ Inspector (chapter 18)

❧ Meta-Data Types (section 10.1)

19.1 QuickReference Mini-Inspector

Each QuickReference panel has the ability to load up key components of the inspec-
tor’s meta-data into a split view. Using the drop-down menu, you can select which
type of meta-data you wish to view:

1. Synopsis: the content of the index card

2. Picture: the representational graphic if one has been selected

3. Notes: standard document notes (you cannot access project notes from a Quick-
Reference window)

4. Keywords: document keywords; this table also serves as a drop-point for key-
word drags from the HUD.

5. References: the list of document references; as with notes, project references

cannot be viewed.

6. Comments & Footnotes: this is the only view that will pop-up on its own if
you add a comment or footnote while writing in the editor. This pane works
identically to its inspector counter-part.

19.2 Using QuickReference Panels in Full Screen

Since QuickReference Panels float over the Scrivener interface, they will remain
visible even when entering full screen mode, making them useful for bringing
reference material into this dedicated writing environment. Additionally, you
can open new QuickReference windows while in full screen, by accessing the
View � QuickReference � sub-menu.
 Chapter 20

Scriptwriting
Although Scrivener is in no way intended to be a dedicated scriptwriting program
(for such a program you might want to try Final Draft or Celtx if you have not done
so already), it does allow for basic script formatting.

20.1 Formatting a Script in Scrivener

To format a script in Scrivener, select the format you want to use from the For-
mat � Scriptwriting � sub-menu. When in scriptwriting mode, the top item in the
Scriptwriting submenu will be checked and will display the name of the format you
are using. This preferred format, which will change depending on your last selection,
can be toggled with – 8
By default, the standard “Screenplay” format is selected and Scrivener is in
scriptwriting mode. If “Script Mode - Screenplay” did not have the tick next to it,
then we would know that the current editor was not in scriptwriting mode (that is,
it would be in normal prose mode for general writing). You can more easily tell
whether or not you are in scriptwriting mode by looking at the footer view, which
will display various scriptwriting tools and hints, rather than the standard word and
character statistics display. Additionally, the binder icon for that item will be tinted
yellow, with three-hole punches on the side.
Scriptwriting mode is a setting which is individual to each document. Once a docu-
ment has been toggled to scriptwriting mode, it will remain that way until you change
it. Thus it is possible to have a standard document in one split for your notes, while
using scriptwriting mode in the second split to draft your work. However, it is not
possible to use more than one type of script formatting in the same project. This is
a project level setting, and so if you need to create a stageplay and screenplay at the
same time, you will need to adapt it in a new project.
At the bottom of the scriptwriting menu you can see a list of all the different script
formats that are available. Scrivener comes with the following formats built-in:

❧ Screenplay

❧ BBC Radio Scene Style

❧ BBC Taped Drama

188
20.1. FORMATTING A SCRIPT IN SCRIVENER 189

❧ Comic Book (Antony Johnston)

❧ Comic Book (Alternative)

❧ Stage Play (UK)

❧ Stage Play (US)

You can, of course, mix up different text modes in the same document or draft, so
that parts of a document may be written as a script and other parts written as general
text. This makes it very easy to write treatments in Scrivener.
The screenplay format that comes with Scrivener by default is based on a Holly-
wood standard, but with half an inch added to the left indent of each element so
that when you print with a standard set-up of one inch margins, the left margin will
actually start at one-and-a-half inches, which is the standard to allow for three-hole
binding.
The scriptwriting mode in Scrivener works much like other scriptwriting programs
(primarily, Final Draft). On the right end of the footer view is a pop-up button with a
menu containing the various elements for the selected format. Clicking on an element
will reformat the current paragraph to the format of the selected element. So, for
instance, if you clicked on “Character”, the current paragraph might all be capitalised
and centred.
This menu also has full keyboard access, allowing you to change modes swiftly
and without the use of the mouse. To pop-up the menu can be invoked with –
Y at any time from within a scriptwriting document (even in Full Screen view). To
select an individual element style, tap the associated letter for it, on the right side
of the menu. Example: “T” for Transition, and “C” for Character. Additionally,
each element (up to the ninth) will be assigned with a number (in the order that they
appear in the element menu), which can be combined modifiers. For example, the
Parenthetical format is the fourth available element, and so it can be invoked with
– 4; a Transition is the 6th element, and so can be invoked with – 6 and so on.
Learning these numbers can be useful as you do not need to call up the intermediary
menu to change element modes.
Upon hitting enter and typing, the paragraph formatting will be changed to that
of the next set element. So, for instance, if you hit Enter after having typed in a Scene
Heading, the typing attributes might be set to Action. At this point, you could easily
change the current element by pressing the Tab key—hitting it once would change
the current element to Character. Hitting it several times will cycle through different
elements.
The footer view tells you which element will be created next by hitting tab or
return. For example, in the Screenplay format, when waiting to type in a Character
name, pressing Tab will switch you to Transition and pressing Enter will switch to
190 CHAPTER 20. SCRIPTWRITING

Dialogue. However, once you begin typing in a character name, the tab hint will
change to Parenthetical, letting you drop to that element instead of dialogue if you
wish.
Auto-completion is available for some elements, as is appropriate for their context.
Upon choosing Scene Heading, for instance, you can start typing and then hit – . or
Escape to choose from a list of “INT.”, “EXT.” and so forth. For a more aggressive
auto-completion system, this can be fine-tuned in the Word Auto-Completion section
of the Auto-Correct preference pane (section B.8). You may also define special auto-
completion lists for each element (subsection 20.6.4).
If for some reason you need to change the element type for text you’ve already
entered, you can simply place the caret anywhere within the text you want to change,
and invoke the element menu ( – Y), or use the Format � Scriptwriting � Change
Element To � sub-menu to select a different element. Note that when moving from
an form that uses all-caps to an element that does not, you will need to adjust the
capitalisation manually, as Scrivener will not try to guess what is appropriate. The
Format � Convert � sub-menu has a number of conversion routines to aid in this.

20.2 Using Page View to Estimate Page Counts

While the point should remained stressed that Scrivener is not designed at any level
to provide a completely accurate pagination solution, with rigid formatting such as
that used by most scriptwriting formats, with a few optional settings, it is possible to
get very close to an accurate page count, when using the new Page View (chapter 15)
mode.
The first thing you will need to do is switch Scrivener’s default Scrivenings sep-
arator from a divider line to single line breaks, which can be set in the Formatting
preference pane (section B.7), at the very bottom of the panel. This version uses a
“zero-height” display model which will not introduce page distortion over long doc-
uments, like the divider will. You will also want to disable the usage of titles in
Scrivenings mode, for your project, as it will likewise expand the overall height of the
document over large sections.

Scrivenings View and Scriptwriting: When creating a scrivenings session, if

the session includes a mix of script formatting documents and regular documents,
Scrivener will determine which mode to use based on the type which has the most
entries in the session. This means, if you create a scrivenings session with 4 stan-
dard documents and 2 script documents, script mode will not be on by default.
In the other direction, if there are more scripts that standard documents, script
writing tools will be enabled in those standard documents. You can switch modes
while in scrivenings with the – 8 shortcut. This will only impact (globally) the
scrivenings session, and not any of the underlying files.
20.3. IMPORTING A SCRIPT FROM FINAL DRAFT AND OTHER
PROGRAMS 191

Finally, you will need to ensure that the document is being displayed on a page and
margin framework that matches the final print. The best way to do this is to set the
Page View option to use the printing settings, with View � Page View � Use Printed
Page Size. For this to work best, you should change your preference in the Editor
preference pane for “Base printed page size on:” to “Compile Settings”. If you have
your compile settings set up correctly (1” margins all around for most script formats),
then the resulting page view layout should match the actual print job.
If you work with scripting formats quite a lot, you might wish to ensure that “Show
page view in new projects” is enabled in the Editor preference pane as well.

20.3 Importing a Script from Final Draft and

Other Programs
Final Draft 8 Users: Refer to the section (section 20.5) on exchanging files with
Final Draft 8. For users of Final Draft 7 and earlier, you can import scripts cre-
ated in Final Draft by using “Save As” in Final Draft to save your script in “File
Converter” (FCF) format, then import the resulting .fcf file. Scrivener will try to
match the elements in the FCF script to the elements in the current script format.
For projects that use the basic screenplay formats, this should be all you need to do
to import a script with all of its elements recognised.

Because Scrivener is not a dedicated scriptwriting program, the way it handles script
elements is different from Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter. Dedicated
scriptwriting programs generally assign meta-data to each text element that tell the
program that, for instance, this line of text is a scene heading, that paragraph is a
piece of dialogue and so on. Scrivener does little more than automate the process you
would have to use yourself were you to use a standard word processor to format your
script; that is, it just sets up the necessary paragraph formatting for each element and
auto-capitalises if necessary. Scrivener recognises elements by their paragraph format-
ting - for instance, if a paragraph has a three-inch left indent and single line spacing,
Scrivener will look up this formatting in the list of script elements, and if an element
is found with matching formatting its name will be selected in the elements pop-up
button in the footer view. If no elements match, “General Text” will be selected.
This means that if you import a script into Scrivener from another program and
want to continue working on it, the script format mode selected in Scrivener must
exactly match the formatting of the script you have imported.

20.3.1 Importing From Final Draft 7 and Earlier

First, you will need to export the script from Final Draft as an RTF file. Follow the
instructions provided with your software package, for doing so.
192 CHAPTER 20. SCRIPTWRITING

Import the script either by dragging the RTF file from the Finder into
Scrivener’s binder or by using File � Import � Files... Select “Screenplay” from the For-
mat � Scriptwriting menu.
Ensuring that the script is visible in the editor and that the editor has the keyboard
focus (by clicking into it if necessary), go to Format � Scriptwriting � Re-capitalize
Script to capitalise scene heading and character elements.
The script should now look right in Scrivener, and clicking into different parts
of the text should cause the pop-up button in the editor’s footer view to update to
display the element in which the cursor has been placed (e.g. “Character” if you have
clicked in a character element).
If the pop-up button in the right of the footer view displays only “General Text”
when you click into different areas of your script, or if “Re-capitalize Script” did not
work properly, then this is because the format mode you selected (“Screenplay” in
this example) does not exactly match the format of the script you imported.

20.3.2 Importing Other Scripts as RTF

If your script formatting was not recognised properly, or if you imported a script that
has no matching format mode in Scrivener, you will need to create your own format
mode that matches the script using the Format � Scriptwriting � Script Settings panel.
Here’s how:

1. Export the script from your scriptwriting program as an RTF file.

2. Import the script either by dragging the RTF file from the Finder into
Scrivener’s binder or by using File � Import � Files...

3. Ensuring that the script is visible in the editor, click into a line of text that rep-
resents one of the elements you want to be recognised (for instance, by clicking
into a line of text that should be a scene heading).

4. Open the Script Settings panel (Format � Scriptwriting � Script Settings...).

5. Enter a title for your new format in the “Format Title” text field.

6. Select the first element in the list and give it the name you require (i.e. the name
of the element in which you placed the cursor in step 3) by double-clicking into
it and editing it if necessary.

7. From the Manage... drop-down menu in the Script Settings panel, select “Use
current font & paragraph settings”. This will copy the font and paragraph in-
formation from the line of text in which the cursor has been placed in the editor
into the Font and Paragraph panes of the Script Settings sheet.
20.4. PRINTING OR EXPORTING A SCRIPT 193

Repeat this process, matching the settings for the elements in the Script Settings
panel with the text in the editor for each element in your script.
Be sure to save your script format for use with other projects using the Manage...
pop-up button at the bottom of the Script Settings panel.
You can then use your new format with all projects in the future for any scripts you
import. Once you have successfully created your own script format mode, all of the
elements in your imported script should be recognised in the pop-up button in the
footer view of the editor, and you should be able to use the script mode to continue
editing your script. Note that more complicated script formats may require a little
more tweaking to be recognised, but the above process should work for most.
If you do create a script format mode that recognises elements from an imported
script, please use “Save to file. . . ” in the Manage... pop-up menu from the Script
Settings panel to save your format as an XML file somewhere safe on your hard drive
so that you can back it up and load it on other machines or following a hard drive
reformat if necessary. Also, please feel free to upload such format files on the forums,
where other Scrivener users may find them useful—or from where you can always
download them again should you lose them.

20.4 Printing or Exporting a Script

You can use the compiler (File � Compile...) to print your script (or to turn it into
a PDF file). For examples of how to do this, take a look at one of the scriptwriting
project templates by going to File � New Project... and selecting a project template
such as the Screenplay template. Read the instructions that come with the template
to see how to set up your project so that it is formatted properly when printed (or
exported).
In the majority of cases, just as you would with many other types of writing in
Scrivener, you will want to export your script from Scrivener so that you can do
all the final formatting in a dedicated formatting program such as Final Draft, see
Exporting Scripts (subsection 24.2.4) for information on how to use the Compiler to
export to many popular scriptwriting programs.

20.5 Working with Final Draft 8

That this information is only relevant to Final Draft 8 users. Users of previous ver-
sions of Final Draft should use the more basic FCF format for importing and export-
ing their work.
194 CHAPTER 20. SCRIPTWRITING

20.5.1 Importing Formatting from a Final Draft Document

Optional Step: For basic scripts or those that will use Final Draft’s standard
screenplay formatting—indeed, for most screenplays—this step can be omitted, as
it is mainly concerned with setting up the formatting for custom scripts. Proceed
to the next section if this is the case.

Whenever you import a script from Final Draft into Scrivener, all of its elements
will use the formatting specified in Scrivener’s script settings. These can be set up by
selecting “Script Settings. . . ” from the Scriptwriting submenu of the Text menu. The
Script Settings panel should be familiar to anyone who uses Final Draft, as it is set up
to be very similar, allowing users to create custom script formats.
Because a Scrivener project comprises multiple documents, it is important that the
script settings are set up as the user desires before importing or creating any script
documents in the project.
If you are writing a screenplay using standard formatting, you don’t really need to
do anything here. However, if you are using a custom format, or if you have an FDX
script that uses a custom format which you wish to retain after import into Scrivener,
you need to set up Scrivener to use that custom format first.
Fortunately, this is very easy to do, as Scrivener can read the formatting directly
from an FDX file, but you must do this before importing the script itself. (Remem-
ber, Scrivener can hold many different script documents but can only use one script
format in a project at a time; this is why setting up the format must be done separately
from importing a script.)
To import the formatting from an FDX file:

1. Open the Script Settings panel by going to Format � Scriptwriting � Script Set-
tings...

2. In the Script Settings panel, click on the “Manage. . . ” pop-up button in the
bottom-left.

3. Select “Load from Final Draft FDX. . . ”

4. In the open panel that appears, select the FDX file that contains the elements
and formatting you want to use and then click “OK” and “OK” again on the
Script Settings panel to accept the changes.

This doesn’t import the actual script, it just imports its elements and formatting
for use in the current project.
To test the new format, create a new document, choose scriptwriting format
(Format � Scriptwriting � Script Mode - FDX Script Settings) and start typing (changing
elements using tab and enter or using the pop-up menu in the footer view beneath the
20.5. WORKING WITH FINAL DRAFT 8 195

editor). You will see that the script uses the formatting of the FDX file. Now that this
is set up, you are ready to import the contents of the FDX file.

20.5.2 Importing the FDX Files

You can import FDX files into Scrivener in one of two ways:

1. Drag an FDX file into the binder.

2. Go to File � Import � Files... and select the FDX file that you want to import.

Many features will be retained: script notes become Scrivener footnotes, revisions
are marked up in red, highlighting is retained and so on.
If you wish the FDX file to be part of the script that will eventually be exported,
be sure to import it into the “Draft” folder, or drag it there after importing.

20.5.3 Exporting Individual Documents to FDX

To export individual documents to Final Draft, just select the documents you want to
export in the binder and then go to File � Export � Files... Select “Final Draft 8 (FDX)”
as the export format.
The exported file should open in Final Draft 8 with all features intact.

1. Compiling the Whole Draft to an FDX File

To combine all of the scenes in the Draft folder of your project into one FDX file,
do the following:

1. Go to File � Compile...

2. Select “Final Draft 8 (FDX)” as the file format.

3. You may need to tweak the various settings of the Compile Draft sheet to get
the script formatted correctly, just as you would with any Scrivener project.

4. Click on “Export. . . ” and choose a filename.

5. Open the exported file in Final Draft 8.

You should see that most elements are retained—footnotes become script notes,
coloured text becomes revised text, and so on. The header shows whatever is set in
Scrivener’s Compile Draft panel.
That covers the basics of importing from and exporting to the FDX format using
Scrivener.
196 CHAPTER 20. SCRIPTWRITING

20.6 Creating Your Own Script Formats

Scrivener comes with a number of script formats built in. You can also create your
own script formats tailored to your own requirements; as well as export and import
script modes for sharing on the Internet.
To create your own script format mode, select Format � Scriptwriting � Script Set-
tings... and use the panel that appears to name your format and define its various
elements. At the top of the panel is the Format Title text field. Enter the name of
your format here (e.g. “Television (BBC Comedy)”). This is the name which will be
visible in the menu, if you later choose to save your settings to a script format that
othe projects can use as well.
On the left of the panel is the Elements list. This is a list of the parts that make
up your script, such as “Scene Heading”, “Dialogue” and so on. You can add new ele-
ments and delete existing ones using the “+” and “-” buttons beneath the list, and you
can rename elements by double-clicking into them. You can also reorder elements
by dragging and dropping them. Note that “General Text” and “General Text (Cen-
tered)” will be added to the end of any element list you create but will not appear here
as they have no special properties by definition.

Script Formats are Static: Creating a script format is a static process. That is to
say that if you create a script format and then use it to write a script, if you then
go back and edit the script format in the Script Settings panel, the elements of the
script you created using the older script format will no longer be recognised as
anything other than “General Text” (until you click into each element in your text
and select the correct element from the script elements pop-up menu to update
the text). Thus, to save yourself lots of painful reformatting later, it is strongly
recommended that you ensure you get your script format right before you start
using it widely.

Next to the “Manage. . . ” menu (subsection 20.6.5) is another drop-down menu that
allows you to choose the units used to define your style: inches, centimetres or points
(most script formats use inches, of course).
On the bottom-right of the panel are the “OK” and “Cancel” buttons for saving
or cancelling the changes you have made to the format mode respectively. Click-
ing “OK” saves the script format into the current project package only. This means
that if you share your .scriv file with someone else, that someone else will be able
to open the project and use the script format regardless of whether they have this
script format installed on their machine. The format will not be available for use
with other projects until you select “Save for use with other projects” from the “Man-
age. . . ” menu, though. Once you are happy with the format, it is thus strongly
recommended that you make it available for use with other projects, as you might
not remember which project file you saved it in.
20.6. CREATING YOUR OWN SCRIPT FORMATS 197

Pro Tip: Making a format available for use in other projects saves it as an XML
file in ∼/Library/Application Support/Scrivener/ScriptFormats. Considering in-
structing your backup software to include this location (and potentially others as
well within the Scrivener folder) in order to keep your settings safe. You can also
save out external copies for sharing or further safe-keeping, with the Manage. . .
menu, discussed below.

On the right of the panel is the tab view. This is used for setting the format for each
element. Select the element from the list on the left, and then set the formatting for
that element using the controls in the tab view on the right. The setting controls are
grouped under four different tabs:

20.6.1 Font Tab

The Font pane (see the image above) provides options for setting the character appear-
ance for the selected element, as follows:

Font Allows you to set the font for the current element (selected in the list on the
left). Scrivener does not use the font to identify elements, so you can change
the font in the preferences without messing up Scrivener’s recognition of script
elements.

Size Allows you to set the font size (provided “Use script font set in Preferences” is
not selected above).

Style Provides a number of options for determining the appearance of the current
element, mostly self-explanatory.

❧ All caps: If this is checked, the element will be capitalised. If End of line
is selected (below), the element will be capitalised all the way to the end
of the element. If First tab is selected, the element will be capitalised only
up to the first tab character. This accommodates formats such as the UK
stage play format, which has character names and dialogue on the same
line, with character names in capital letters followed by a tab and dialogue
in normal sentence case. If Character(s) is selected, you can enter the char-
acters into the text field that will terminate capitalisation. For instance, if
you entered a colon in the text field, the element would only be capitalised
up to the first colon.
❧ No Underline/Single Underline/Double Underline: allows you to set the
underline style for the current element. If single or double underline is
selected, you can check Underline by word to underline words only (not
spaces).
198 CHAPTER 20. SCRIPTWRITING

❧ Parenthetical: encloses the current element in brackets when you hit tab
or enter.
❧ Style to: ordinarily, the “end of line” option will do fine, but in some cases
you will only want to define a custom format to a particular point, such
as the first tab encountered on the line, or a custom character sequence.
❧ Color: The text falling within the range of this element’s definition will be
recoloured as specified here. To change the colour, click on the chip and
select a colour using the palette.

Menu shortcut Enter a letter here that will be used in the script elements menu as a
shortcut key.

20.6.2 Paragraph Tab

The paragraph pane allows you to set the paragraph formatting of the selected ele-
ment:

Alignment Sets the current paragraph alignment (left, centered, right or justified).

Spacing Sets the inter-line spacing (single, 1.5 or double).

Spacing Before Sets the number of blank lines to appear between the selected ele-
ment (0, 1, 2, or 3), and the last one above it.

Ruler Conversions: When working with units in Scrivener, keep in mind that it’s
ruler starts at margin zero instead of paper zero. Since Scrivener is, by and large,
not “aware” of paper settings and page layout, it counts its ruler settings from the
beginning of the text on the left end of the page, not the beginning of the paper
itself. This is in contrast to many word processors, which start measuring at the
paper left edge, and show the print margin buffer in the display of the page.
Consequently, to convert most standard measurements to useful values here, you
will need to factor in the standard amount of print margin. For example, if the
Scene Heading is specified to begin at 1.5”, you will need to subtract 1” from that
and input 0.5” into Scrivener, since an additional inch will be added to the layout,
once margins are added to the page outside of Scrivener.

Indentation Allows simple customisation of the ruler layout for each element, pro-
viding support for most if not all formatting requirements on the page.

❧ First Line Indent Sets the left indentation of the first line of the paragraph,
a value which will only impact the first line and no subsequent lines from
the same paragraph.
20.6. CREATING YOUR OWN SCRIPT FORMATS 199

❧ Left Indent: Sets the left indentation of all lines in the paragraph except-
ing the first. Set this value identical to the First Line Indent, to create a
uniform “block indent” look.
❧ Right Indent: Sets the right indentation of the paragraph. This setting
pertains to all lines.
❧ First Tab: Sets the first tab stop of the paragraph. (Note that subsequent
tab stops may be added automatically to differentiate elements should any
elements have the same formatting.)

Advanced: Allows you to set the writing direction, minimum line height and de-
fault tab interval (the latter for cases where extra tabs are added as mentioned in “First
Tab”, above). Set “Try to keep with next paragraph” to prevent widows and orphans
with this element.

20.6.3 Tab/Return Tab

The Tab/Return pane allows you to control the tab and return behaviour for the
selected element; that is, it lets you specify what happens when you hit the tab or
return keys, and so thus can be used to aid in the flow of documentation creation
while you write. If you are creating a scripting environment from scratch, you might
wish to save this step for last, since you will need to reference other elements (which
may not exist while you are going through the list, initially).

On return Sets which element formatting the text will use when you hit the return
key. Using Screenplay as an example, for the “Scene Heading” element, “Ac-
tion” is selected for “On return”. This means that if you hit the return key after
typing a Scene Heading, the text will automatically be formatted ready to type
an Action element.

Tab behavior Sets what happens when you hit the tab key.

❧ Allow tabs: If this is checked, the tab key works as it would normally, that
is, it inserts tabs. With this checked, none of the other options for tab
behaviour are available.
❧ Tabbing on an empty line: Choose an element from the “Go to:” pop-up
button to set which element will be formatted when you hit tab on an
empty line. This allows you to cycle through elements using the tab key.
For instance, in the Screenplay format, if you are at the beginning of the
line using the Scene Heading format, you can then hit the tab key to re-
format the line as an Action element provided you haven’t typed anything
yet.
200 CHAPTER 20. SCRIPTWRITING

❧ Tabbing after typing: Sets what happens when you hit the tab key after
typing something in the current element. Select “Go to:” and an element
from the pop-up button to have tab automatically take you to the next
desired element (inserting a new line automatically). Use this to define
convenient alternate common elements. Select “Insert” and type charac-
ters in the text field to have the tab key insert a character sequence. In
the example above, hitting tab after typing something in a Scene Head-
ing element automatically inserts a hyphen surrounded by spaces, which
emulates the behaviour in Final Draft.

20.6.4 Auto-Complete Tab

The Auto-Complete tab allows you to set a custom list of words that will appear for
auto-completion for the current element.
Use the + and - buttons below the list to add or remove new words to the auto-
complete list, and double-click on words to edit them. When typing your script, hit
Escape or – . to bring up the auto-complete list. Note that the auto-complete list
only appears after you start typing a word. For each entry, you can check “Go to
Next Line”, which will force the editor to move to the next element once it has been
entered.

Append project auto-complete list Adds any words set in the project auto-complete
list (Project � Auto-Complete List) to the current script auto-complete list. This
way, script element completion lists can include character names set at the
project level.

Automatically add phrases to project list that occur Type in two characters to
help in isolating useful part of a phrase (such as locations and character names)
from the paraphernalia surrounding them. If a field is left blank, then anything
on the line will be used, up to any character defined in the opposing field.
An example for the Character element would be to add anything typed into
the character field prior to an open parentheses, and thus avoids such com-
mon markers as “(O.C.)”. However no starting limiter is provided, so anything
typed into the line will be added to the project list.

After project list completions When a project list auto-completion has been used,
you can set up the scripting system to do nothing, go to the next line, or insert
a tab.
An example for the Character element would be to go to next line after using a
project list completion (most likely a character name).
20.6. CREATING YOUR OWN SCRIPT FORMATS 201

20.6.5 Managing Scripts

At the bottom-left of the main script settings panel is a drop-down menu entitled
“Manage. . . ”. This allows you to reset your script elements to the default screenplay
settings, to save your format for use with other projects, to save it for back-up some-
where on your hard drive (or to share it with others) and to load from file an existing
format mode created either by yourself or someone else. You may also import for-
mats from Final Draft FDX or FDXT files.

Reset to defaults Reverts all customisations that you have made to the settings panel
to the Screenplay default. If you wish to revert to a saved script setting, simply
select that script from the Scriptwriting menu, instead of using this tool.

Use current font & paragraph settings Will attempt to import all available charac-
ter and paragraph level formatting attributes into the currently selected element
in the above element table. This can be quite useful when you have imported
a script from another program and wish to create a script format from the ex-
isting text. Simple click through the document, locating element types, and use
this tool to import the correct formatting into each element type.
If you are using Final Draft 8 or above, you will want to use the tool below for
scanning .fdx files for types, rather than doing all of this by hand.

Load from file. . . Loads a Scrivener script format file from the disk. Use this if you
have downloaded a script format from the Internet, or are in the process of
transferring formats from one computer to another.

Load from Final Draft .fdx or .fdxt file. . . Scrivener can examine an existing Fi-
nal Draft or Final Draft Template file for formatting rules and names, and at-
tempt to convert them to Scrivener’s internal script formatting, in one conve-
nient shot.

Save to file. . . Saves your current settings to an external file that you can easily
backup, upload to the Internet for sharing, or send to another of your com-
puters. This will not install the saved script into your Scrivener support folder.
Use the below command for that.

Save for use with other projects Essentially accomplishes the above, but automat-
ically installs it into your Scrivener support folder for immediate usage in all
of your projects. If you wish to share the file with others, or transfer them to
another computer, use the Save to file... option as well as this one.
 Chapter 21

Writing Tools

21.1 Bibliography Management

Scrivener offers simple integration with your favourite a bibliography or citations
manager such as Bookends, EndNote or Sente for academic work. To set it up, visit
the General preferences pane (section B.1) Click on Choose to choose your citations
manager (usually from the Applications folder). If you set a citations manager here,
you can hit – Y (or Format � Bibliography \ � Citations...) to launch your bibliogra-
phy application and bring it to the front automatically. You can then use your bib-
liography/citations application to paste a citation placeholder into Scrivener. After
compiling to RTF, you will need to use your manager to convert these placeholders
into final print form.

21.2 Goals and Statistics Tracking Tools

At some point, most writers will want to get some idea of the progress of their work
by checking the word, character or page count. There are several ways of doing this
in Scrivener:

❧ To get word, character and page counts for the whole of the draft (that is, the
contents of the Draft folder) and for any documents selected in the binder, use
Project � Project Statistics. To calculate the Draft statistics, Scrivener internally
generates the actual draft based upon your Compile Draft settings—so you need
to remember that if you have only got Compile Draft set up to print off syn-
opses, only the synopses will be counted. This can also mean that there will be
a delay in displaying this panel with larger projects.

❧ To get word, character, paragraph and line counts for the current document,
and a breakdown of word frequency (the number of times you use different
words), select the Project � Text Statistics menu command (this will only be avail-
able if a text document has the keyboard focus).

❧ To set a target word or character count and track your progress for the entire
draft or the current session, select Project � Show|Hide Project Targets.

202
21.2. GOALS AND STATISTICS TRACKING TOOLS 203

❧ To set a target word or character count and track your progress for a single
document, click on the target button in the bottom-right of the footer view
(this is not available in scriptwriting mode, though, where word and character
counts are rarely useful anyway). See information on the footer view for more
information.

❧ To get the word or character count for a selection of text, select some text in
a document and examine the footer bar of the editor. The word and character
count will appear in blue text. When there is no selection, this area will be used
to count the entire document or Scrivenings session.

❧ To view the word, character counts and targets for several documents at once,
use the outliner view and make visible the appropriate columns by clicking on
the “>>” button in its header bar (or by selecting View � Outliner Columns).
You can use the “Total Words” column to collect aggregate counts for items
which have children.

❧ To view a combined word and character count of an arbitrary selection of doc-

uments, use the outliner or corkboard to select several documents, and then
Ctrl-click on the selection. The combined word and character count for those
documents will appear greyed-out at the bottom of the contextual menu. Note
this method only counts texts within the actual selection, not the implied se-
lection in the case of children beneath the selected items. To count them too,
disclose the items in the outliner and select them along with their parent items.

Usage Tip: The word frequency tool in Text Statistics only counts text within
a current view, which can include a Scrivenings session. Thus, to perform this
analysis on the entire Draft or large portions of it, create a Scrivenings session first,
and then use the Project � Text Statistics tool.

21.2.1 Project Targets

The project targets panel allows you to set goals for your writing—either for the Draft
as a whole or for the number of words you want to write during the current session—
and to check on your progress. To bring it up, select Project � Show Project Targets or
press – T to toggle its display.
The targets panel displays two progress indicators: one showing the progress of the
draft and the other showing the progress of the current session1 . Using this panel,
you can set a target word count for the draft (that is, the contents of the Draft folder)
and for the current session, and keep track of how far you have to go before you
reach those goals. To change the targets, just click in the appropriate text field and
enter a new target word count (or target character count—you can set whether the
1
Session being defined as the period between the project being opened and closed again.
204 CHAPTER 21. WRITING TOOLS

target should be in words or characters by clicking on “words” so that a pop-up menu

appears allowing you to choose between “words” and “characters”).

Using targets to hit an editing goal: While this tool was originally designed to
set a writing goal you work up toward, it can easily be used as an editing tool when
cutting text. It not only counts words added, but words subtracted. You can set an
editing goal in the same way you would set a writing goal. The progress bars will
appear maxed out. Once you have edited below the target, you can be optionally
alerted to this fact with Growl, or just keep an eye on it as you work.

This panel will float over your project if you leave it open, and update itself in real-
time as you write and edit. If you want to track a goal for an individual document,
rather than the entire project, use the Text Goals (subsection 14.6.3) tool in the footer
bar.
If you delete lots of text, session statistics will not start showing any progress until
you have written as much again—it is perfectly possible to have a negative session
word or character count! In other words, it shows your net gain during the session.
The session target only counts anything typed or pasted into a main text view (either
of the editors or the full screen text view) it does not count imported documents or
appended text and so forth (so you can’t cheat!).

Project Targets Options

Click the Options button in the Project Targets panel to configure how these progress
bars are calculated, and what Scrivener should do if you meet your goals.

Draft Target ❧ Count documents included in compile only* will only monitor
those texts which have the “Include in Compile” checkbox set. If your
work style has note documents scattered about in the Draft folder, they
will not be counted toward your final goal unless you disable this option.
❧ Target applies to the current compile group only* takes this a step further
and only calculates off of documents that have been chosen in the Content
pane of the Compile interface. For performance reasons, this only works
off of the top drop-down selection in the Content pane; dynamic filters
will not be used.

Session Target ❧ Count text written anywhere in the project*. Turning this on
will count anything you type or paste into the any document in the project
binder, even if it is a character sheet or a grocery list.
❧ Allow negatives*. When disabled, the session counter will never drop
below zero. Leave this on to get an accurate net total of your writing
session. When disabled, deletions will still be counted, but only until the
21.2. GOALS AND STATISTICS TRACKING TOOLS 205

counter reaches zero, so some deletions would no longer be counted after

that point, making it less accurate.

❧ Show target notifications using Growl. If you have Growl installed on your sys-
tem, Scrivener will register itself for announcements, and use that system to
post notices when you exceed a goal, or fall back under it.

21.2.2 Project Statistics

Project statistics can be called up at any time with Projects � Project Statistics or –
S on the keyboard. This sheet has two sections to it:

❧ Draft: Everything included in the Draft folder (and by default, only the current
compile group). Note that compile options which modify export content in
any way can impact this counter. If your compile is set up to only export titles
in an outline format, you’ll get a pretty small word count. Likewise, Com-
pile content selection filters, and the state of the Include/Exclude/All selection
drop-down will impact the total. In general, consider what your document
looks like when you compile: that is what will be counted.

❧ Selection: A count of everything you have currently selected in the Binder,

including all of their children items by default.

Each of these sections have identical statistics available to them. The word and
character counters are self-explanatory. The two page count estimates are based on
different algorithms.
Pages by paperback uses the industry standard formula (for English language pub-
lishing) of taking the average number of words per page and multiplying it by the
average number of characters per word (five including a space, for six total), the prod-
uct of which is then used to divide against the total character count of the project. By
example, a book with 720,000 characters with an estimate set to 250 words per page
will produce a result of 720000
250·6
= 480. If you need to adjust the average number of char-
acters per word, switch the counting mode to Characters and provide the product of
the words-per-page multiplied by average word length. For example, if the average
word length is 8 and the number of words per page is 200, you would enter 1600 into
this box to produce a custom result.
Pages printed will be more accurate for your own printouts, as it will compile your
draft in the background, using the specified formatting and page layout settings, and
then count the total pages resulting from that. Consequently, in large projects it may
take a few moments for this sheet to display. Once you exceed 100,000 words, the
Statistics sheet will no longer automatically paginate every time you open it. You
will need to click the Update Printed Counts button to manually recalculate printed
pages. With large projects, it could be advantageous to tune the paperback estimated
206 CHAPTER 21. WRITING TOOLS

count to your printed count, so that it can serve as an immediate general figure to
work from.

21.2.3 Project Statistics Options

To access options for how project statistics are calculated, click the Options tab in the
sheet.

Draft Statistics Options Controls how the top, Draft only section of the stats are
calculated.

❧ Count current compile group only: only calculates off of documents that
have been chosen in the Content pane of the Compile interface. This
is the only compile-time option that can be disabled. All other compile
options that restrict or modify output quantity will still be factored into
the count.
❧ Count footnotes: Footnotes are by default included in the count. If your
publishing environment demands these be considered separate, here is
where you can disable them in the total count.

Selection Statistics Options Selection works a little differently than above. Since a
sample compile is not produced in the background (and such might be mean-
ingless if the selection is outside of the Draft), some of the filters that would
otherwise be a part of the compile option setup are provided to help you hone
the results.

❧ Count all documents: In this context, all documents means: regardless of

whether the document meta-data flag, “Include in Compile” is on or off.
❧ Count only documents marked for inclusion: Only those documents that
have “Include in Compile” checked will be counted.
❧ Count only documents not marked for inclusion: As above, only with the
inverse logic.
❧ Exclude comments and annotations: All inspector comments and annota-
tions will be disregarded by default. If you wish to count them too, check
this option.
❧ Exclude footnotes: Footnotes are by default included in the count.
❧ Count sub-documents: When disabled, only the literal selection will be
counted. With this option on, the selected items and all of their children
will be counted, all the way down to the bottom of the outline.

Page Count Options Set the counting algorithm used to estimate paperback page
counting. This figure will be divided from the total word count to produce an
estimate.
21.3. THE NAME GENERATOR 207

21.2.4 Text Statistics

The Text Statistics panel can be accessed with Project � Text Statistics or – S, is
only available when the active editor is displaying text, and it will produce statistics
for all of the text being displayed, even if that editor is currently displaying many
documents in a Scrivenings session. The types of information it provides are more
pertinent to the topology of the text document, as opposed to the end product (where
page counts and paperback estimations come into play).
In addition to the simple counter statistics, you can flip down the Word Frequency
chart to display a table of discovered words, how often they have been used numeri-
cally, and graphically how often in comparison with other words in the table. These
columns can be sorted by clicking on their header fields.

21.3 The Name Generator

Scrivener comes with an exhaustive name generator, which includes many thousands
of common names, as well as selections such as dictionary words that sounds like
names, literary names from classics, a broad selection of regional names in several
languages, and can even attempt alliterative names—all with extensive options for set-
ting relative obscurity, naming styles such as double-barrelled surnames, initials, and
so on.
To access the name generator, invoke the Edit � Writing Tools � Name Generator...
menu command. You can adjust how many names will be generated, and then click
the Generate Names button. To set further options, click the little gear button beside
it.
The available options are:

❧ Gender: select one option here. The default is either gender.

❧ Attempt alliteration: the generator will attempt to produce names with an allit-
erative effect, like “Jeromy Jin”. This option will work best with Latin based
languages.

❧ Double-barrelled surnames: produces names like, “Otis Cowie-Milburn”

❧ Forenames use initials only: reduces the forename to an initial. If more than
one forename has been selected in the option below, multiple initials will be
generated, like, “N. J. Pettersen”.

❧ Number of forenames/initials: produces multiple forenames. You can select

from 1 (default) to 3.

❧ Obscurity Level: this slider to adjust how obscure the names should be. Moving
the slider all the way to the left might produce a result like, “Scott Young”,
208 CHAPTER 21. WRITING TOOLS

while sliding it all the way to the right, “Chauncey Noach” (no offensive to all
the Chaunceys out there). Note that some lists by definition are obscure, so
if you keep getting odd names, check your source list and make sure nothing
unusual is selected.

Finally, you can select from one of the many lists provided. You will always need
at least one Surname list selected (indicated by the yellow “S” icon), and at least one
gender list which is compatible with the gender option set above. If you have the list
set to return male names, you will need at least one male list of forenames selected.
These are indicated by the standard gender symbol icons. You can choose as many
sources lists as you like at once.
The built-in lists will be shaded in grey because they cannot be deleted. You can
add your own custom lists. Name lists should be formatted so that all names are on a
single line, and each name is separated by a comma, like so:
name1,name2,name3,name4,name5

It might be easiest to produce these lists in a spreadsheet on a single row, and export
as a CSV file. If you use a regular text editor, make sure to name the file with a “.csv”
extension, and then click the + button in the Name Generator option panel. Locate
the file in the chooser dialogue and click Open. You will be presented with some
options on how the list should be marked. Give it a descriptive name, and mark
whether it is a list of female names, male names, or surnames. Finally, if you have
ordered list from most common to most obscure (at the end of the list), check this
box to enable the Obscurity Level slider. Note that in small lists, the obscurity slider
may not have much impact, depending upon how many names are being generated.
If you wish to delete one of your custom lists, select it in the list and click the -
button.

21.4 Searching and Replacing

21.4.1 Project Search
The Project Search feature has been refined in Scrivener 2, to be integrated with the
new collection system. When you perform a project search, the results will be placed
into a temporary, dedicated collection called “Search Results”. If the collections inter-
face has been hidden, this fact will be obscured from you, but the collection will be
created, and can be accessed later so long as you do not run another search.
There are two ways to access Project Search. You can either click in the search
field in the toolbar, or press – F to place the cursor focus there. If the toolbar has
been hidden, a convenience window will be opened providing the same features as the
toolbar search.
21.4. SEARCHING AND REPLACING 209

Search Results and the Sidebar: Since search results temporarily replace the
binder in the sidebar, it can confusing for new users to figure out how to get back
to the binder. When the collection interface is revealed, you can switch back easily
by clicking on the “Binder” tab, but otherwise you can use the small X button in
the sidebar footer, or simply tap Esc while in the search field to dismiss the search
results. For more about navigating amongst collections in general, read Using Col-
lections (section 8.4).

When nothing is entered in the search field, greyed out text will inform you of
the current search mode. By default this is “All (Exact Phrase)”, which means all
searchable elements in the project will be analysed with the exact phrase operator.
The search scope, data type, and operator mode can be adjusted via the project search
options menu, by clicking on the magnifying glass to the left of the search field. The
options are as follows:

Search In Sets the data type of the search. You can set the search to only query a
certain type of meta-data or text field, rather than everything.

❧ All: The default search mode. Every available type of searchable field will
be queried for matches.
❧ Title: Only the titles of binder items will be searched for. This is similar
to title filtering in the binder.
❧ Text: The text contents of files and folders will be queried. Note this does
not include notes and synopsis.
❧ Notes: The auxiliary document notes will be searched. Note this does not
include project notes.
❧ Synopsis: The synopsis field for each document will be searched. This is
anything that has been typed into the text area of an index card or in the
synopsis portion of the outliner.
❧ Keywords: Only keywords will be searched. Note you can also perform
keyword searches quickly by using the Keywords HUD.
❧ Label: The text (not colour) of the label meta-data will be searched. Note
the name of this meta-data field can be changed per project.
❧ Status: The text of the status meta-data will be searched. Note the name of
this meta-data field can be changed per project.
❧ Custom-Meta-Data: The text values (not meta-data field name) will be
searched.

Operator Set the method by which search terms will be handled as you type them
in.
210 CHAPTER 21. WRITING TOOLS

❧ Exact Phrase: The default method. What is typed into the field will be
queried precisely as it is typed in. “the book” will only match documents
that have the phrase “the book” as written, not documents that just have
the word “book”. It will also return documents that contain “the books”.
For exclusive matching, use Whole Word (below).
❧ All Words: Every word entered into the search field must appear in the
selected data type. Documents which only match some of the words will
not be returned. Words can be entered in any order. Analogous to logical
AND.
❧ Any Word: Queried documents must contain at least one of the words
typed into the search field. Analogous to logical OR.
❧ Whole Word: Unlike any of the above search methods, the term supplied
will only match whole words. A search for “Jo” will only return docu-
ments with that word, not documents that also contain “Joseph”.

Options Provides a few extra options, as well as searching scope limiters. Scope
limiters instruct the search engine to only analyse parts of your binder, rather
than the entire thing.

❧ Search Draft Only: Will only look in the Draft folder of the binder. Note
that if the name of Draft has been changed in the project, the title of this
option will reflect that name change.
❧ Search Binder Selection Only: Pre-select items in the binder and then per-
form the search against those items only. This selection is explicit, not
implicit. Selecting a folder will not include all of its children in the search
query as well.
❧ Search “Included” Documents: Include documents that have been marked
as “Include in Draft” in their meta-data. This option can be combined
with the below.
❧ Search “Excluded” Documents: Include documents that have not been
marked as “Include in Draft” in their meta-data. This option can be com-
bined with the above.
❧ Case Sensitive: By default, the search engine ignores letter case. If you
need to search for proper nouns and are getting a lot of false positives, this
option can help.

Save Search. . . Creates a special Saved Search Result Collections (subsection 8.4.4),
which will keep itself dynamically updated whenever you view them.
21.4. SEARCHING AND REPLACING 211

21.4.2 Document Find and Replace

As with many Mac OS X applications, you are provided with a standard Find and
Replace panel which can be called up in any text view with – F. Note that the find
panel operates only on single text views. To replace text in all documents use Project
Replace (see below); to search for text in all documents, use Project Search (also be-
low).
In addition to the buttons available in the panel, there are some keyboard shortcuts
you can learn which can reduce the reliance upon clicking within the panel to carry
out searches.

❧ – G:finds the next available match; will wrap around to the top of the docu-
ment if there are no more matches available below the current point.

❧ – G: finds the previous match; as above, but will wrap around to the bottom
of the document.

❧ – E: loads
the currently selected text into the “Find” field. Using this method,
you can define a search term and then use – G to find the next instance of that
term without even opening the panel at all.

21.4.3 Find by Format and Text Function

The Formatting Finder palette, Edit � Find � Find by Formatting ( – F), gathers to-
gether a number of powerful project-wide search tools for otherwise difficult to lo-
cate things, such as italicised text; cross-links; revision markings; and so on. The
basic panel has a drop-down menu at the top which is the primary formatting mode
selector. Below that there are two common tools to all modes.

Containing text Limits the search to only return results in which the specified text
falls within the highlight range.

Search in There are two choices available: “All Documents” will search all text doc-
uments in the binder; “Selected Documents” will constrict the search to only
those items you have currently selected in the sidebar or a view.

If you leave all of the criteria types empty, it is possible to use this panel to find all
instances of the particular formatting type.
The rest of the panel will change depending upon the current formatting mode.
As with the standard text Find panel, it can be left floating over the project window
as you click the Next and Previous buttons, allowing you to edit immediately after
coming across a match, and then going back to search without having to call up the
palette again.
The rest of this section will go over each of the individual formatting search types.
212 CHAPTER 21. WRITING TOOLS

Highlighted Text
Looks for text that has been highlighted using the highlight feature (section 17.4).

Limit search to color When enabled, only those highlights matching the chosen
colour will be found. If this is disabled, all highlight colours will be consid-
ered a match. Note that the colour must be precisely the same, so stick to using
swatches or the built-in highlighter defaults when using this tool.

Click once on the colour chip to bring up the colour palette, or right-click to select
from the system defaults and your custom colour swatches in a manner similar to the
Format Ruler.

Comments and Footnotes

Will search within any inspector-based comments or footnotes in the project. By
default all will be considered as potential matches, but you can narrow this down by
selecting one of Comments or Footnotes from the “Type” menu.

Inline Annotations and Footnotes

Searching for inline annotations gives you three colour matching options:

❧ Any Color: No limits will be made on the search results.

❧ Limit Search to Color: will only consider annotations of precisely the specified
colour as matching.

❧ Exclude Color from Search: any annotations precisely matching the provided
colour will be excluded from the search. The default configuration of this
search mode is set to exclude all “Blueberry Blue” annotations. This is because
Scrivener uses this colour to add bookmark annotations. Since it is unlikely that
you will want to find these types of annotations in your search, it is provided as
a handy default.

Inline footnote searching is much more simple. Since footnotes cannot have custom
colours, no additional criteria is necessary.

Revision Colour
You will be given the choice to search for a particular revision level in the drop-down
menu. These are hard-coded as provided by the Format � Revision Mode � sub-menu.
Do note that if you have changed Scrivener’s default colours, and are working with a
colleague that has not changed their default colours, this can lead to situations where
their revisions are not visible to you and vice versa. When working in collaboration
with other Scrivener users, it is best to not customise these colours.
21.4. SEARCHING AND REPLACING 213

Coloured Text
The interface for this type of search is similar to the Highlight search. You can pro-
vide a custom colour restriction in the additional criteria section. Note that since
revision markings are essentially just formalised coloured text, you can use this panel
to work around the problems brought up above, by searching for your colleagues cus-
tom colours manually. Do note the colour choice still needs to be precise, so getting
these custom colours from them, and turning them into custom swatches will be of
benefit.

Links
You may search for URL or internal Scrivener Links using this tool. By default all
links will be returned, but if you wish to narrow the search down to a particular link
type, use the “Link Type” menu to make this choice.

Text with Preserved Style

This will find text which has had a Preserve Style block drawn around it, from the
Format � Formatting � Preserve Formatting tool. Since there are no optional qualities
to these blocks of text, no additional criteria is required.

Character Format
Arbitrary text-level formatting can be searched for using this tool. Any number of
options in the additional criteria can be stipulated. They work in an additive fash-
ion, so if you have both Bold and Underline selected, a successful match must be
both bold and underlined. “Keep with next” search for paragraphs that have the For-
mat � Text � Keep With Next marker added.

21.4.4 Project Replace

The menu command, Edit � Find � Project Replace provides the ability to replace text
throughout the entire project. Set the text to find, the text with which to replace it,
whether the search should be case-sensitive or apply to whole words only and specify
what should be affected by the replace (any combination of text, titles, notes, syn-
opses and snapshots). Note that a Project Replace cannot be undone (except by using
“swap” to exchange the search term for the replacement text and repeating the Replace
All operation, which in some cases might have unexpected results). A progress bar at
the bottom of the sheet shows you the progress of the replacement operation—bear
in mind that it could take a little while on large projects.
As with all tools that make widespread changes in a fashion which cannot be un-
done, it is often a good idea to back up your project prior to use it. A simple mistake
can render your entire draft illegible, or even worse, produce subtle flaws that even
214 CHAPTER 21. WRITING TOOLS

your editor ends up missing. Using the “Whole words only” option can mitigate this
a great deal. Without that option, searching for the character name “Sam” and replac-
ing it with “Joseph” could end you up with such (bleakly) amusing concoctions as
“Josephe” in place of every “same”.
You can choose the scope to optionally affect a variety of document meta-data, as
well as just the text of a document. The following options are available:

1. Text: standard text editor contents

2. Titles: the titles of the documents as they appear in the binder

3. Notes: any inspector note fields that are attached to documents

4. Synopses: the text content of each index card

5. Snapshots: archived snapshots will be changed as well (take special care with
this one, as snapshots are your internal backup mechanism)

6. Project notes: any project notes will be impacted as well.

 Chapter 22

Using MultiMarkdown
For those who prefer structural writing solutions to rich text (and if this means noth-
ing to you, you can happily skip this section), Scrivener allows you to import and
export using Fletcher T. Penney’s MultiMarkdown syntax. MultiMarkdown makes
it easy to generate documents in any number of formats - for instance, LATEXand
XHTML - using a basic markup syntax (for instance, using asterisks to define **bold**
and *italics*).
It is important to note that if you have happily used normal word processors (such
as Microsoft Word or Mellel) and rich text for years and have never heard of Multi-
Markdown, structural writing or been bothered by such formats as LATEX, you can
ignore this aspect of Scrivener. Scrivener was designed primarily as a rich text applica-
tion; MultiMarkdown is implemented in such a way that those who want it can access
it easily but those who have no need of it need never be bothered by it.

22.1 What is Markdown?

The MultiMarkdown syntax is actually based on the “Markdown” syntax created by
John Gruber, and the best description of what Markdown is comes from his Mark-
down web site, Daring Fireball:

Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Mark-

down allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text
format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).
Thus, ‘Markdown’ is two things: (1) a plain text formatting syntax;
and (2) a software tool, written in Perl, that converts the plain text for-
matting to HTML. See the Syntax page for details pertaining to Mark-
down’s formatting syntax. You can try it out, right now, using the online
Dingus.
The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to
make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted
document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like
it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions. While Mark-
down’s syntax has been influenced by several existing text-to-HTML fil-

215
216 CHAPTER 22. USING MULTIMARKDOWN

ters, the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the
format of plain text email.

22.2 What is MultiMarkdown?

The following is Fletcher T. Penney’s description of MultiMarkdown:

Markdown is great, but it lacked a few features that would allow it to

work with documents, rather than just pieces of a web page.
I wrote MultiMarkdown in order to leverage Markdown’s syntax, but
to extend it to work with complete documents that could ultimately be
converted from text into other formats, including complete XHTML
documents, LATEX, PDF, RTF, or even (shudder) Microsoft Word doc-
uments.
In addition to the ability to work with complete documents and con-
version to other formats, the Markdown syntax was lacking a few things.
Michel Fortin added a few additional syntax tools when writing [PHP
Markdown Extra]. Some of his ideas were implemented and expanded
on in MultiMarkdown.
John Gruber may disagree with me, but I really did try to stick with
his proclaimed vision whenever I added a new syntax format to Multi-
Markdown. The quality that attracted me to Markdown the most was
its clean format. Reading a plain text document written in Markdown
is easy. It makes sense, and it looks like it was designed for people, not
computers. To the extent possible, I tried to keep this same concept in
mind when working on MultiMarkdown.
I may or may not have succeeded in this. . .

For comprehensive information about MultiMarkdown and how to use it, see
Fletcher’s website.

22.3 MultiMarkdown and Scrivener

The first thing to note when using MultiMarkdown in Scrivener is that because
Scrivener is a rich text editor, it has no plain text mode. This means that you can
add bold, italics, images and so forth to your text, but when you export to a Multi-
Markdown format (which requires the text to be converted to plain text), all rich text
attributes - bold, italics, images and so forth - will be lost. The format of the exported
text is defined entirely by the MultiMarkdown syntax you use. For instance, the text
“this is some text” in Scrivener would be exported via MultiMarkdown as “this is
some text”.
22.4. IMPORTING MULTIMARKDOWN FILES 217

Note that you can convert rich text bold and italic attributes to MultiMarkdown
syntax by using Convert > Bold and Italics to MultiMarkdown Syntax in the Text
menu. However, because rich text allows more flexibility in its use of bold and italics
than MultiMarkdown - for instance, MultiMarkdown does not support the italici-
sation of partial words - this command may or may not produce completely valid
MultiMarkdown syntax; it is up to the user to check this.

Emulating Plain-Text: Users who prefer a plain text appearance may wish to set
their default font and paragraph settings in the “Text Editing” pane of Preferences
to something that emulates a plain text “feel”. For instance, you could set the font
to Monaco 10-point (Monaco does not draw bold or italics) and set the paragraph
formatting so that there are no indents and no inter-line spacing. The latter adjust-
ment is a good one to take in many cases, even if you prefer to write in a “RTF
feel” environment, as pseudo-spacing can cause confusion and obscure underlying
missing syntax, since whitespace is a form of syntax in MMD.

22.4 Importing MultiMarkdown Files

You can import any existing MultiMarkdown files into Scrivener using
File � Import � MultiMarkdown File.... This will parse the file you select and break it
up so that it is imported into the binder with its hierarchy intact, taking document
names from the headers defined in the file.

22.5 Exporting MultiMarkdown Files

You export to MultiMarkdown format the same way you export to any other format
- using Compile Draft under the File menu. In the menu of the “Compile For:” drop-
down menu you will find several options for exporting to MultiMarkdown format:

MultiMarkdown Exports the draft as a plain text file, creating headers from docu-
ment titles based on the hierarchy in the binder (i.e. a document on the third
level under the Draft folder would be have its title generated as: ### title ###).
Note that structural titles will not be created for documents that have “Preserve
Formatting” checked. This really just gets a clean MultiMarkdown file out of
Scrivener, created from the whole of the draft.

MultiMarkdown -  LATEX First parses the draft into MultiMarkdown format (as
above) and then pipes the text through MultiMarkdown (the program, built
into Scrivener) to generate a .tex file. By default, this uses a version of the Mem-
oir class to create the LATEXfile.

MultiMarkdown -  RTF Parses the draft into MultiMarkdown format and then
pipes it through MultiMarkdown to create an RTF file. Recent versions of
218 CHAPTER 22. USING MULTIMARKDOWN

MultiMarkdown (which Scrivener has been updated to use) use a full RTF gen-
erating transform engine, which has greater support for features that were ab-
sent in prior releases, such as footnotes, stylesheets, and cross-references. Since
these RTF files contain many more features than they did in the past, you will
want to use them in conjunction with a word processor, not TextEdit, which
dumps features it doesn’t understand.

MultiMarkdown -  HTML Parses the draft into MultiMarkdown format and then
pipes it through MultiMarkdown to generate an XHTML file.

22.6 MultiMarkdown in Rich Text Environment

Because MultiMarkdown requires a certain degree of precision, many of the visual
tools that rich text users commonly use can have a negative impact on how well you
can “see” your document. For example, in MMD, a tab in front of a line turns it into
a code block; thus indenting the first line of each paragraph could lead to confusing
results. Likewise, using paragraph spacing could make for confusing results in an
environment where every block needs a clear space around it. Pseudo-spacing might
lead you to believe a space exists where in reality there is none. Consequently it
is often a good idea to reduce the level of formatting in your projects as much as
possible.
This doesn’t mean that a project needs to look unappealing. If you reduce the
paragraph spacing to zero, the double-newline that is required between paragraphs
looks only slightly larger than normal. Meanwhile, because formatting is ignored by
the compile process, you can feel free to take advantage of any formatting tools you
like to pretty up your document, safe with the knowledge that none of it will ever
appear outside of Scrivener. Some like to use a monospace font, like in many plain-
text editors. Indeed, with tables, this can make editing much easier. However many
others use whatever font is appealing to them, maybe saving monospaced fonts for
those sections that require a little perfect placement.
There is one exception to that. An option in the compiler can be set to attempt
to convert rich text formatting to real plain-text whitespace. That is, a paragraph
with a full line of pseudo-spacing after it will be converted to an actual empty new-
line. Indents will become tabs (so be careful with that one). This option is mainly
intended to be a convenience for people who are switching to MMD from a rich text
environment, and have a lot of existing material that is single-line spaced. However
you could use this option to take advantage of rich text aesthetics while working in
MMD, if you wished.
When exporting via MultiMarkdown using any of the above methods, all rich text
formatting is completely cleaned from your draft, as it passes through a plain-text
engine; there is no need to clean up extraneous highlighting and other markings when
working with MMD. There are two exceptions:
22.7. MULTIMARKDOWN META-DATA 219

1. Any inline or linked images will be converted to MMD syntax, and ex-
ported into the compile folder, ready to use by the XHTML, MD plain, and
LATEXformats

2. Scrivener’s footnote features (both inline and linked) can be used to generate
MMD footnotes, and optionally its annotations and comments can be inserted
into the document as well. Inline annotations on their own line (not embedded
in another paragraph in any way) will be exported as DIVs, all other annota-
tions, and all comments, will be exported as SPANs. This can be used advanta-
geously in more advanced workflows with custom XSLTs.

Some of Scrivener’s tools which are intended for a rich text workflow have alternate
purposes with MultiMarkdown.

Preserve Formatting blocks Accessed from the Format � Formatting � Preserve For-
matting menu, these blocks can be applied to text to protect them from format-
ting alternations during compile. With MMD, since there are no formatting
alterations, these blocks will instead emit a single tab character in front of ev-
ery paragraph within the block, in effect, making it a code block or a poetry
block (depending on which exporter you are using).

Compile As-Is This checkbox in the inspector is generally used as a larger area of
effect version of the above tool: it will protect an entire document from for-
matting alterations. In MMD, all this checkbox does is restrict the document
from emitting a title header if it otherwise would have. Thus it can be useful
for injecting sections of pure LATEXand other such applications.

22.7 MultiMarkdown Meta-Data

MultiMarkdown supports a free-form meta-data system, with some meta-data keys
being used intelligently by the system. You should read the MMD documentation
for these fields, and you can add your own without detrimental effect. To set up
project-level meta-data, which will be attached to every compile you produce, use the
Meta-data pane in the compiler.
Additionally, you can add a document to the draft titled “Meta-data”. If this doc-
ument is the very first document that Scrivener processes during compile, it will be
tacked on to whatever project compile meta-data has been defined. Due to the way
MMD meta-data works, fields which are defined twice are redefined. Thus you can set
a project default for “Title”, and then have individual sections of your draft override
that with their own “Title” settings.
See also: MMD compilation meta-data (subsection 24.11.2).
220 CHAPTER 22. USING MULTIMARKDOWN

22.8 Updating MultiMarkdown

Scrivener comes with MultiMarkdown support built in, so you don’t have to worry
about installing anything extra. However, there may be times when Fletcher up-
dates MultiMarkdown between Scrivener versions, in which case you may want to
ensure that you have the latest version of MultiMarkdown installed. To ensure that
Scrivener uses the most recent version of MultiMarkdown rather than the version
built into Scrivener, you just have to install the new version of MultiMarkdown into
either ∼/Library/Application Support/MultiMarkdown or /Library/Application
Support/MultiMarkdown. (Fletcher provides an installer that will install MultiMark-
down to one of these locations over at his website.)

22.9 Advanced MultiMarkdown

There is a nearly limitless quantity of formats and document styles you can achieve,
once you learn how to harness the full power of the export engine. However these
are all out of scope. Stop by our forums, or visit the wiki, to find hundreds of tips
and tricks from veteran MMD users, and stay tuned for a special PDF that Literature
& Latte will be producing, which will cover everything from the basics to advanced
MMD usage in conjunction with Scrivener, coming some time in first quarter 2011.

22.10 Further Information

Fletcher T. Penney, the creator of MultiMarkdown, is actively involved in supporting
MultiMarkdown in Scrivener. He has generously contributed time and effort in writ-
ing tutorials and answering users’ questions on the forums. His own tutorials are by
far the best places to go to learn about using Scrivener with MultiMarkdown. See his
website and the Scrivener forums for more information. Thank you, Fletcher!
 Part IV

Final Phases

221
222 CHAPTER 22. USING MULTIMARKDOWN

Distilling your work into a final product is an essential task for any writing appli-
cation. Scrivener approaches this problem from multiple fronts, giving you plenty
of options for producing a manuscript, web pages, printouts, e-books, and quite a bit
more. Most of these methods are functions of the compiler, a powerful export feature
which will take the contents of your draft folder and produce a single document from
the many pieces it represents. Due to the level of control that can be exercised at this
stage, learning how to export can be itself a part of the learning process, but one that
will in time benefit your ability to write freely in whatever manner you choose.
Most word processors are designed for business use, and approach document cre-
ation with the philosophy of showing you a good approximation of the final product
as you work. This integrated way of working means that you are at once presented
with the tools for writing with the same level of priority as the tools for formatting
and layout. This not only creates a more confusing and distracting interface, but can
lead to writing in a constricted environment, where you must work in a format which
you are required to deliver.
Scrivener’s approach, as with many things, allows flexibility. You can work in the
described manner to a degree, where the text as you write it is formatted to how it will
be delivered (although it will never present a full working preview in all ways), but
you can also choose to completely separate that aspect from your writing experience,
and let the compiler handle the details of formatting for you, from how titles are
named, all the way down to whether or not your paragraphs are first-line indented or
spaced apart.
Fortunately, the distinction between these two ways of working can be made as
fuzzy as you like. That is, you can gradually introduce more automation into the
compiler as you learn how to use it, rather than having to make a big jump all at once
to a new way of working. In the chapter on compiling, you will be introduced to
several basic presets that ship with Scrivener. These are intended to be starting points,
and will not address everyone’s individual ways of working. If you are accustomed to
working in a word processor, you might want to start with the Original preset and
work from there. If you are used to working in plain-text, or another workflow that
does not regard formatting as part of writing, then you might be interested in trying
one of the other more comprehensive presets, such as the novel standard manuscript,
or 12pt Times presets.
The compiler can also be a tool for producing specialised reports for yourself, by
selecting only portions of each item in the Draft to be included, such as just the
title and its synopsis. The enumerated outline preset demonstrates one such strategy,
where an indented outline of all your draft titles will be exported as a file.
Many authors will be taking their finished drafts to a word processor for final post-
production work. We will discuss several common word processors on the market
and how best to work with them in Scrivener.
Finally, we will also discuss more traditional methods of printing and exporting,
22.10. FURTHER INFORMATION 223

as well as a few techniques you can use to add final polish to your manuscript. The
topics that will be covered in this part are:

❧ Creating a Table of Contents (chapter 23): It is easy to create a static list in

typical table of contents formatting, which can include dynamic page number
references which will be calculated by your word processor upon opening the
compiled file.

❧ Compiling the Draft (chapter 24): Discusses compile strategies, format compat-
ibilities, and gives a detailed run-down of every possible compile option.

❧ Exporting (chapter 25): Transferring the contents of your project to your hard
drive is a great way to back up your work outside of Scrivener entirely, or share
bits of your project with other people. This chapter discusses the options avail-
able to you and how best to use them.

❧ Printing (chapter 26): There are two ways of printing in Scrivener. One op-
erates as an extension of the compile feature itself, and is the preferred way to
print proofs or final submission-ready manuscripts. The second method lets
you print quick one-offs of any file in the binder, print index cards off of a
corkboard, or information from an outliner.
 Chapter 23

Creating a Table of Contents

While there is no support for inserting a dynamic table of contents into your draft,
there is a way to produce a static list of items, cross-referenced to page numbers during
Compile, and utilising Scrivener Links internally to make the list useful for the author
as well.

Table of Contents and E-Books: Both the ePub and Kindle compile export for-
mats have built-in table of contents generators which you should use instead of
the methods described in this section. If you are publishing to an e-book platform
and wish to set up a ToC, please read about the E-Book Options compile pane
(section 24.18).

Note that this feature, while it can be created in any Scrivener project, is mainly
useful in conjunction with the PDF/Printing workflow, and the RTF format when
compiled.

❧ For the ePub format, use the built-in Table of Contents generator, which is
dynamic.

❧ With MultiMarkdown XHTML compile, specify xhtml-toc.xslt in the XHTML

XSLT meta-data field.

❧ Table of contents for MultiMarkdown to LATEXis handled by the specific XSLT

in use, but in most cases it will be included automatically and dynamically when
you typeset the .tex file.

Creating a table of contents is a simple process, but because it is a static list, you
will probably want to save it for one of your final steps, as any changes in outline
order, addition, or removal of sections will not be reflected in the list. The first step
you will need to take is to select, in either the binder or the outliner (you could use
the corkboard as well, but since that only shows one level of depth at a time, it would
be less useful for a large book), all of the items you wish to have represented in the
contents. The easiest way to do this is using the outliner.

1. Select the Draft item in the binder, and change the view mode to outliner

224
 225

2. Reset the disclosure states by selecting all ( – A), and pressing LeftArrow.

3. At this point you need to decide what depth you wish to have available in the
ToC. Repeatedly press RightArrow followed by – A until the desired depth is
reached.

4. Press – A once again if necessary.

5. Select the menu item, Edit � Copy Special � Copy Documents as ToC.

6. Create a new text document in the Binder, near the top of your book, and paste
the ToC data into this file.

Pro Tip: If you need to create a mini-ToC in the preface for each part of a book, as
is common with technical guides, you can follow these instructions to produce a
smaller scale list of sections. You will just want to select the relevant section instead
of the entire Draft, and paste the ToC copy into the preface area for each part.

The resulting list will be formatted with the name of the section on the left, and
a special token on the right, with an amount of indenting applied to each line, in
accordance with its outline depth relative to the highest level item that was copied (if
the portion of the book is at level 3, then a level 5 item will be indented only twice,
not five times). An additional left tab stop will be inserted into each line, allowing
you to make use of a tab in the Scrivener Link prefix compile setting, if you wish to
offset numbering from the standard title.
The token, <$p>, will be calculated and expanded during Compile to produce
page number references. In addition to page numbering, Compile will examine the
final title output and update it in the list, accordingly. In conjunction with counter
tokens in the title, and use of the title suffix and/or prefix, the resulting title could
end up looking completely different from how it appears in the list in Scrivener.
You also can create your own table of contents by hand, if you need custom for-
matting. There is nothing special about the “Copy Documents as ToC” command
that cannot be replicated manually. So if you do not like the default look, you can
either adjust the formatting after pasting, or generate your own from scratch by using
the <$p> token and linking it to the section you wish to reference with Scrivener
Links. The title should be linked as well, if you wish for it to acquire any prefix or
suffix information. Read Scrivener Links (section 9.5) for more information.
Using this feature with PDFs is more portable, since page numbers are baked into
the file and do not rely on features that only a few readers support. However since the
PDFs are generated via the OS X Print Preview feature, they will not have a dedicated
PDF ToC embedded in them, and are thus better for producing a printed copy rather
than a digital PDF with hyperlinks and a ToC.
Some things to watch for:
226 CHAPTER 23. CREATING A TABLE OF CONTENTS

❧ When first opened in Word, you will need to generate the ToC numbers by
running a test print preview once, they will appear as question marks until
doing so. Nisus Writer Pro will format the list correctly as soon as you open it.

❧ The RTF feature requires word processors capable of understanding the RTF
PAGEREF command. Page numbers will appear as question marks in the list
if they do not.

❧ If you are not using title generation in compile, and are instead relying on a
formatted title within the draft text itself, you may find this feature less useful,
and might wish to create your own from scratch using the above tips for doing
so.

❧ The dot fill used between the title and the page number is an OS X text engine
underlining feature which may not be visible in all word processors.

See Also:

❧ Compiling the Draft (chapter 24), Printing and PDFs (subsection 24.2.3)

❧ Scrivener Links (section 9.5)

❧ MultiMarkdown Meta-Data (section 22.7)

 Chapter 24

Compiling the Draft

The main purpose of Scrivener is to gather together material that will help you write
a long piece of text (whether novel, thesis or factual book), which may be structured
as individual files in the binder but which can easily be output as one large file. Thus,
you write, gather and organise the material for your manuscript in the Draft folder,
and when you are ready to export or print the manuscript as a whole, you use Com-
pile Draft ( – E) in the File menu, which takes the contents of that folder, formats
it as you specify, and outputs (or prints) it as a single document. Using the various
settings available in these panes, you can export or print your manuscript however
you like - and regardless of how the files are formatted in Scrivener itself.
Compile settings are an intrinsic part of your project. They will be saved with the
project and travel with it if you move it to another machine. The available presets are
global, however, and can be applied to any of your projects. You can also save custom
setups as your own presets to be used in this same fashion.
Select from a number of handy presets using the Format As: drop-down menu, and
then supply a target format using the Compile For: drop-down menu. If you require
more detailed control of the exported file, you can click the expansion arrow to the
right of the preset selection menu to reveal the full Compile interface. From here it
is possible to control practically every element of your draft as it is processed into a
single file.

24.1 Built-in Presets

In many cases, you may not need to look any further than the supplied presets that
have been bundled with Scrivener. Some of these have been designed to conform to
common industry standards in terms of manuscript submission and working with
agents and editors.
If you wish to customise these presets, you will want to read the section on Ex-
panded Compile Interface, directly following, and any of the Option Panes which are
relevant to you. Once you have changed a preset, the selection menu will adjust to
“Custom”. Your custom settings will always be saved in the project, but if you change
presets you will lose your custom settings. If you wish to save your settings for future
use, read the next section for instructions on how to do so.

227
228 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

In addition to these global presets, many of the project templates that ship with
Scrivener come with useful compile settings as well, saved into the projects that are
created from those templates. It would not be feasible to make all of these settings
global, as that would clutter up the list of choices, and in some cases these custom
settings are special purpose and require a workflow that is documented within the
template itself. However if you wish to use compile settings found within a template
(such as the one found in the US Screenplay template), you can create a temporary
project with that template, and save its compile settings to your master list, which
will be available from that point onward to all of your projects.
The available built-in presets are:

❧ Original: This is the standard compiler setting. It will preserve your draft as
closely as possible without adding any additional page breaks, titles, formatting
adjustments, and so on. If you have very carefully designed your book from
the start, using the text editor, this might be the best option, or at least the best
starting point.
❧ Enumerated Outline: Only outputs the title for each document, rather than all
of its text. It will use hierarchal numbering, and indenting to indicate the depth
of items according to the structure of your book. It has also been configured
to accommodate synopsis, which you can optionally enable in the Formatting
pane.
❧ Novel (Standard Manuscript Format): Formats your book using standard
Courier 12pt type and a number of common conventions such as scene sepa-
rators, double-spacing, page numbers, and so forth. Note to get the full benefit
of this preset, you will want to use one of the rich text formats, such as RTF.
This preset has been set up to treat folders and top-level files as chapters, with
everything else being treated as sections. You will want to adjust this in the
Formatting pane, if your book structure differs.
❧ Proof Copy: A useful preset for internal proofing prints. It will reformat your
script to double-spacing so you can easily take notes, and print a disclaimer after
each chapter title as well as in the header, making it easy to send out “Not for
distribution” copies to your proofing team. This preset has been set up to treat
folders as chapters and everything else as sections. If your book is organised
differently, you will want to change how things are arranged in the Formatting
pane.
❧ Times 12pt with Bold Folder Titles: The use of 12pt double-spaced Times New
Roman is increasingly becoming the submission standard in certain parts of the
world. This preset will handle most cases, but you’ll want to check with your
publisher for the precise specifications and adjust it accordingly. As with Proof
Copy, it treats folders as chapters and everything else as sections, by default.
24.2. AVAILABLE COMPILE FORMATS 229

24.2 Available Compile Formats

The table below shows all the formats supported by Scrivener, with commentary on
their usage.
For most word processor-based workflows, including Microsoft Word, RTF is the
best option. Nearly every word processor provides solid RTF import and export
capabilities, and some use RTF as their native file format. The one major exception
to this is Pages, which has limited RTF support. (Note that if you double-click on
RTF files in the Finder, they will most likely be opened in TextEdit by default, which
doesn’t support all RTF features—to open an RTF file in your desired word processor,
you should open the word processor first and use File � Open.)

24.2.1 Rich Text Formats

The following table shows which file format constitutes the best option when export-
ing for use with several popular applications, and which features are supported by
those programs.
Explanation of features and how compatibility is determined:

❧ Comments: RTF comments are an optional way to export Scrivener’s com-

ments and annotations. Compatible word processors will display these com-
ments in their own fashion, usually in the margins. If annotations are exported
as inline comments then they will be supported by all editors, as they just be-
come ordinary text at that point. This is the recommended setting if your word
processor does not support RTF comments, but you need to export annota-
tions.

❧ Footnotes: For compatibility, so long as a word processor supports footnotes

and/or endnotes, it is considered compatible. Not all word processors support
some of the more advanced footnote appearance features, such as custom num-
bering styles and restarting numbering on each page.

❧ Lists: Compatibility is considered to be simple bullet and enumeration list

transfer. Specific bullet styles and custom enumeration styles may not be
equally supported by all programs.

❧ Tables: Only basic table support is required to be considered compatible. Cus-

tom styling and other advanced features are not taken into consideration. Most
word processors do not support nested RTF tables, but do support cell back-
ground colour and border options.

❧ Images: Inclusion of inline images is required for compatibility.

❧ Headers/Footers: Page headers and footers; custom first-page settings are not
considered for compatibility.
230 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Format Extension Description

General Purpose Formats
Printing/PDF N/A Use to print the compiled draft, or to save it as a
PDF using the Print dialogue’s PDF features.
Rich Text .rtf General purpose rich text format supporting
multiple fonts, images, tables, bullet points, foot-
notes and comments. Almost always the best op-
tion when exporting for use in a general-purpose
word processor, including Microsoft Word.
Rich Text with .rtfd Apple’s proprietary extended RTF format. Use-
Attachments ful mainly for exporting to other Apple Cocoa
applications such as TextEdit, especially if image
support is needed. Incompatible with most word
processors and all other computing platforms.
Plain Text .txt UTF-8 (Unicode) plain-text file. Plain text con-
tains no formatting but can be opened almost
anywhere, on all platforms.
Microsoft Word .doc Simple Word format exporter. It is usually better
to export using RTF format—see the note below
on exporting to Word .doc format.
Microsoft Word .docx Simple Word DOCX exporter. This uses Ap-
XML ple’s default exporter, which loses much of the
formatting, including indents and line spacing.
It is always better to use RTF if possible.
Open Office .odt Simple ODT exporter. This uses Apple’s default
exporter, which loses much of the formatting, in-
cluding indents and line spacing. It is always bet-
ter to use RTF if possible.
Scriptwriting Formats
Final Draft 8 .fdx For transferring your script to Final Draft, this
is the best option unless you have an older ver-
sion of Final Draft than version 8. Maintains
synopses (as scene summaries), scene titles and
custom script element formatting.
Final Draft 5–7 .fcf Use the FCF converter when working with an
Converter older copy of Final Draft. Supports only basic
screenplay formatting.
24.2. AVAILABLE COMPILE FORMATS 231

Format Extension Description [TAB // Export formats]

E-book & Web Support
ePub eBook .epub Generate feature-rich eBooks for use in portable
reading devices that support the ePub format,
such as the Sony Reader or iPad (ePub files can be
dragged into the iTunes Library to import them
into iBooks).
Kindle eBook .mobi Generate feature-rich eBooks for use in portable
reading devices that support the .mobi format,
such as the Amazon Kindle.
HTML .html Creates a single HTML file suitable for web-
publishing.
Web Archives .webarchive Much like HTML, but conveniently packages ex-
ported image files into a single bundle, using Ap-
ple’s webarchive format, which can be opened
by Safari (including the Windows version) and
various Mac OS X applications. Not compatible
with most other browsers.
MultiMarkdown Post-processing
MultiMarkdown .md Export a plain-text MultiMarkdown file, useful
for archiving, or further custom post-processing.
MultiMarkdown .tex Exports a LATEXformat file with full MultiMark-
-> LATEX down parsing. Note that if you are intending to
export a LATEXfile that has been handwritten in
Scrivener (without MMD), you should use the
plain-text exporter, above.
MultiMarkdown .rtf Export an HTML-derived RTF file with partial
-> RTF MultiMarkdown support. Note that the RTF
files generated in this fashion will be limited in
features and formatting support in the same way
as HTML, and is not equivalent to Scrivener’s
standard RTF exporter in the word processor
compatibility tables.
MultiMarkdown .html Generates a W3C compliant XHTML file, suit-
-> HTML able for web-publishing or further XML post-
processing.
232 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Supported Features
Application Best Format Comments Footnotes Lists Images Headers/Footers ToC
Microsoft Word RTF X X X X X X
Nisus Writer Pro RTF X X X X X X
OpenOffice.org RTF X X X X
RedleX Mellel RTF X X X X X
Papyrus RTF X X X
Apple Pages RTFD X X
TextEdit (Cocoa Misc.) RTFD X X

❧ ToC: Support for Scrivener’s Table of Contents feature, including RTF Book-
marks. While technically two different features, word processors that support
one will usually support the other, so they have been combined.

❧ Note on RTFD Support: Since the two applications for which RTFD format
is recommended do not support these RTF features anyway, it often better to
use RTFD with them, as they will benefit from a few extra features that would
otherwise be dropped. RTFD will “flatten” some of the features it does not
support, such as annotations and footnotes.

Not included in the table are basic formatting features. Most word processors sup-
port these with only a few exceptions, as listed below (if the word processor is listed
next to the formatting feature, it does not support it):

❧ Text Highlights: OpenOffice.org

❧ Background colour: OpenOffice.org; Nisus Writer Pro; Mellel; Papyrus

❧ Custom underline styles (dotted, dashed, etc): Nisus Writer Pro; Papyrus

❧ Kerning: Mellel

Note on Exporting to Word .doc Format: Because RTF is preferred, the Word
.doc exporter uses RTF internally, meaning that .doc files exported from Scrivener
are essentially just renamed RTF files which will open in Word by default. This is
useful when you need to send .doc files to someone who is not aware that Word
fully supports RTF. If you require native .doc support, then you should adjust the
application preferences in the Import & Export tab (section B.9) for “Microsoft
.doc export”. This will force the export process to use Apple’s more basic exporter,
which will produce a native .doc file, but at the expense of dropped features and
altered formatting (in particular, indents and line-spacing will be lost). Only use
24.2. AVAILABLE COMPILE FORMATS 233

this option if you absolutely need native .doc files and RTF does not work with the
target word processor.

24.2.2 Special Note on Pages

Pages is a unique word processor in that it has limited RTF support. Compounding
this, its proprietary .pages format is unpublished, and has no officially supported
mechanisms for allowing applications to read and save to the format. However there
is one loophole that can be used to get information from Scrivener to Pages with
minimal loss of formatting: its support of Microsoft Word’s .doc and .docx formats.
Unfortunately, as noted in the previous section, Scrivener does not actually pro-
duce native .doc files as this is a proprietary format for which only basic exporters
are available to most Mac programs, and for the same reasons its .docx export is very
basic and involves the loss of certain formatting. So while Scrivener allows access to
these basic exporters, they will not suffice for what most people need.
This means that if you use the RTF format for exporting to Pages, formatting will
be lost because Pages does not fully support RTF; but if you use .doc or .docx, for-
matting will be lost because Scrivener only has basic exporters for these formats.
The preferred method for getting data from Scrivener to Pages thus takes three
steps:

1. Produce a quality RTF file from Scrivener.

2. Open the RTF file in a word processor which can both read RTF well, and
produce a good .doc or .docx file. This limits your choices to Word itself or,
in most cases, OpenOffice.org. You’ll want to be careful with the latter if you
rely on bullet lists, as OOo has difficulty reading RTF bullets, but it is free,
and thus a good solution when you don’t have a lot of lists in your work. RTF
comments will also be dropped using this word processor.

3. Once you’ve produced a .doc or .docx file from one of the above applications,
this can then be opened in Pages. Since Pages does a relatively good job of
opening .doc and .docx files, you’ll have much more success using this method
than trying to use RTF or .doc/x directly from Scrivener.

It can, however, be beneficial to give plain RTF a try first. While Pages doesn’t fully
support the RTF specification, for many authors this won’t be a problem in practice.
With the exception of page breaks, the features it omits are features not often used
in works of fiction, such as images and footnotes. Another option, as recommended
above, is to use RTFD. This will give you images, but no true footnotes (which will
be flattened into pure text endnotes, and so will require further formatting in Pages if
you wish to convert them into real footnotes).
234 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

24.2.3 Printing and PDFs

Printing from the compiler is very easy to do, and largely no different than compiling
to a document. The only difference is that the OS X print system is automatically sent
the product of the compile. See Printing the Draft (section 26.4) for tips on using the
PDF and print system that is built into the compiler.

24.2.4 Exporting Scripts

The following table shows which file format constitutes the best option when export-
ing for use with several popular scriptwriting applications.

Application Best Format Notes

Final Draft 8 FDX Supports comments and footnotes (as script
notes), synopses (which become scene sum-
maries), titles, dual dialogue (dialogue marked
using “Preserve Style” in Scrivener becomes dual
dialogue in Final Draft), revision marks, custom
element formats.
Final Draft 5–7 FCF FDX is always better, so only use this if you
don’t have access to Final Draft 8. FCF is essen-
tially a plain text format and so any formatting
such as bold or italics will be lost. Also note that
it only supports the basic script elements—Scene
Heading, Action, Character, Dialogue, Paren-
thetical and Transition. See below for important
tips which will help avoid strange characters ap-
pearing in the export.
Movie Magic TXT See below for important tips which will help
Screenwriter avoid strange characters appearing in the export,
and ensure proper element conversion.
CeltX TXT As for Movie Magic Screenwriter.
Montage RTF or TXT Montage will do a decent job of importing script
files saved in either the RTF or TXT formats (if
you use TXT, follow the same rules as for Movie
Magic Screenwriter and CeltX).

The guidelines below should be followed when exporting to the FCF or TXT for-
mats for use with scriptwriting programs:
To avoid strange characters appearing in the export, the following preferences
should be enabled in the Text Options compile pane:

❧ Straighten smart quotes

❧ Convert em-dashes to double-hyphens

24.3. EXPANDED COMPILE INTERFACE 235

❧ Convert ellipses to triple periods

In the Separators pane:

❧ Set all separator types to “Single return”.

When using the TXT format, along with the above settings, “Convert indents and
paragraph spacing to plain text” should be enabled when exporting to scriptwriting
programs such as Movie Magic Screenwriter and CeltX. This ensures that they will
recognise the elements correctly, as these programs read the whitespace and use it to
convert the text to the relevant script types.
Read Working with Final Draft 8 (section 20.5) for more detailed information on
both export and import processes with Final Draft 8 and higher.

24.3 Expanded Compile Interface

The expanded Compile interface (accessed by clicking the expansion arrow to the
right of the Format As drop-down) is where fine-grained tweaks can be made to the
compile process. With some formats, like ePub, you’ll need to use this interface to
properly configure your book for devices.
The Compile panel is arranged into two main sections. On the left is a list of op-
tions pertaining to the currently selected export format, at the bottom of the window.
Clicking on the options in this list will reveal an associated pane on the right side.

24.3.1 Saving and Managing Custom Presets

Frequently, you may wish to save your current compile settings for use in other
projects, or simply to allow you to temporarily use a special-purpose compile pre-
set (like Enumerated Outline) without losing all of the work you have put into your
settings. Saving presets will add them to the main Format As: drop-down menu at the
top of the compile sheet.
Below the list of panes are two buttons which let you save your current settings to a
preset. Note that all changes you make to your settings in the individual panes will be
automatically saved with the project. The Save button is only necessary if you wish
to share settings between projects, or preserve your settings for future availability to
that project.
The Load button provides management features for your custom presets. It lets
you import saved settings that you may have downloaded from the Internet; export
a custom preset to a file that you can save for backup purposes, or share with others;
and the ability to remove presets you no longer need. The Load button will not apply
presets to your current settings, to apply a preset use the top Format As: drop-down
menu.
236 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

24.3.2 Saving and Resetting Compile Settings

At any point, you can hold down the Option key in the compile sheet. This will
convert the Cancel and Compile buttons to Reset and Save, respectively. Reset will
revert all changes you have made back to the last saved version (or preset default if
you have never used compile for your project before). The Save button will dismiss
the Compile sheet, but save your settings before doing so. This is useful when you
want to make a change to your export settings, but do not want to actually compile
the document yet.

24.3.3 The Option Panes

Each export format has a variety of features available for customisation. Some of
the tabs will be available to all formats, but some are only available to certain types,
and others only appear for single specialised formats. Since there is a good deal of
duplication, this section will go over each of the available tabs. It will be noted in
each section which formats the tab is relevant to.

24.4 Contents Pane

This option pane is a core feature available to all export formats.
The Contents pane is where you define which parts of the Draft Scrivener will use
to create your exported file. To accomplish this, it provides several tools of varying
scope. The method with the most immediate impact is the drop-down menu at the
very top of the pane, marked as 1 (Figure 24.1). Ordinarily this will have the Draft
selected (which might be called something else if you have renamed it, or started with
a template).
In cases where you wish to proof only a portion of the book, or are working in a
project that includes several editions located in the Draft, you can use this drop-down
to select only a portion of the manuscript. Whatever container you select will include
everything from that point downward, in outliner terminology, its descendants. You
could, for example, select the folder called “Chapter 1”. All of the scene files included
in the folder will be used in the Compile, including the chapter folder itself, but
nothing outside of that folder will be used.
In addition to folder selection, you can also select a collection to be used the content
source. When collections are in use, there are two important things to consider:

1. The rule of thumb in which only items within the Draft can be compiled will
be temporarily dismissed. Items placed into a collection from outside of the
Draft will be included in the compile. However, only text and folder items will
be used.
24.4. CONTENTS PANE 237

Figure 24.1: Compile—Contents Pane

2. Since collections have no inner hierarchy, the compile will always result in a flat
list of documents. Book parts will be on the same level as sub-sections, to put it
into practical terms. Since the final result will always be a flattened file anyway,
the main thing to note here is that only those formatting stylesheets relating to
Level 1 will apply.

Finally, you can select the “Current Selection” as your content source. This will
use whatever selection has been made in the sidebar (binder or collection). As with
collections, this option will produce a flat list for quick compile. If you wish to use
your selection as a filter against the main list, and thus preserve hierarchy, see below.

24.4.1 Content Item List

The item list is the large display in the middle of the pane, listing the contents of
whatever has been selected in the top drop-down menu. In the case of the illustrated
example, marked as 2 (Figure 24.1), the Draft has been selected, and so the entire Draft
contents are revealed in the list below it. The items in this list will be indented in the
238 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

same fashion that they are indented within the binder, representing their hierarchy.
If you wish to use Collections but still retain hierarchy, read the next section on
filtering.
There are four columns in this list. It is usually a good idea to briefly scan these
columns to make sure everything will act in the manner you expect it to. On any of
the checkbox columns, you can Option-click the header to toggle checkmarks for all
visible items.

Include Linked to the Inspector option, “Include in Compile”, if unchecked the item
will not be visible in the final product. See below for an exception to this.

Title The visible name of the item in the Binder. This might be altered in subsequent
compile option panes, or updated with a counter if it includes a token.

Page Break Before Linked to the Inspector option, “Page Break Before”.
Inserts a page break control before the checked document. A common usage
for this is to use folders to contain the chapters of your book.

Compile As-Is Linked to the Inspector option, “Compile As-Is”.

All options set in the formatting pane (section 24.5) will be ignored for the
checked document. This means no extra material will be added, including titles,
and no reformatting of the text will be done. Text will always be included, even
if it would otherwise be excluded.

In the lower-right corner (marked as 3) is an override which can reverse the settings
of the “Include in Draft” checkmark. By default, the behaviour follows the logic of
the document settings. You can however inverse the logic and only export those items
marked to not be exported—or just ignore the flags altogether and export everything.

24.4.2 Filtering
Filtering is an advanced feature, marked as 41 which uses the selected contents list
above and applies additional criteria to filter the list down further. This works in a
similar manner to searching for items: only those items which match the criteria will
be included in the compile.
As with the content drop-down menu, the changes you make here will impact what
you can see in the list. If when you first load up compile and are puzzled by an empty
list, check the Filter options and make sure nothing has been left set there from a
prior session.
Filters can be defined in two ways, set with the first drop-down menu:
1
compile-contents.png
24.4. CONTENTS PANE 239

❧ Include: Everything matching the rest of the filter will be included in the com-
pile, non-matching items will be removed. This is the default setting.

❧ Exclude: Everything matching will be removed from the compile.

The second drop-down specifies which attribute you wish to filter by. There are
three options:

❧ Documents with label: documents matching the Label specified in the third
drop-down menu will be matched and handled according to the logic in the
first drop-down menu. This is the default setting.

❧ Documents with status: as above, only using the Status meta-data field instead of
the Label field.

❧ Documents in collection: will provide a list of available Collections for you in the
third drop-down. Items found in that collection will be included or excluded
depending on the setting in the first drop-down.

❧ Current selection: as with the content selection item, this will use the current
selection that has been made in the sidebar, prior to opening the compile in-
terface. However, instead of producing a flat-list, the selection will be used as
a filter, based on the above logic of include or exclude, and thus preserving the
original structure. Since this method has no optional behaviour, the third selec-
tion drop-down will be removed.

Applied Example: Meta-data Filtering

In the provided example (Figure 24.2), the Contents pane has been simplified to only
show relevant interface elements. Additionally, the option to show label colour (here,
renamed to “PoV”) has been enabled in View � Use Label Color In � Icons.
Example 1 has the Filter checkbox disabled. The list is thus a pure depiction of
whatever container has been selected for compilation, in this case the top-level Draft.
We have labelled scenes a, d, and e with the “Joseph” character colour, and scenes b,
c, and f with another character. The other items have no colour label.
Example 2 shows the Filter option enabled, set to include all documents with PoV
(label) of Joseph. The resulting list has been filtered to only show the items which
have had the “Joseph” label set. What you cannot see here is that it is only selecting
items within the current compile group. If other documents in the project are la-
belled “Joseph”, but outside of the current compile group, they will not be included.
Filtering only adjusts the current contents of the compile group.
Example 3 is more subtle. In this case we have left the second two options alone,
but changed the first option to exclude all documents with PoV of Joseph. Note that
240 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Figure 24.2: Sample filtering options

24.5. FORMATTING 241

not only have the scenes from the PoV of the other character been selected, but all of
the items with no label set at all.
The manner in which the status meta-data filter works is identical to the label meta-
data, so we will move on to the next example.

Notes on Collection Filtering

The basic premise behind Collection filtering is the same as when using meta-data
fields. Items which match the criteria will be included, or if exclude has been set,
everything except those matching items will be included. Also as we demonstrated
with meta-data, the candidate items available for filtering must originally appear in
the unfiltered compile group list. Even though Collections can contain items from
anywhere in the project, they will not be selected for compile unless they originally
fell within the compile group scope.
Contrary to the method of selecting a Collection as your compile group, using
a Collection as a filter will preserve any existing hierarchy within the original list.
Of course, if the original list was itself the product of a Collection, there will be
none. Thus, filtering by Collections can often produce a similar result to selecting a
Collection group, while retaining outline structure.
The one other major difference between the two methods is based on the concept
described above: filters can only modify the contents of the list they have been pro-
vided with. The items listed within a Collection will be used to match against the
given compile group list, and they will never produce new results outside of the orig-
inal list. So if you wish to include items from a Collection that do not exist in the
original compile group, you will need to use that Collection for your compile group.
Collections are an effective way to arbitrarily focus your Draft for special purposes,
without adjusting the “Include in Draft” checkbox for these items, but do note that
this feature is secondary to the Include checkbox. The checkbox will always have
priority over any filter settings. Filters adjust the item list, they do not dictate the
terms of compile.

24.5 Formatting
The Formatting pane is where you will design the look and structure of your docu-
ment. It is separated into two main areas, each of which we will gradually introduce:

1. Structure and Content Table: A table for assigning content to the various Binder
item types available, and the creation of level specific content and formatting
rules.

2. Formatting Editor: A format editing and live preview area.

242 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Figure 24.3: Compile—Formatting Pane

In the supplied example (Figure 24.3), the manuscript will print all folder titles
(including any text within that folder item itself), and only text for file groups and
files. It will also override the formatting to Courier 12pt, with a large right margin
for writing notes down by hand, and adds extra information to the folder titles, one
of which warns readers that they are holding a proof copy. All of this might seem
like black magic right now, even if it gives you a taste of what the compiler is capable
of, so let’s take a look at the provided features. By the time you are done with this
section, you should be able to see how all of this fits together, and in no time you’ll
be designing your own documents.

24.5.1 Structure and Content Table

The structure table, by default, has three rows which correspond to the three binder
item types: folders, file groups (text files that have subdocuments), and text files. For
a moment ignore the “Level 1+” labels, we’ll get to that in a moment. In the columns
to the right of each type you will find a checkbox for each content element that can
be optionally included by the compiler. Think of these as optional material you can
24.5. FORMATTING 243

Figure 24.4: Example multi-level formatting rule.

include from your project, for each item in the Draft. As Scrivener proceeds down the
list of items it has been set up to compile, it will consult this table for instructions on
how to handle it. If that item is a folder, it will look at the folder row and if “Title” and
“Text” have been checked, will add the binder title for that item into the manuscript,
followed by any text that is in that folder file. If the next item is a text file, it checks
the text file row. If that row says only “Text” is exported, then it will print just the
text content of that file into the manuscript.
Using these checkboxes you can control the flow of information and produce a
manuscript to your requirements. Creative use of this feature can produce outlines
(Titles only for all types), a document with only your notes and no manuscript text,
chapter break items that do not export their text, and so forth. Note that as you
toggle elements on and off, you’ll see a live preview of how they will be inserted into
the compile, in the Formatting Editor below the table. We’ll get into how to change
the look and feel of this in the next section.

Pro Tips: You can enable (or disable) elements for all rows by Option-clicking on
any of the checkboxes. If you want to apply settings to only certain rows, you can
use the standard Copy and Paste functions to copy settings from one row and paste
them into another. This action will also paste any custom formatting settings as
well.

Things get more interesting when these rules are applied to levels of hierarchy.
This ability is best demonstrated with an example. Try selecting the Folder row in
244 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

the table, and then click the “Add formatting level” button, indicated with an arrow
(Figure 24.4). The label for the row that was previously selected will now be titled,
“Level 1”, and the new indented folder row will be called “Level 2+”. As you might
guess, this means you now have two rules for handling folders. The first rule will
apply to level one folders only, the second rule will apply to level two folders, and
anything deeper in the hierarchy than that. Note that when you do this, any config-
uration from the original row will be carried over into the new row to help you get
started in customising it. This holds true for formatting as well as the options we’ve
already discussed.
What do these levels correspond with? They are matched with outliner depth in
your binder. An example binder structure has been inset in the example, with the
items named to indicate how they correlate to “levels” in the Formatting pane. Items
directly beneath the Draft are considered to be “Level 1”, a child item beneath one of
those is “Level 2” and so on. The way Scrivener’s formatting engine works is by apply
a format to the maximum depth in your draft outline. Inserting rules will thus only
apply to those levels which it states in the label. In the provided example, I’ve added
a checkbox to insert Meta-Data (creation and modification dates, labels, and so forth)
to any folders at level two or deeper. Folders directly descended from the Draft will
only print their titles in the compiled document, but all folders at level two or greater
will also print their meta-data.
To remove a level-based row, you can select it and click the - button to the right of
the “Add formatting level” button.
There are other buttons and options in this table, but before we take a look at them,
let’s examine the formatting editor.

24.5.2 Formatting Editor

The formatting editor view is linked with the structure table above it. When you
select a row in that table, you are also editing the format for that row as well. Thus,
each type of binder item can have its own formatting rules, and further levels of depth
in the binder can have their own formatting rules.
The first thing you need to do when editing the formatting for the manuscript is
to enable the global override. In the header for the structure table, click the checkbox
labelled, “Override text and notes formatting”. When this option is engaged, your
entire manuscript will be given a uniform appearance which can, if you choose, be
radically different from how it looks in Scrivener. In a moment, we’ll discuss just
how much can be reformatted, but for now assume the entire look and feel will be
altered.
This area of the pane has a condensed Format Bar, a Ruler, some special options at
the top, and a large text preview area. This cannot be typed in, it shows you what
elements have been selected in the structure table, and how they will be formatted in
24.5. FORMATTING 245

the manuscript. You can otherwise treat it just like an ordinary editor. If you click in
the “Title” area, you should see the formatting controls adjust to represent whatever
formatting has been applied to the title. Try clicking the Underline button. Unlike
with standard text, you are editing “areas” of text, so there is no need to select the en-
tire title, you can just place your cursor anywhere within the title and click Underline.
Refer to the documentation on using the The Format Bar (subsection 14.4.2) if you
are unsure of what these various buttons do.

Title Prefix & Suffix

The Title Prefix & Suffix button provides the option to input text before and after the
title itself. This is text that will only appear when you compile, it will not be added to
the binder items’ titles, and is thus useful for keeping clutter out of the binder. Rather
than putting “Chapter <$n>:” into every single chapter folder in the binder, you can
simply add that to the Prefix and be done with it. This means you can also more easily
use casual titles for proofing prints, and more formal titles when submitting your
manuscript. It is possible to type carriage returns, tabs, and other such characters
into these fields, allowing you to create multi-line titles if you wish.

RTF Bookmarks: When using the RTF export format, you will see an option
next to the prefix and suffix called “Include in RTF Bookmarks”. By default, ev-
ery section in your binder will get an RTF bookmark, which will create a handy
navigational reference in compliant word processors, and is also used to cross-
reference links in Scrivener’s table of contents feature (chapter 23). It may not
always be desirable to have bookmarks at every level of your outline, especially if
you use Scrivener’s outline feature to break down your book to small blocks. Sim-
ple uncheck this to remove the document type and level from the bookmarking
feature. If you do this, you will be unable to link to this level of document in the
ToC, or when using the linked <$p> feature for cross-referencing by page number.

Click the purple “Help” button in this sheet for some useful examples of title pre-
fixes and suffixes.
For MultiMarkdown users, by default, the title prefix and suffix will be placed
within the hash marks that Scrivener generates to indicate title depth. If you prefer,
you can disable the Place prefix � suffix inside hashes options to allow text entry out-
side of the header line itself. Note that to allow compatibility with the other compile
formats, you will need to manually type in carriage returns to separate lines. Placing
characters before or after the hashmarks on a title line will at best cause it to no longer
render as a title correctly.
One important thing to consider is that the title prefix and suffix entries will be
printed even if Titles are disabled for that row. This can prove very useful in some
cases. It could for example let you use casual titles in the binder, and standard generic
titles in the manuscript.
246 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Formatting for the prefix and suffix can be handled independently. It is possible
to have three different styles affixed to each of the three components: prefix + title
+ suffix. If you wish to maintain a uniform look, use the mouse to select all of the
visible title elements before styling.
The Page padding control to the right of the Title Prefix & Suffix button controls
how much padding will be added to the top of the page, if it happens to fall on a page
break. Use this to offset your titles from the top of the printable margins if you prefer
that look. This option will not be previewed in the formatting editor.

Special Formatting Options

Returning to the structure table, the Options... button will open a sheet which lets you
set just how much of your custom formatting will actually be applied to the compiled
manuscript, as well as a few other options.

Selective Opt-Out: You can always set specific parts of the Draft to ignore all for-
matting, no matter what settings you choose in the compiler, by using the Compile
As-Is Inspector option. Note that this will even ignore selected elements from the
structure table. Only the text of such items will be output (even if it otherwise
would not output text), and it will be output precisely as shown in the main editor.
While there is no formatting to override in the MultiMarkdown workflow, this
option will still inhibit the generation of automatic titling, even if the document
would otherwise be titled by the compiler.

Insert subtitles between text elements When either Synopsis or Notes elements
are enabled, Scrivener will insert a subtitle to help set apart these sections from
the main text, which will also be titled. These titles can be formatted like ev-
erything else in the formatting editor.

Place notes after main text The default is to place any Inspector notes above the
main text for the item being compiled. When checked, notes will be placed
below the main text area instead.

The Text Override Formatting Options section of this sheet lets you specify
just how much formatting should be changed in the source documents. Note that
if you use these, any applicable styling you’ve done in the formatting editor will be
ignored. If you set the option to preserve line-spacing, then adding double-spacing in
the formatting editor will do nothing.

❧ Override font only: If all you want to change is the base font family, checking off
this box will disable the other options and inhibit the compiler from changing
alignment and ruler styles.
24.6. PROCESSING OPTIONS 247

❧ Preserve alignment: Left, centre, right, and full justification settings will be pre-
served throughout the manuscript.

❧ Preserve tabs and indents: Actual tab characters will always be preserved. This
option merely inhibits the compiler from changing the ruler based tab stops
and indent markers. If you use blockquote indenting in your book and wish to
retain that formatting globally, use this option.

❧ Preserve line spacing: All of the spacing options, including paragraph spacing,
will be left alone.

❧ Remove first paragraph indents: When checked will use the common typeset-
ting standard which only indents paragraphs subsequent to the first paragraph,
relieving you of the burden of having to do that by hand throughout your
manuscript.

❧ On new pages only: Narrows the above option down so that it only applies to
first paragraphs following a page break.

The Preserve Formatting only preserves section adjusts how the For-
mat � Formatting � Preserve Formattingfeature works (subsection 14.4.5). By default
this feature will block all compile attempts to change formatting within the range
of text it has been applied to. Using these options, you can selectively weaken that
feature to allow some types of formatting to be overridden anyway:

❧ Alignment: Left, centre, right, and full justification will be passed through to
the preserved block.

❧ Tabs and indents: Tab stops and ruler indents will not be preserved in the block.

❧ Font size: The size of the font will be made uniform with the text around it, but
not the font family.

24.6 Processing Options

The Processing Options pane controls provide three options which alter various be-
haviours in the compile process.

Compile ignoring levels outside of the current compile group This becomes use-
ful when the compile group has been set to anything other than the Draft. Or-
dinarily when a portion of the Draft is selected for compile, the formatting
treatment and counter numbering will be displayed as though the rest of the
manuscript existed. When this option is enabled, the smaller section of the
Draft will be treated as though it were the entire manuscript. Counters will
248 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Figure 24.5: Compile—Processing Options Pane

start at 1, and the immediate children of the items of the selected compile group
container will be treated as level 1 items in terms of formatting styles.
This option is disabled when compiling Collections, or when the entire Draft
has been selected, as neither of these compile methods are relevant to external
numbering.

Ignore Title Prefix and Suffix For. . . Specific documents can be set to ignore the
prefix and suffix settings, enabled in the Formatting pane (section 24.5). Com-
mon examples would be the Table of Contents, Acknowledgements, and vari-
ous Appendices. Note that the Inspector option, “Compile As-Is” can also be
used to inhibit title prefix and suffix on a per-document basis, but also at the
expense of dropping the title itself.

Update Scrivener links containing titles to include prefix/suffix When

Scrivener links directly reference a binder item title, the compiler will be
instructed to update the text of the link to match the final, altered, title. Since
the prefix and suffix field can contain special whitespace characters, such as tabs
24.7. SCRIPT SETTINGS 249

and carriage returns, these will be stripped out of the result. Consequently you
may wish to provide a separator using the Title prefix separator for inline
links. The value placed into this field will be inserted between the title and
the prefix, in replacement of whatever punctuation and special characters were
used in the title prefix.

The Processing Options pane is available to all export formats.

24.7 Script Settings

This set of options lets you configure a few details which impact how a script will be
formatted, using Final Draft 8 or greater.

First document is title page If the first document in your current compile group is
a special title page with no script formatting, leave this option enabled. It will
be assigned to Final Draft’s title page window, and kept separate from the script
itself. If you’ve noticed the first page of your script seems to be missing, and
you aren’t using a title page, make sure this option is disabled.

Break dialogue and action at sentences Use this option to adhere to the standard
of keeping action and dialogue sentences together, rather than breaking them
up between pages. If a sentence would have ordinarily been split, it will instead
be moved entirely to the following page.

Include revision colors from Preferences Your preferred revision colours, which
can be set in the Appearance preference pane, will be supplied to Final Draft’s
revision palette, maintaining a consistent revision system between the two ap-
plications.

Compile ignoring levels outside the current compile group Please read the prior
section for a full description on what this feature does.

Use default Final Draft screenplay elements By default, when using the “screen-
play” script format, Scrivener’s output will match that of the industry standards
used by Final Draft. However if you’ve made changes for your own aesthetic
tastes, or are unsure of the formatting in general, you can check this option off
to remove Scrivener’s formatting instructions and have Final Draft handle all
of the formatting. This could result in a compile that looks different than what
you’ve been writing, but in most cases there will be no visible change. Natu-
rally, if you require a script format that doesn’t conform to the standard screen-
play, make this this option is unchecked, or you will lose all of your custom
formatting in the compile (Scrivener’s copy will of course remain untouched).
250 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Figure 24.6: Compile—Separators Pane

Include footnotes as script notes Inline and linked footnotes will be converted to
Final Draft’s script notes feature. Footnotes will be removed from the compiled
document if this option is not enabled.

Include comments and annotations as script notes Inline annotations and linked
comments will be converted to Final Draft’s script notes feature. All commen-
tation will be removed from the compiled document if this option is not en-
abled.

The final two options allow you to set fonts for the indicated features within Final
Draft. Do note that if you intend to share the FDX file with Windows colleagues, you
may wish to change the default Summaries font to Helvetica, Arial, or something else
that is commonly available.
The Script Settings pane is only available to the Final Draft (FDX) format.
24.8. SEPARATORS 251

24.8 Separators
Separators are used to automatically insert space, breaks, or custom symbols between
the various elements in the list which will be compiled. The important aspect to note
is that by the time Compile gets to this point, your document is being considered as
a flat list of files. It doesn’t matter if a text file is four layers deep, if the next item in
the list is a folder, it will still use the Text and Folder Separator rule.
There are four types of possible combinations in a compile, and each has its own
rule. You can supply the same rule for all of them if you do not need any special
differences between types. The types are:

❧ Text separator: inserted between any two adjacent text documents

❧ Folder separator: inserted between any two folders

❧ Folder and text separator: inserted at the top of any file that directly follows a
folder

❧ Text and folder separator: inserted at the top of any folder that directly follows a
text file

Each individual rule has four options, some of which change their behaviour de-
pending on the compile format. Most of the options are as follows:

❧ Single return: A single paragraph break will be inserted, causing the final ap-
pearance to run from one document to the next with no visible “seam”.

❧ Empty line: Two paragraph breaks will be inserted, causing a visible space be-
tween the items

❧ Page break: A page break character2 will be inserted, causing the next section to
move to the next page of the manuscript

❧ Custom: Anything entered into the adjacent text field will be placed between
the two items. Note that the text or symbols entered here will be buffered by
a single return on each side, forcing it to fall on its own line. The value will be
centre aligned.

The following formats have different options and behaviours from those listed
above:
2
In the case of plain-text files, the Unicode break character will be used. While support for this is
not common, the character can still be useful as a search-and-replace anchor. TextEdit will treat this
character appropriately when the file is viewed in Page Wrap mode.In the case of plain-text files, the
Unicode break character will be used. While support for this is not common, the character can still be
useful as a search-and-replace anchor. TextEdit will treat this character appropriately when the file is
viewed in Page Wrap mode.
252 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

HTML, WebArchive, and ePub formats The “single return” and “empty line” op-
tions will be replaced by suitable alternatives to produce the same appearance
of actual paragraph breaks.
Since page breaks have no meaning in Web publishing, a horizontal rule will be
inserted. The option will be renamed to “Section break”.

MultiMarkdown, and MMD HTML formats In most cases the “empty line” op-
tion should be used to retain clean paragraph breaks between blocks. The “sin-
gle line” type will cause the last paragraph of one section to flow directly into
the next paragraph of the next section.
Page breaks are replaced by “section breaks”, which emit a series of hyphens on
their own line. This will be converted to a horizontal rule using the HTML
converter.

MultiMarkdown LATEXformat As with the other MMD formats, use of the “empty
line” type will produce the best result in most cases.
The LATEXcode for a pagebreak, \pagebreak, will be inserted for the “page
break” option. Note that this will be enclosed in an HTML comment, which
is the preferred method for passing LATEXcodes straight through the MMD sys-
tem. This ability is disabled by default, and will need to be enabled by hand in
the MMD sub-system (chapter 22).

The Separators pane is available to all formats except FCF and FDX.

24.9 Text Options

The Text Options pane provides a number of useful text and format conversions, as
well as a few presentation options. Since many of the available formats have their
own unique strengths and weaknesses, not all of the options listed will be available
for every format.

24.9.1 Plain Text Conversions

These are useful conversion tools for translating special characters and some ruler
styles to plain-text variants. These options are made available to the rich text formats
as well.

Straighten smart quotes Typographic quotes will be substituted with straightened

variants. In versions of Mac OS X Leopard and greater, the system language
settings will be used to determine the proper substitutions.
24.9. TEXT OPTIONS 253

Convert em-dashes to double hyphens The ‘—’ character will be converted to –. If

this option does not appear to be working, ensure that you have used em dashes
( -) and not en dashes ( -) in your manuscript.

The MultiMarkdown formats will convert em-dashes to triple hyphens instead,

as the double hyphen is used to input an en-dash.

Convert ellipses to triple periods The ‘. . . ’ character will be converted to three full
stops.

Convert indents and paragraph spacing to plain text Actual spaces and carriage
returns will be inserted into the document to emulate indents and paragraph
spacing (line spacing will be ignored). This function determines spacing by
rounding off the supplied value. If the base font is 12pt, and paragraph spac-
ing is set to 28pt (factor of 2.3) will be converted to two empty lines between
paragraphs.
This option is not relevant to the FDX and FCF formats, and will be removed
from the pane when they are selected.

24.9.2 Rich Text Conversions

This provides options for automatically converting a few rich text conventions from
one standard to another.

Convert italics to underlines If the submission process requires underscoring to be

used instead of italics, this feature will let you write in italics but produce a
properly underscored manuscript.
This option is not available to any formats which produce a plain-text docu-
ment.

Convert underlines to italics Use when you have produced a document with un-
derlines, but need an italic version for compile.
This option is not available to any formats which produce a plain-text docu-
ment.

Convert linked images to embedded images If you have used linked images in
your project text, use of this function will find the original resources and embed
them directly into the compiled document. You will nearly always want to use
this option when producing a file that will be sent to other people.
See also: Linked Inline Images (section 14.4.6).
Only available with the RTFD format.
254 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

24.9.3 Presentation Options

Disable auto-numbering Scrivener’s token counter system will be disabled (the to-
kens will remain visible). Note this only impacts the counter system. Other
document tokens and replacements will still be expanded.

Use hyphenation By default, hyphenation will not be used. When full justification
is in use, this option can substantially improve the compiled result. If you in-
tend to use a word processor to handle the compiled file, it is often better to let
it handle hyphenation.
Only available to RTF, Printing/PDF, and the word processor formats.

Avoid widows and orphans When used with a compatible word processor, this will
enable widow and orphan protection for your paragraphs.
Only available with the RTF format, and the DOC format when Import &
Export preferences have been set to export DOC files as RTF-based documents.

24.9.4 End of Text

If you require the end of the document to be marked with a sequence of characters,
you can use the Mark end of text with field to specify that sequence. Simply enable
the checkbox and type in the character sequence you wish.
This option is not available to the FDX, FCF, and ePub formats.

24.10 HTML Options

HTML Options control a few specific features in relation to the Web Page (but not
.webarchive files), ePub and Kindle formats.

Convert Scrivener links to HTML links When enabled, Scrivener will insert the
necessary HTML framework to allow for links to cross-reference to internal
parts of the Scrivener outline. If the linked element is outside of the scope of the
current compile group, the link will be removed from the compiled document,
rather than produce a broken link.
Footnotes will always use internal links to cross-reference from the marker to
the footnote text.

Underline internal links By default, Scrivener links are styled so that they are not
underlined in the web page. If you wish underlining to be retained, use this
option to disable the stylesheet.

Use centered table to restrict body text width The entire document will be en-
closed in a div which will keep the width of the document within a certain limit
24.11. META-DATA 255

and centred in the browser. The precise width can be specified in the provided
text field, using pixels.
This option is not available to the e-Book formats.

If you wish to adjust the HTML DocType specifications for exported HTML files,
the technical details for how CSS is included (or not), and whether or not most ruler
styles will be converted to style, see the Import & Export preference pane.

24.11 Meta-Data
Meta-data is used to add properties to your manuscript, which many applications
will display in a document properties viewer, and with some formats, will be used to
add searchable criteria to the Spotlight database. There are three primary meta-data
interfaces available to different formats. The general meta-data interface will appear
for all formats which support the standard set of property fields, such as RTF &
RTFD, the word processor formats, and HTML & WebArchive. The other two meta-
data panes will only appear along with the specific formats they have been tailored for,
MultiMarkdown and ePub.
Since, with the exception of MultiMarkdown, meta-data is not meant to appear in
the content of the manuscript itself, none of the plain-text formats, or any formats
that do not support auxiliary properties, will show the Meta-Data pane.

24.11.1 General
With the exception of the Keywords field, the provided fields are all free-form, though
keep in mind that in some cases, like Spotlight searching, the content for the field
should match its intended purpose in order to keep searches logical. The Keywords
field takes values separated by commas, which will be shown as “pills” in the interface
as you enter them.
The Background field will let you set a paper colour for the manuscript. This is, by
and large, ignored by most word processors, and is primarily useful for the HTML
and WebArchive formats.

24.11.2 MMD
The Meta-Data pane for MultiMarkdown compilations provides a front-end to the
preliminary meta-data block at the top of any MMD file. A few examples are inserted
into new projects by default. Note that what you type into the text area below the
field will be printed into the compiled document verbatim. Thus, all rules pertaining
to the meta-data syntax should be followed. Empty lines in this area will cause the
meta-data block to prematurely abort, and special characters should be converted to
256 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Figure 24.7: Compile—Meta-Data (General)

HTML entities. Scrivener will automatically insert the Format: complete meta-data
field for you, so there is no need to specify that by hand.

This interface, being project-based, is useful for creating a general meta-data block.
If your project is actually comprised of multiple documents, or if you simply prefer
to type in the meta-data block by hand, you can use documents titled “Meta-Data”
in the binder. Whenever a document so titled is the first document in the included
compile group, it will be appended to the meta-data provided in this pane. Due to
the rules of how meta-data is parsed, duplication is okay. Whatever field is stated last
will override any prior declarations. Thus a Title value in the compile pane will be
overridden by any Title fields declared in Meta-Data documents in the binder.

When using this method, the Format: complete code will not be automatically
inserted. Be sure to add it yourself if you require it. For further information on the
available MultiMarkdown meta-data fields, refer to the online documentation3 .
24.11. META-DATA 257

Figure 24.8: Compile—Meta-Data (MMD)

24.11.3 ePub
Use of the ePub meta-data pane is similar to the general meta-data pane in that most
of the fields are free-form. They will be inserted into the appropriate book descrip-
tion fields, which will be available to e-readers to display in whatever manner they
provide. Most of the simpler e-readers, such as those embedded into specific purpose
devices, will only use Title and Author, but many desktop readers such as Adobe
Digital Editions and Calibre will make use of as much meta-data as you can throw at
it.
The two fields which you will want to be more careful with are Language Code,
and the custom unique identifier. Make sure you use the correct ISO two-letter ab-
breviation for the language the book is written in. If you do not wish to provide a
custom identifier, Scrivener will generate one for you based on the author, title, and
date. If your publisher has provided a unique identifier for you, then you can check
the box and type in your own.

3
http://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/users_guide/multimarkdown_syntax_guide/
258 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Figure 24.9: Compile—Meta-Data (ePub)

24.12 Layout Options

The Rich Text export format also allows for some advanced layout options, which
will be displayed in the Layout Options compile pane. Using these options, you can
prepare RTF files for more basic applications, such as WordPad, or apply columns to
your document, which will be especially useful for some academic style guides.

Columns Columns will reformat your exported manuscript into a specified number
of columns. As with all compile features, this will have no impact on your
visual draft, while writing and editing, and only modify the appearance of the
final product once exported. To enable the use of columns, check the “Use
columns” box.

The number of columns can be adjusted with the appropriate drop-down menu.
Any value between two and four can be selected. You may also adjust how
much padding will be used to space the columns apart from one another, from
1/8th of an inch to 3/4.
24.13. STATISTICS 259

Scrivener’s default RTF exporter supports features that some other products and
free editors do not recognise. In a worst case scenario, this can result in files which
do not correctly load at all, display only a part of the content, or at the least omit the
parts they do not understand. The following options can fine-tune the RTF file you
create, so to better increase its compatibility at the expense of formatting.

Strip tables from text Use this feature when tables are causing the RTF file to ren-
der incorrectly in the target word processor
The contents of the tables themselves will not be removed, but the table code
itself will be. This results in a block of text that “flattens” the table contents into
a long list. Generally you will not want to use this unless the target application
completely fails to render tables.

Flatten footnotes and comments into regular text Use this feature when the tar-
get word processor fails to properly display footnotes and/or comments.
When enabled, all footnotes and comments will be converted to normal text,
rather than using RTF codes to insert them. Since the notion of a footnote
requires pagination to place the footnote at the bottom of the page, the end
result is that all footnotes will be exported as endnotes. Reference markers
will be inserted into the text using standard punctuation to do so. Note that
this feature modifies the existing behaviour of your compile settings. If you
have opted to strip out all comments, checking this box will not override that,
they will remain excluded. It only modifies how the feature is exported, if it is
scheduled to do so.

Use Word-compatible indents for bullets and numbered lists Use this option
when working with Microsoft Word.
Word uses a different mechanism for displaying indents in enumeration and
bullet style lists. This option will attempt to preserve as closely as possible the
look and feel of your original document. If you are not using Word, and you
are getting erratically formatted lists, try disabling this option.

This option pane is only available with the RTF format.

24.13 Statistics
When using special placeholder tags which expand to display various statistics about
the project, the options in this pane will allow you to fine-tune how they work.
Word and character counting placeholder tags can be inserted anywhere in your
project, and in multiple places. For a complete list of available codes, either view
the help sheet for placeholder tags in the Help menu, or experiment with the various
options available in the Edit � Insert � sub-menu.
260 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Word and character counts include all text This is the default behaviour. Any text
that is set to be compiled as a part of your manuscript will be included in the
word/character count. This means that if you enable Notes export in the For-
matting pane (section 24.5), the note text will be added to the global count as
well.

Word and character counts include To adjust the scope of the counter, enable this
option and then select from the following list of inclusive options. A check-
mark next to the type of content means that it will be included in the total
count. Counting filters will not impact what gets compiled, but only what out
of that compile gets counted.

❧ Main text
❧ Notes
❧ Synopses
❧ Only documents matching criteria. This option functions in a manner
identical to the global content filtering option (subsection 24.4.2). Read
the section on this feature for full documentation on how to use counting
filters.

Count footnotes; Count comments and annotations Footnotes and endnotes will
be included in the total count; this is the default
Likewise if enabled, comments and annotations will be included in the count

Do not count spaces in character count Enable this option if you require strict
character counts, including all spaces between words, as well as the words, in
the document. If you are unsure, check with your publisher for which standard
they use.

This option pane is a core feature available to all export formats.

24.14 Replacements
Replacements are a way for you to set up your own substitutions, which works in a
manner very similar to Search and Replace, though without changing the underlying
documents in Scrivener. A table with three columns has been provided:

❧ Replace: The text which you wish to instruct the compiler to look for.

❧ With: Whatever has been supplied in the Replace column will be replaced with
what you type into this column.
24.14. REPLACEMENTS 261

❧ Case-Sensitive?: When checked, the letter case in the Replace column must pre-
cisely match, otherwise it will be ignored by the compiler.

Some example usages would be to replace an abbreviated version with a full proper
name, to make typing it in freqently easier, or inserting common editing notes.

Table 24.1: Example replacements

Replace With Case-Sensative?

AdT Arc de Triomphe X
myprotagonist Amy Holmes
<$needCite> (Needs Citation)
figCapt Figure 1. X

❧ These sequences will be replaced wherever they occur. You shouldn’t choose
replacements that might fall within other words in typical usage.

❧ Use of case-sensitive replacement can often help reduce accidental occurences.

❧ If you wish to make sure a replacement is always an isolated word, put spaces
around the letters in the “Replace” column.

❧ Replacements can contain other tokens, as demonstrated (Table 24.1) in the

fourth row, which will produce a numbered figure caption prefix. Since replace-
ments are evaluated simultaneously, they cannot refer to other replacements,
however.

This option pane is a core feature available to all export formats.

24.14.1 Advanced Replacements Usage

Replacements can also take a special tag which will be used to match everything
within the replacement match, that does not otherwise match the “structure” of the
replacement tag. This is much more easily explained with an example. The character
sequence $@ can be inserted into the first column anywhere within the replacement
field. An example might be, ˆ$@ˆ. Now in your base text, if the replacement field
encounters a caret symbol, it will seek for a second caret symbol and then copy ev-
erything in between those two symbols into the $@ tag. This can be placed into the
With column, amidst your custom expansion code. A practical example:

^$@^
262 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Replaced with:

<span class="index">$@</span>

Will take the following example text from your compiled document:

This is a ^test^ of advanced replacements.

And convert it to:

This is a <span class="index">test</span> of advanced replacements.

You can place the $@ tag in multiple places within the with-column expansion. An
example that would be useful for LATEXusers would take the above expansion token,
but change the Replace With value to:

\idx{$@}$@

Now the compiled text will look like:

This is a \idx{test}test of advanced replacements.

24.15 Footnotes/Comments
The Footnotes and Comments pane controls how these two forms of notation will
be handled in the compile process, or whether they should even appear at all. Since
there are two ways to add notes to documents (linked or inline notes), it is possible
to treat the four of them differently, with most formats. As with other areas of the
application and documentation, the usage of the term “footnote” is equally applicable
to “endnote”, if the options to use endnotes have been applied.
The first section concerns itself with how footnotes should be arranged in the
manuscript, and the second section deals with inline annotations and linked com-
ments. Since not all of the available export formats support all available options,
some variants of the pane will appear differently than shown (Figure 24.10).
This option pane is a core feature available to all export formats except for FDX
and FCF.
24.15. FOOTNOTES/COMMENTS 263

Figure 24.10: Compile—Footnotes/Comments Pane (RTF)

24.15.1 Footnote Options

Some formats do not support real footnotes or endnotes. When using these formats,
Scrivener will create the appearance of endnotes by embedding plain-text representa-
tions for both the marker and the footnote itself. Since most of these formats also
do not have a concept of a “page”, it will be impossible for them to generate true
footnotes. Consequently, they will nearly always be inserted at the very end of the
document, becoming in effect, endnotes.
The HTML based formats, including ePub, will insert hyperlink references leading
from the footnote marker to the footnote text. This will allow readers to click on
the marker in the text and jump directly to the footnote. With ePub, most e-book
readers have a “back” button which will let readers navigate back to the place there
were before referencing the footnote.

Remove footnotes The exported manuscript will have all footnotes (inline or
linked) stripped from it. When this option is enabled, the rest of the footnote
section will be disabled.
264 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Include footnotes in word and character counts This will impact only counters
which have been inserted into the document, such as <$wc>, which prints the
precise word count of the project. It does not impact the rest of the interface,
such as project statistics and targets.

Export inspector footnotes as endnotes When enabled, this will export all linked
inspector footnotes as endnotes. If the next option is not set as well, this will
require using a word process that can handle both endnotes and footnotes in the
same document.

Export inline footnotes as endnotes Similar to above, but only exports inline foot-
notes as endnotes. If you only wish one type of notation to be used in your
manuscript, make sure to check both of these options one way or the other.

Footnote numbering restarts on each page Instead of keeping a running tally

throughout the manuscript, each page’s footnotes will restart according to the
numbering methods available.

Footnote format Using the drop-down menu, you can select how footnotes should
be numbered in the final manuscript. For formats which support real footnotes,
this will set an instruction in the manuscript file which word processors need
to read and understand in order for the setting to have an effect. For formats
which do not support footnotes (such as RTFD and TXT), this option will
impact how Scrivener numbers items itself, as it creates plain-text footnotes.

Endnote format All of the notes above pertain to endnote numbering as well. If
you document has both footnotes and endnotes, Scrivener will set two different
numbering hints within the manuscript file; it is up to the word processor to
handle them correctly.

Override font If you wish to use a separate font to print footnotes, this can be set
here. Note that many word processors have their own special stylesheets for
handling footnote appearance, so this option may not always be necessary.

Group footnotes before page breaks This feature is available to most formats that
cannot generate true footnotes, but still support some form of page break. It
will toggle the default behaviour whereby all footnotes are attached to the very
end of the manuscript, and will instead insert them at the nearest subsequent
page break, becoming in most cases, chapter-based endnotes.

24.15.2 Comments and Annotations Options

As with footnotes, it is possible to use both inline annotations and linked comments
in the same project, and selectively handle them during compile. You may wish, for
example, to use inline annotations for simple editing notes, and linked comments
24.15. FOOTNOTES/COMMENTS 265

for references to source material. It might then be useful for collaborators to see the
source material references, but not the simple inline editing comments.
Most of the compile formats have the same options available, but will handle the ex-
port of annotations and comments in different ways, depending on what is supported
within that format.

❧ RTF/DOC4 : Provide additional options for utilising RTF’s comment syntax.

Unfortunately this syntax is not widely supported. If comments refuse to show
up in your word processor, try using one of the other methods.

❧ Other rich text and word processor formats: In all of the formats that support the
ability to set font colours, annotations and comments will be inserted as actual
text in the document, enclosed in square brackets, and then coloured according
to the annotation text colour, or linked comment background colour, in the
project. For the purposes of this definition, HTML, WebArchive, and ePub are
considered “rich text”.

❧ Text based formats: For formats, like plain-text, FCF, and MultiMarkdown
(when the HTML method is disabled), annotations and comments will be sim-
ply wrapped in square brackets and placed into the text where they originally
appeared in the project.

The following options are available:

Remove inspector comments Only inspector comments will be stripped from the
resulting manuscript.

Remove inline annotations Only inline annotations will be stripped from the text.
If you wish for all comments to be removed from the manuscript, make sure
both this and the above options are checked.

Include in character and word counts As with the analogous option above, for
footnotes, when checked this will include the text in all comments and anno-
tations in any word count and character count tokens that are placed into the
manuscript. Also as with the footnotes option, this will have no impact on the
other counting features in the application.

Export to RTF as Several options are available for handling all annotations and com-
ments.
This drop-down menu is only available to RTF, and the DOC format when
export preferences have been set to use RTF internally with the DOC format
(this is the default).
4
So long as the DOC format has been set to use RTF internally (section B.9).
266 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

❧ Margin comments: When using a word processor that can read RTF com-
ments, it is most often a good idea to use this option, as comments will be
placed out of the way and not be regarded as part of the actual text.
❧ Inline comments: If comments are not showing up for you using the above
option, this method will produce comments using the method described
above for other rich text formats. This method is the safest to use, but will
embed the content of comments directly into the manuscript text, and is
thus only useful for proofing scenarios and scattered other workflows.
❧ Footnotes: All annotations and comments will be inserted into the foot-
note stream along with any other footnotes (if any exist). This option
shouldn’t be used unless it doesn’t matter if commentary and footnotes
comingle. For purposes of ordering, they will be inserted into the stream
relative to the position of the footnotes/endnotes around them.
❧ Endnotes: This works the same as with footnotes, only they will be in-
serted into the endnote stream.

24.15.3 Footnotes and Comments with MultiMarkdown

The MultiMarkdown compile formats handle footnotes uniquely from the other for-
matters. Scrivener will, by default, automatically generate and ID the necessary foot-
note syntax for you. An MMD marker will be inserted wherever the footnote has
been placed in the document, and the appropriately matching footnote text syntax
will be inserted elsewhere in the compiled MMD file.
Whenever Scrivener is set up to work in this fashion, linked inspector footnotes
will use a different ID prefix than inline footnotes. In ordinary MMD usage, this will
make no visual difference to you. MMD does not care what the footnote ID is, so long
as it is unique to the document. However, using a distinct prefix for linked footnotes
gives you the option to write an advanced XSLT file to handle them differently (such
as mixing endnotes with footnotes), if you wish to.
Inline footnotes will be prefixed with “fn”, followed by a serial number. Linked
footnotes will be prefixed with “cf”, again followed by a serial number.
The following extra options are available to MultiMarkdown users:

Convert footnotes to MultiMarkdown syntax This is the default behaviour as de-

scribed above. When disabled, Scrivener’s footnote generation will mimic that
of plain-text.

Convert to HTML-styled text Since MultiMarkdown has no good analogue syntax

for comments, by default Scrivener will insert a styled HTML container around
the comment. Both inline annotations and linked comments will be treated
identically in this fashion. Since MMD will pass HTML straight through its
24.16. PAGE SETTINGS 267

Figure 24.11: Compile—Page Settings (RTF)

engine, the result will be a range of text coloured with whatever colour the
annotation text or comment background was set to. The appearance, sans the
bubble around the text, will thus be identical.

When this option is disabled, annotations and linked comments will be ex-
ported in the same fashion they are for plain-text files; enclosed in brackets.

TIPBOX: Pro Tip: In cases where an annotation falls entirely on its own para-
graph, Scrivener will use a styled <div> instead of a styled <span> to wrap the com-
ment in. This means you can use complex MultiMarkdown within annotations that
are on their own. Annotations embedded within a paragraph of otherwise normal
text, in any way, will use spans in order to preserve the original document flow, and
thus cannot contain complex syntax. They can however utilise inline formatting such
as bold, italic, footnotes, and so forth.
268 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

24.16 Page Settings

Various print settings can be set up with the Page Settings pane, such as margins,
paper size, and headers and footers. Only formats that support page settings can use
this pane, and amonst those not all support headers and footers. For these, that part
of the pane will be removed.

Use project Page Setup settings The project’s Page Setup settings ( – P) will be
used to determine the paper size and printable area. The rest of the page setup
interface in the compiler will be disabled when this option is engaged.

Page Setup button Here you can set the physical size of the page and other basic
printer settings, just as in the standard Page Setup... feature. Refer to Printing
(chapter 26) for further documentation on how to use these features.
The Page Settings button will not be available for the FDX format, as it does
not store paper size in the document.

Margins Margins set how far from the edge of the paper stock the text container will
extend to. This measurement does not include the non-printable area, which is
printer specific, so when using very low values it is a good idea to check how
close to the edge of the paper your printer can go, to avoid truncating the text.

RTFD, DOCX, and ODT format cannot access the following controls, as their
exporters or formats do not support headers and footers. Additionally, if the DOC
format has been set to use the standard OS X .doc exporter, it will not have access to
these controls.
The header and footer area is divided into two tabs, the first tab “Headers/Footers”
will control these settings for the entire document. The second tab, “Options”
will control how the first page is considered for page counting and secondary
header/footer settings.
Each line has three fields which allow you to enter different information at three
different points of alignment: left, centre, and right, respectively. It is possible to have
all three in use at once, or only one or two. Scrivener does not support recto/verso
page treatment. Consult your word processor for setting this up after compiling.
The tab titled, “Options” contains an identical set of fields for header and footer,
which, if the Different first page header/footer option is checked, will allow you to
supply an alternate header and/or footer for the first page. Leave these fields blank to
produce no headers or footers on the first page.

Page numbers count first page This option will cause the page counter token to
start counting at the first page, rather than skipping it. If you are not including
a title page in your manuscript, this option may be useful.
24.17. COVER 269

Formatting can be done in these fields using mark-up. You can choose between
using simple BBCode, or Markdown, to indicate bold, underscore and italic ranges.
Examples have been provided in the placeholder text for these fields. You can also use
tokens in the header and footer fields, some of which are only available to these fields.

Table 24.2: Some useful header and footer tokens

Token Description
Available to Header and Footer fields
<$compilegroup> The current compile group. If you wish for this
to be more descriptive than “Draft”, you can
change the name of the Draft in the Binder to
be the name of your book.
<$surname> The surname from the current user’s Address
Book entry.
<$username> The full name from the current user’s Address
Book entry.
Some useful global replacement tokens
<$p> Prints the current page number
<$pagecount> The total page count for the entire manuscript.
This is a static number that is primarily use-
ful in conjunction with the page number to-
ken. A value of “<$p> / <$pagecount>”, will
produce, “73 / 258” on page 73 of a 258 page
manuscript.
<$shortdate> The current date, according to the system short
date settings.
<$mediumdate> As above, using the system medium date settings.
<$longdate> As above, using the system medium date settings.

The three tokens (Table 24.2) listed as available only to headers and footers only,
have an alternate usage whereby if the token name is typed in using all-caps, the final
result will be transformed to all-caps as well. For example, if the title of the Draft
folder is “My Novel”, and the token MANUAL is used in the header, it will be printed
as, “MY NOVEL” in the manuscript.

24.17 Cover
Available only to the ePub and Kindle exporters, the Cover pane sets various options
and material which will give your e-book a professional finish. The cover image will
be placed at the very beginning of the e-book (opposing the table of contents), and for
ePub files, can optionally be included as the thumbnail image that will appear when
the book is viewed on the “shelf” in the iTunes library and within iBooks mobile.
270 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

Figure 24.12: Compile—Cover & ToC

Very likely you’ve been provided with images from a designer that was assigned
to illustrate your work. They may not provide you with the file sizes necessary for
e-books, since this is still a new market. Graphics for cover art should be in a standard
RGB raster format, such as PNG, and not a vector format, such as EPS, or CMYK
which is designed for printing. For dimensions, there is no firm rule, but a size of
roughly 800 pixels tall by 600 pixels wide at 72 DPI will display crisply on nearly
all reading devices and computer screens. If you are unsure of how to make these
adjustments to the files you have been provided with, you should contact your graphic
designer with these specifications so that they can deliver a quality version to you at
the correct size.
In particular, watch out for very large files that were originally designed for full
colour press. These will unnecessarily bloat the size of your e-book, make it difficult
to send out proof copies via e-mail, and could even cause your e-book reader device
to run out of memory.

Cover Image Cover images can be selected from resources within the current
project. If you have a cover that you wish to use with your book, make sure
24.17. COVER 271

you have imported into the binder first. All images will be listed in this drop-
down menu, and will displayed in the grey preview area in the middle of the
pane once selected.
There are no hard and fast rules for image size and aspect ratio. Within iBooks,
the book shape will be determined by the cover art. If you give the compiler
a wide design, the book will appear like a wide format coffee table book in
the shelf, for example. Generally speaking, a design which is taller is better
suited for most devices, which present pages in a standard aspect ratio familiar
to paperback and hardback publishing.

Include iTunes cover art file for iBooks (ePub option) Once a cover image has
been selected, this option will be made available. It will include additional infor-
mation that iTunes needs to set the shelf cover art in iBooks. In most cases you
should keep this enabled, but if the book fails to load properly in your reader,
you could try disabling this.

Cover page title (ePub option) You should not supply the name of your book here.
This is what will be used in the table of contents internally. The standard
“Cover” has been provided as a default.

24.17.1 SVG (ePub Only)

This is an advanced feature which will allow you to insert SVG code which can be
used in conjunction with, or instead of, a bitmap image. If you have been provided
with SVG artwork code by a designer, or have created one yourself, use the SVG
button to access the sheet. The text area labelled, “SVG Code” is where you will paste
the vector format code.
You will need to manually specify a default view box size. Get this information
from your designer, the graphics program you used to create the SVG code, or from
the XML itself. The actual size used is less important than maintaining the original
aspect ratio. Incorrect aspect ratio values (the factor between height and width) will
cause the graphic to become either too squat, or squashed.
You will need to research which SVG standard your target readers will be using.
At the time of this writing, most readers are capable of understanding SVG 1.0 and
SVG 1.1 (including SVG 1.1 Basic). When copying the XML code, make sure not to
include the XML declaration and doctype lines. Only paste the SVG element and its
contents. This will be the line starting with:

<svg version="1.1" id="Layer_1"...

And typically going to the very end of the XML file. Pasting the entire XML file
will likely produce an invalid e-book.
272 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

An iTunes compatible cover graphic will not be produced when using SVG covers.

24.18 E-Book Options

This pane is only available to the ePub and Kindle export formats. It provides addi-
tional options which impact the presentation and functionality of your book, such
as cross-referenced table of contents, how endnotes should be handled, and script for-
matting.
Table of contents are often handled by the device using a special interface which
lets the reader jump directly to a designated spot in the book like a hyperlink. You
will rarely need to create your own table of contents by hand. Scrivener will generate
a table of contents based on items which have their “Page Break Before” option set in
the inspector.

24.18.1 Table of Contents

Use flat list for table of contents By default, the list will be nested according to the
depth of the items in the binder. To produce a flat list of items instead, enable
this option. This only impacts the “software” ToC, not the HTML printed
ToC, below.

Generate HTML table of contents In addition to a “software” ToC, which can be

accessed in readers that support the feature, you can also automatically gener-
ate a ToC into the text of the book itself. This increases compatibility at the
expense of adding a little clutter to your book.

Center body text of HTML table of contents Will centre all of the titles rather
than left aligning them.

HTML table of contents title If you have created your own table of contents page
using Scrivener Links (also check HTML Options (section 24.10) and make sure
they are enabled) you can specify the document title (as seen in the binder) for
that file, here. This sets a special flag so it can be navigated to with the reader’s
navigation features. It will otherwise appear as an ordinary part of the book.

24.18.2 Screenplay and Script Formatting

If your e-book is composed of, or contains any script formatting, you should enable
the “E-Book contains script formatting” option. Scrivener will insert special format-
ting rules which match the script format settings you are using in that project, and
typeset these elements appropriately.
In most cases, the default styling will be acceptable, but with some custom formats
that have difficult to emulate styles, you way need to customise the rules which de-
24.19. KINDLEGEN 273

termine the final appearance in the e-book. Knowledge of the Cascading Style Sheet
syntax will be required to effectively customise the look and feel.
Click the Customize CSS... button, and you will be presented with a text field where
you can edit the CSS. Each script element will be provided with a separate class. Ele-
ment names which are composed of two or more words will use the so-called “camel-
Case” which involves removing all spacing and capitalising each new word but not the
first one. An example would be “Scene Heading”, which would map to a class name
of “sceneHeading”. Single-word element names are simply addressed as a lowercase
word, like “transition”. All classes should be assigned to the p element.
Even though the formatting uses CSS, you should not expect to be able to tap into
the full power of this syntax. Designing an e-book is a far cry from designing a web
page. Many CSS commands simply won’t do anything at all.

24.18.3 Endnotes Placement

Endnotes title You can provide a custom section title where your footnotes will be
stored. This will be automatically generated and placed at the end of the book.
The chosen title is what will appear in the formatting for the page, as well as
the table of contents.

Group endnotes according to section with subtitles When disabled, all notes
within the book will be displayed in a single section with linear number from
start to finish. When disabled, notes will be broken apart into sections based
on the ToC break points, and numbering will restart for each section.

24.18.4 KindleGen Options

The final section will only be visible when using the Kindle export format. The
KindleGen formatter takes two options which may be useful in some circumstances.

Do not allow readers to copy and paste the text Disables the ability to use copy
and paste in the reader hardware or software. Note this is a directive. Not
all readers will follow the rules, so don’t expect it to absolutely protect your
book’s contents.

Save the KindleGen log file with the Kindle file If you have having difficulties get-
ting the KindleGen program to produce a valid .mobi file, enabling this option
can help you determine what is going wrong. The log file will be placed in the
compile location you specify once you click the Compile button.

24.19 KindleGen
Available only to the Kindle e-book export format, this option pane is where you
will inform Scrivener of where you have installed the KindleGen utility. Without
274 CHAPTER 24. COMPILING THE DRAFT

this utility, it is impossible to create a Kindle e-book straight out of Scrivener, and
you will not be allowed to make any changes to the compiler until you have selected
the KindleGen tool.
To acquire this tool, download the software for your computer from this web site:
http://www.amazon.com/kindlepublishing.
It will be distributed in a ZIP file, which will you need to decompress (if you
browser does not do so for you) and place in a safe place. It is a good idea to put
it in your Applications folder so you can find it in the future if need be. Once the
KindleGen folder has been installed on your computer, click the button to select the
“kindlegen” executable from within that folder.
Scrivener does not verify if you have chosen the correct application, so double-
check your selection as the wrong choice will cause errors to occur.
 Chapter 25

Exporting
You can export your work from Scrivener at any time, either as individual documents
or by combining the draft into one long manuscript and exporting it in the format of
your choice, using compile. Since the latter is a large topic in and of itself, it is covered
in depth in its own chapter, Compiling the Draft (chapter 24). Here we will look at
various ways to export data piecemeal from your project, either for backup purposes,
or to facilitate collaboration with authors who do not use Scrivener or the capability
to utilise the folder synchronisation exports (section 13.2) you can produce.

25.1 Exporting Binder Files

To export files and folders from the binder as individual files and folders on
your system, select the files you wish to export in the binder and then choose
File � Export � Files..., or press – E.
When exporting more than one file, Scrivener creates a folder on disk to hold all
of the exported files. Enter the name you would like to be given to this folder in
the “Save As” text field, and then choose where you would like this folder to be cre-
ated. From the “Export text files as” pop-up menu, you can choose to export text
documents as one of the following:

❧ Rich Text with Attachments (RTFD)

❧ Rich Text (RTF)

❧ Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX)

❧ OpenOffice.org (ODT)

❧ Final Draft 8 (FDX)

❧ Final Draft 5–7 File Converter Format (FCF)

❧ Plain Text (TXT)

❧ HTML

275
276 CHAPTER 25. EXPORTING

All media files will be exported as they are. You can also choose to export com-
ments and annotations, meta-data, and/or snapshots; and optionally choose to strip
out all notation. Notes will be exported as separate files using the text file format you
chose above (RTF will be used instead, when any script formats are chosen), and the
meta-data (including the synopsis, label, status and so on) will be exported into sepa-
rate plain text (TXT) files. The structure of folders created on disk will reflect their
structure in the binder1 , so in this way you can export all of your files from Scrivener
for use in another application if you so wish.

25.2 Drag and Drop Between Projects

While it is not possible to drag items directly from the binder to other programs on
your computer (including the Desktop), you can easily drag items between Scrivener
projects. This will retain up to 100% of the documents meta-data, including its notes,
snapshots, references, keywords, and so on. However, to achieve 100%, you will
need to ensure that the target project has the same label, status and custom meta-data
settings available to it (as a project), that the documents you are dragging are assigned
to. In other words, if you intend to drag a file from project A over to project B,
and this file has been assigned to a label type “Tentatively Complete”, you will need
to ensure that label has been set up in project B’s meta-data configuration prior to
dragging. Scrivener will ignore the file’s label and status if it cannot find a match. All
Scrivener looks for is the name; it is not necessary to colour these items identically,
or assign them the same attributes, such as which is default, or whether a custom field
wraps or not.

1
There are a few caveats to watch for. Since the Finder does not support text material in a folder,
Scrivener will need to create a separate text file to hold whatever material had been typed into the folder
in Scrivener, if applicable. Another caveat is that the Finder will always sort files alphabetically, rather
than using the original order in the binder. If retaining the original order is important, producing a
compiled version of the document along side the full export would be a good idea.
 Chapter 26

Printing
Given that there are two discrete functions in the binder: your draft or works in
progress, and all of the support files and collections around it; you need two funda-
mentally different print modes. Since proof printing and final printing the draft are
closely related to the act of compilation itself, this function has been built into the
compile interface. For all other forms of printing, either piecemeal or in groups, the
standard print mechanisms familiar to most applications will be available, including a
few special-purpose printing tools for visualising clusters of data, like index cards and
outliner columns, that specialise in highlight meta-data and synopses.
In most cases (compile, notably excluded) all you need to do to print a selection
is press – P, or select File � Print... from the menu. Continue reading for tips and
features on how to control the appearance of your print-outs. Many aspects of the
printout can be adjusted in File � Page Setup..., and will be covered in each relevant
section. These settings are saved into each project, not globally.

26.1 Document Printing

Individual documents and supported media can be printed one by one. When more
than one text document has been selected in the binder, they will be printed together
according to the current view mode. If you are viewing the selection as a corkboard,
index card printing will be used, if viewing them in scrivenings, the text view will be
printed using the text document printing settings (below).
If you select a single media file, such as an image or a PDF, it will printed as per
normal (as if you had loaded that file in its normal viewer and opted to print it.
However if you select more than one media file, or a mix of media and text files, index
card printing mode will be used instead, which you can read about in the following
section.

Printing with Placeholders and Number Tokens: The basic one-off print tool
will not evaluate replacement tags and auto-number counters in your documents.
If you wish to print with these tokens, you should select the documents you wish
to print, and then use Compile with either the content selection set to “Current
Selection”, or the use of “Current Selection” as a filter. Read about doing this with
the compiler contents pane (section 24.4).

277
278 CHAPTER 26. PRINTING

26.1.1 Text Documents Print Settings

Page margins can be set up with File � Page Setup... or – P, and then select
“Scrivener” from the “Settings:” drop-down menu.
To set up how documents are printed individually (or together, when printing from
a scrivenings session), navigate to the above setting pane, and then click the Options...
button in the lower-right. Adjustments for text document printing can be found
under the “Text Documents” tab.
As you adjust these options, the preview pane above will adjust, giving you a pre-
view of the final look.

Print Options These impact the overall look and feel of the document, including
the headers, footers, and base font.

❧ Print page numbers: Insert a page number in the top-right corner of each
page in the header area. This number will be relative to the selection you
have chosen to print, it will not reflect the actual page number of the com-
plete draft (if you are printing from within the draft).
❧ Print the file name/date: Inserts the selected document’s name next to the
page number in the header area. If more than one document has been
selected, this will revert to “printing”.
❧ Remove annotations: By default, annotations will be left in, using their
original colour, and enclosed in square brackets to help identify them
when using a black and white printer. use this option to strip them out of
the printout.
❧ Insert linked comments: By default, linked comments will be inserted be-
side the highlighted anchor range in a darker variation of the highlight’s
colour. Uncheck this to keep them out of the print job.
❧ Print using font: If you wish to override the formatting of the documents
temporarily, and use a uniform font, check this box and then select the
font and font size in the activated option menus, below.

Elements to print Similar to the Formatting pane in the compiler, you can option-
ally add meta-data to the printout for each document that is selected. By default,
only Text will be selected, which is the main text body of each document.

26.1.2 Other Print Settings

Since scrivenings mode is not available to media, your only options for printing
groups of them will be on index cards or using the outliner printer. Consult the
following sections for details on these two methods.
26.2. PRINTING INDEX CARDS 279

Most research files will print out in a standard fashion according to their type, and
there are no options for adjusting how that occurs. However, images and web pages
have a few options available in the same Options palette described above, under the
“Other” tab.

Web Pages By default, background images and colours will not be sent to the printer
to save ink and increase clarity. However if the background image is an integral
part of the design, you can change this behaviour with this checkbox.

Images There are two scaling choices from which you can only select one, “Print
actual size” and “Scale to fit page”. If the image you are printing out is very
large, you will have better success with the latter option. In most cases actual
size will produce a better quality print.

26.2 Printing Index Cards

When viewing a collection of items on a corkboard, you can print the content of the
corkboard onto index card sized blocks on a page. The formatting for this has been
optimised to work with Avery(tm) Perforated Index Card stock, but you can use any
paper with a chopping block or scissors to cut the cards apart if need be, or even feed
in regular index cards if your printer supports abnormal paper feeds.
Since this method is optimised for printing to standard index card size, it will not
print a perfect copy of what you see on the corkboard, and in most cases this would
not be desirable anyway as the background textures and such would be a waste of ink,
and longer cards would only show what could be seen without scrolling. So instead,
the content of the card’s title and synopsis will be printed, and will continue to print
on subsequent cards until the entire synopsis has been printed. Cards with lots of text
content may take several cards to print out.
if the corkboard contains images, the image thumbnail will be placed into the card
area unless that item has specifically been set to display the text synopsis instead of
the image thumbnail. Note that most meta-data will not be shown when an image is
placed into an index card as a thumbnail.
As with printing text documents, you can access options for corkboard printing in
the File � Page Setup... menu, navigate to Scrivener settings in the “Settings” drop-
down, and then click the Options... button. You will find an “Index Cards” tab
with the following options. As you adjust these options, the preview pane above
will change to reflect your choices.

❧ Include titles: adds the title of each card to the top.

❧ Include card numbers: this is similar to View � Corkboard � Show Card Numbers.
Each card will be numbered relative to the corkboard scope, starting with 1.
280 CHAPTER 26. PRINTING

❧ Ignore cards with titles only: with this option enabled, if a card has no synopsis,
it will be ignored. This includes images that would otherwise be printed out as
image thumbnails.

❧ Highlight titles with label color: the background of the title area will be high-
lighted with the card’s assigned label colour, if relevant. The label name will
also be placed in parentheses after the title, so if you are using a black and white
printer, this information will still be available to you.

❧ Include keywords: when enabled, all keyword names will be printed out in a
comma-delineated list below the title.

❧ Print cutting guides: this option is most useful when using standard paper. Each
card will be outlined with dashed cutting guides, making it easier to separate
them into actual cards with a cutting block or scissors. If you are using perfo-
rated card stock, it is best to leave this option off.

❧ Force landscape orientation: maximises the number of cards you can fit onto a
single sheet of paper to four instead of three. If you are just printing to regular
paper and plan on cutting them apart, use this option to save paper.

❧ Embolden titles: The title of the card, printed at the top, will be emboldened to
set it apart from the rest of the card content.

❧ Print using font: override the default font with your preferred font family and
size.

26.2.1 Tips for Printing to Individual Cards

With some printers, it is possible to feed individual cards into the printer, which
makes for a cheap alternative to perforated cards. You will want to ensure that your
printer is capable of handling thicker paper in small sizes before attempting this. Fol-
low these steps to set up Scrivener:

1. Select the File � Page Setup... menu item.

2. Under “Paper Size”, select the menu choice, Manage Custom Sizes...

3. Press the + button to create a new custom paper size and call it “Index card”, or
whatever you prefer.

4. Enter the height and width of your index cards. Use a ruler if you are unsure.
Most cards come in 3 x 5 inch and 4 x 6 inch form.

5. For the non-printable area, you can select whatever you like here. A small value
of 0.25 inches is a good default.
26.3. PRINTING OUTLINES 281

6. Click OK to confirm the new paper size and then make sure that is the selected
paper size before clicking OK again to confirm your page setup.

You will now need to follow the instructions provided to you by your printer
manufacturer to figure out how to feed the cards into the machine. Some printers
will let you place the cards in a stack, but with many printers you will need to feed in
a card one by one as it prints. Keep this in mind if you intend to print out hundreds
of cards!

26.3 Printing Outlines

As with corkboards, you can print the content of an outliner view by simply viewing
the material you wish to print in the outliner, and press – P. Also, as with corkboard
printing, this will not attempt to reproduce the precise appearance or even all of the
columns you have set, as this would lead to situations that would be difficult to print,
with very wide outliners. Instead, the outliner printer function collections a lot of
frequently used meta-data, and presents them in a largely linear format, which at its
most basic will be the title and the synopsis for each row in the outliner.
Each row in the outliner will be printed in a “block” on the page, and within this
block there are three primary sections in this order:

1. Title Area

2. Content Area

3. Meta-data Area

Information will be placed into one of these three areas if enabled, and the follow-
ing list of options will refer to these sections to indicate where the information goes.
To adjust the appearance of this print form, options have been provided in
File � Page Setup...; select “Scrivener” from the “Settings:” drop-down menu, and
then click the Options... button, followed by the “Outlines” tab. As with outliner
and text document setup, a preview will be provided as you change options, letting
you know roughly what the final form will look like.

❧ Include titles: adds the title in the Title Area, using a bold font.

❧ Include synopses: the full synopsis will be printed for each item in the Content
Area.

❧ Include label and status: if the label and status have been set for the row, they
will be added to the section. Label will highlight the background of the Title
Area with its associated colour, and will be inserted after the title (if present) in
282 CHAPTER 26. PRINTING

parentheses. Status will be placed at the bottom of the entry in the Meta-data
Area.

❧ Include keywords: keywords will be added on the line above the synopsis, in the
Content Area, in a comma-delineated list.

❧ Include custom meta-data: will be added in the Meta-data Area, one field per line
for each meta-data field that has been filed out for that row. If a row does not
have any custom-meta data assigned to it, then nothing will be printed here.

❧ Indent by level: indents each item relative to the current outliner view. So items
which are children of the root level items will be indented once, no matter how
deeply nested they are within the binder. Disabling this produces a flat list.

❧ Print file name: prints the name of the container that is being printed (which
is otherwise not represented in the printout). If the outliner is the result of a
multiple selection, then the label will simply be “printing”. This will be placed
in the header area of each page, on the right hand side.

❧ Include word count: the word count for that row (not the total word count,
which would include its children) will be placed into the Meta-data area.

❧ Include character count: as above, only printing the character count instead.

❧ Include targets with counts: if any of the above two counters have been enabled,
and a goal has been set for the row, it will be printed after the relevant counter.

❧ Prefix titles with number: if titles are enabled, the row number (relative to the
outliner, not the binder) will be prefixed to the title. This is a simple incremen-
tal counter, not a hierarchal counter.

If you find the settings for the outliner do not provide for the look you desire, you
might consider using the compiler instead. Try starting with the provided preset,
“Enumerated Outline” and customising that if necessary.

26.4 Printing the Draft

Printing the entire draft, the portion of your project that is set aside for your work
in progress itself, is accomplished via the compiler, and is not unlike compiling a
file. You will use the same interface to print, and all of the options available to you
during compilation will be functional. To print, open the compile interface with
File � Compile ( – E) and using the “Compile For:” drop-down menu, select “Print-
ing/PDF”, then click the Compile button.
Once Scrivener has finished processing your draft, you will be presented with the
standard OS X print dialogue. From here, you can choose to save a PDF from the
26.4. PRINTING THE DRAFT 283

drop-down menu on the left, or click the Print button to send the compiled document
to your default printer. The first time you do this, you should Preview the print job,
first. If you do not see a Preview button, make sure the print dialogue is in its collapsed
state by clicking the little upward pointing arrow beside the printer selection menu.
This will temporarily load the print job into Preview, and if everything looks okay,
you can click the print button in the footer bar of the preview area.
See also:

❧ Read Compiling the Draft (chapter 24) for more details on how to compile.

❧ If you want to print a script, read Printing or Exporting a Script (section 20.4)
for tips.
 Part V

Advanced

284
 Chapter 27

MultiMarkdown Tips and

Tricks

27.1 Functional Annotations and Comments

The functional usage of annotations is a largely advanced feature for MMD, and re-
quires the usage of custom XSLT coding to take advantage of, and requires a little
understanding of how notes are compiled into the MMD document.
For the most part, the XHTML element that Scrivener uses is the “span”. Com-
mented text will be wrapped in a span element, classed as “annotation” for CSS and
XSLT matching purposes, and then styled using an inline CSS directive to colour the
span in accordance with the RGB value used in Scrivener to codify the annotation
or comment. Put another way, a red annotation will end up styled as red in your
XHTML document. MMD’s default engine then takes that a step further with LATEX,
using the colour package to style text as coloured ranges in LATEX. You can thus have
commented text go all the way from Scrivener to LATEX, appearing roughly as it does
in Scrivener, without the bubble.
An alternate form that Scrivener will use is when inline annotations are on para-
graphs all by themselves. In this scenario, a “div” element will be used to wrap the
entire section. For those versed in XHTML, the difference between the two will be
readily apparent, but for the rest, this basically means that the content of a “island
comment” will be capable of structural detail in a way that an “embedded comment”
cannot be. An embedded comment couldn’t utilise paragraphs within the comment,
because that would disturb the document flow from its original appearance, and it
would also violate the XHTML specifications as paragraphs cannot exist within span
elements.
In practical terms, this means you can use full MMD syntax within so-called “is-
land comments”, something you cannot do in embedded comments, you can only
use simple formatting like italics and bold—anything that does not require a block
element (like a paragraph, or a bullet list) to express. In a sense, this elevates island
comments to a fully functional role. Using a custom XSLT which is designed to look
for them, they can be used to ascribe additional semantic meaning to a document at
the block level. This can also be done for embedded comments, but only so long as
the intended syntax does not require a block level expression.

285
286 CHAPTER 27. MULTIMARKDOWN TIPS AND TRICKS

The tip boxes in this PDF are an example of these so-called “island comments”.
Prior to this transition, it would have required me to type XHTML div coding di-
rectly into the Scrivener project in order to create special paragraphs like the tip box—
or I would have had to have designed some syntax and gone through all of the steps
required to add that syntax to MMD (something which should be avoided if at all
possible). Instead, I can simply mark out a section of my document in an annotation,
and prefix that annotation with the phrase “TIPBOX: ”, which the XSLT has been
designed to look for, discard, and then format the div block in such a way that it is
displayed in a LATEX“leftbar” environment.
Due to their nature, inspector comments have no div element form, as they will
always at some level be embedded within another paragraph.

27.2 Multiple Footnote Streams with MMD

Each type of footnote will be exported using a different reference prefix. This prefix
is just a text-based convention, and is in the default MMD installation, completely
devoid of meaning. Inline footnotes will be exported with a “fn” prefix, followed by
a sequential number which is incremented for each footnote that is processed. Mean-
while, linked inspector footnotes will be prefixed with “cf”, instead. In the standard
export workflows, this will actually be completely invisible to you. Both will come
out looking identical, if you mixed types within Scrivener. However because a prefix
has been used to denote each type, this gives you the opportunity to apply additional
rules to your custom XSLT which handles each note type as a separate stream. If your
work requires both footnotes and endnotes, it would thus be possible to generate an
XSLT that produces these, provided the final output format it is generating can handle
it.
 Part VI

Appendices

287
 Appendix A

Menus and Keyboard Shortcuts

This chapter will address each item in every menu, and will display the keyboard
shortcut for it when applicable. It is intended to be a quick, exhaustive reference of
the menus, and will attempt to point you in the right direction for more thorough
discussion and analysis of various features when necessary.

A.1 Scrivener Menu

Much like the application menu in any other Mac OS X program, this provides access
to application level information, features, and system integration, such as Services.

About Scrivener Displays the credits and version number of the application. If you
are experiencing problems and wish to contact customer support regarding
them, you can provide version information using this dialogue. Simply click
anywhere outside of the scrolling text area to dismiss it.

Preferences. . . ( – ,) Accesses the main application menu dialogue. For a complete

list of all available options, see Preferences (Appendix B).

Registration. . . When you purchase the application, use this menu item to copy and
paste your registration information from the e-mail that you will receive from
Literature & Latte. In case you have lost the original e-mail or never received it,
you can use the Retrieve Lost Serial... button which will take you to a web page
with further instructions on how to retrieve it.

Check for Updates. . . You can use the Check for Updates menu item to check to see
if there is a newer version of Scrivener available for download (2.x updates are
free). Scrivener uses the Sparkle1 framework to check for updates. This means
that you can check for updates and then download and install them all without
leaving the application.

Services  The items in this menu are provided by the core system, and other third-
party applications. They will let you perform various functions, mostly based
on selected text. Scrivener provides its own services which are also available
1
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288
A.2. FILE MENU 289

in this menu, and from other applications as well. See Scrivener Services (sec-
tion 11.2) for further documentation.

Quit Scrivener Leaves the program. Any projects that are currently open will be
saved to the disk if necessary, automatically. Under the default preferences,
these projects will be marked and opened automatically the next time you run
Scrivener.

A.2 File Menu

The File menu contains everything that handles creating files on your computer, in-
cluding creating new projects, saving, backing up, importing and exporting. It also
deals with printing and project-specific settings.

New Project. . . ( – N) New Project creates a new Scrivener project. This will
bring up the Assistant panel (see Quick Tour (chapter 6)) which will walk you
through creating a new project, which will be saved as a .scriv file in the direc-
tory on disk that you specify.

Open. . . ( – O) Open allows you to open a pre-existing .scriv file on your hard disk.
Note that Scrivener cannot open read-only files directly (such as those that have
been backed up to a CD-ROM) and will give you the opportunity to save the
project to an area where you have permission to save files.

Recent Projects Here you can select and open projects that have recently been
opened in Scrivener (unless you specify otherwise in the General Preferences
(section B.1), Scrivener will reopen all projects that were open in a previous
session when it is launched).
The number of items listed in this sub-menu is governed by OS X’s global pref-
erence, which can be set in the Appearance preference pane.

Close Project ( – W) Closes the current project and all of its associated windows.

Close Window ( – W) Closes the currently active window, HUD, QuickReference,

or dialogue box. However if the project window has focus, the entire project
will be closed instead. Full screen mode must be exited explicitly, it does not
respond to – W.

Save ( – S) Scrivener auto-saves your work so that you never have to worry about
losing your writings. Projects are also saved automatically whenever they are
closed. However, you can use Save to force an immediate save whenever you
want.
290 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Optionally, if you hold down the Opt key ( – S) you can manually rebuild the
search index. This is sometimes useful in cases where you suspect the project has
lost synchronisation with search index. There is generally no need to do this as
Scrivener will automatically rebuild indexes if something appears to have gone
awry since the last session.

Save As. . . ( – S) Will prompt you for a new project name and/or location. When
you submit this dialogue box, Scrivener will immediately start working off of
the new copy. If instead you want to generate a backup copy and keep working
off of the original, use File � Back Up � Back Up To... instead.

For more information on managing your project files, see Project Management
(chapter 7).

Import  Allows you to import a variety of existing information, from your drive or
even from the Internet, into your active project. For full documentation on im-
porting information into Scrivener, refer to Gathering Material (section 11.1).

Files. . . ( – I) Import files from the file system into Scrivener. Supported
formats are .doc, .rtf, .rtfd, .txt, and other text formats; all major image
and QuickTime file forms; .pdf files; .htm, .html, and .webarchive files.
Web Page. . . ( – W) Import a web page from the Internet by supplying
Scrivener with its URL.
MultiMarkdown File. . . Takes a plain-text MultiMarkdown formatted docu-
ment and will convert its header structure into a binder outline structure.
Plain Text Formatted Screenplay. . . Import a plain text screenplay, option-
ally splitting sections into separate binder documents. This works best
with scripts that have been exported from CeltX and Movie Magic Screen-
writer.
From SimpleText.ws Integrate with the SimpleText.ws service. You will need
to provide your account log-in information. This will allow you to re-
trieve files you have created in SimpleText aware applications, such as
WriteRoom for the iPhone.
Scrivener Project. . . Import an entire Scrivener project into the current
project. Most meta-data, keywords, references, and notes will be trans-
ferred.
Import and Split. . . Takes a standard text file and allows you to supply a char-
acter sequence (such as “###”) which will be used to split the document
into sections.
A.2. FILE MENU 291

Export  Provides tools for exporting elements of the binder to the file system. For
more information on exporting your work, see Exporting (chapter 25).

Files. . . ( – E) Allows selected contents of a project to be exported as files

and folders onto the hard drive. This feature should primarily be used to
create a hard copy backup, or to share resources with someone not using
Scrivener. Generally speaking, you will want to use Compile to export
your book.
Comments and Annotations. . . Exports just the comments and annotations
from the project into a single file. Optionally you can choose to export
only the selected binder items.

Sync  Tools for linking parts of your project to external applications, mobile de-
vices, or disk-based files and folders. Read more about syncing in Cloud Inte-
gration and Sharing (chapter 13).

with External Folder. . . Method for creating folders with plain-text, rich
text, or Final Draft files on your system. This export location can be
anywhere, including network mounted or monitor drives, such as iDisk,
Dropbox, SugarSync, and so on. Read more in Synchronised Folders (sec-
tion 13.2).
with Simplenote. . . Method for synchronising individual files or folder con-
tent as plain-text to the Simplenote server, which can be used with a vari-
ety of applications and devices. Read more in Simplenote (section 13.1).
with Index Card for iPad. . . Index Card2 for iPad is an application which
lets you view items on a corkboard in a manner similar to Scrivener’s
corkboard. Using this tool, you can sync a collection (section 8.4) from
Scrivener to a special .plist file that Index Card can use to import your
material. Read more in Index Card for iPad (section 13.4).

Back Up  Functions for managing backup copies of the current project. For more
information on back up strategies, see Backing Up Your Work (section 7.6).

Back Up To. . . Generates a backup copy of the project to a specified location.

Backup copies, unlike Save As, will simply be created and then ignored
by Scrivener, you will keep working in the current version of the project.
Optionally, you can choose to compress the backup in a zip archive, which
takes longer, but is the recommended method for storage of backups on
network drives.
2
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292 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Back Up Now Triggers the automatic backup system to produce a backup im-
mediately, using the preferences for backup location and rotation scheme.
Customise how this works in the Backup preferences pane (section B.10).

Exclude From Automatic Backups Removes the current project from the au-
tomated backup system. This is useful when the current project is very
large, and is causing you to have to wait for long intervals while the auto-
matic system performs backups. Note that when this option is engaged,
Scrivener’s backup protection will be completely ignored for this project.
Take care to manually back up excluded projects from time to time.

Save As Template. . . Saves the current project as a template. This will add it to the
New Project window for use as a basis for future projects. For more informa-
tion on creating templates, read Templates (section 7.5).

For full documentation of the printing process, read Printing (chapter 26).

Page Setup. . . ( – P) Accesses the standard page layout setup pane. Additionally
accesses Scrivener specific features from the Settings drop-down menu. Note,
these settings do not adjust Compile printing, only current document printing,
though Compile can be optionally configured to use your Page Setup paper
dimensions.

Print Current Document. . . ( – P) Prints the current editor view. How this will
be printed depends on the view mode, and all of the settings for this can be
accessed with File � Page Setup... above.

Compile. . . ( – E) Compile is the standard method for producing a manuscript

out of all the pieces in the Draft. This feature provides an immense degree of
flexibility, and is fully documented in Compiling the Draft (chapter 24).

A.3 Edit Menu

The Edit menu contains options related to editing. All of the standard Mac Edit
menu items (with which you will be familiar from such programs as TextEdit) can
be found here, including cut, copy, paste and find, along with a large complement of
Scrivener-specific features.

Undo & Redo ( – Z & – Z) Undoes or redoes the last change. Undo and Redo
work mainly for edits made to text, but they do work for some basic outlining
A.3. EDIT MENU 293

changes too, where that change does not cause the current document to change
in the editor. Each document has its own Undo history, which means you can
easily go back to another document and revert changes independently of other
documents.

Cut, Copy, and Paste ( – X, – C, and – V) Cut, copy and paste act exactly as
they do in other applications. Note that they only operate in a text editing
context, and not on binder documents or meta-data. See Documents Menu
(section A.6) for document management commands.

Scrivener also supplies additional tools for text management:

Copy Special  This menu allows you to copy text or binder items in a variety of
ways which can apply or remove data depending on the specific menu com-
mand.

❧ Copy as HTML: Reproduces most formatting as HTML codes using inline

CSS. The resulting HTML should look very similar to the text you copied
in Scrivener, including some ruler settings, colour, highlight, and so on.
❧ Copy as HTML (Basic using <p> and <span>): Applies minimal inline CSS
formatting. Ruler styles and some types of formatting will be lost. This is
often the best choice for pasting into blogging and Content Management
Systems, which provide their own stylesheets.
❧ Copy as HTML (Basic using <br>): Applies very basic, HTML 4.01 com-
pliant code. When constructing HTML e-mails, or working with an older
website, this is what you will want to use.
❧ Copy as BBCode: Translates most basic formatting into BBCode, suitable
for forum posts. Because BBCode does not support as many formatting
features as full HTML+CSS, some elements will be lost.
❧ Copying without Comments or Footnotes: ( – C) will strip out all anno-
tation and footnote text, but retain all other formatting. Most often this
is useful for producing “clean” snapshots (section 14.9) after an editing ses-
sion. This command will remove all notation, including linked notation.

The following menu commands operate on selected documents, not text:

❧ Copy Documents as Scrivener Links: Ordinarily, when you copy a selection

of documents, pasting them will just list the names of the documents. This
command will also build links back to each of the respective documents.
294 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

❧ Copy Documents as ToC: Will create a basic Table of Contents out of the se-
lected documents, which is meant to be pasted into a Scrivener document.
See Creating a Table of Contents (chapter 23) for further information.

Paste and Match Style ( – V) This pastes the contents of the clipboard without
any of its existing fonts and styles. Useful for when you have copied a range of
formatted text but want to paste it using the style of the text into which you are
placing it.

Delete ( – Delete) Moves the selected binder items to the Trash. Scrivener works in
the same fashion that the Finder does. Items are not directly deleted, but first
moved to a Trash folder, located in the binder. Periodically, you can review the
contents of this and empty the trash to clear up space.

Select All ( – A) Selects all of the content of the current text, outliner view, table
view or corkboard.

Select Current Text ( – A) When holding down the Option key, this alternate
method will be displayed. It is useful for selecting on the current text in a
Scrivenings session, rather than the entire session.

Complete ( Esc) Manually calls up the word-completion service, regardless of word

auto-completion settings. Can optionally be invoked with – . or simply Esc
by itself on some keyboard layouts.

Complete Document Title ( Esc) If you start typing in a document title from the
same Scrivener project, you can use Esc to cause Scrivener to search your
project for matching titles, based on what you have typed thus far, and suggest
alternatives. This is very useful in conjunction with the auto-correction option
(section B.8)] to automatically detect Scrivener links typed in with [[Document
Title]] bracketing.

Add Selection to Auto-Complete List Adds the currently word to the project’s
auto-complete list. If more than one word is selected, nothing will be added
to the auto-complete list.

Insert  The Insert sub-menu provides a wide variety of elements that you can
insert into text fields. These will be placed at the current cursor position.
Note that some of these insert invisible characters which control the flow
of your document, you may not see anything happen unless you have For-
mat � Options � Show Invisibles enabled.
A.3. EDIT MENU 295

Image From File. . . Allows you to select an image file from disk to insert into
the current text document (note that inserted images can be resized by
double-clicking on them).
Image Linked to File As with the above, but the inserted image file will be
linked to the original file on your hard disk, rather than copying it into
the text document. This allows you to keep image files separate, and easily
apply updates to images later on if necessary.
Read Inline Images (subsection 14.4.6) for more information on inserting
images into your text.

Line Break ( – Return) Inserts a soft-break instead of a full paragraph break.

Use this when you need to create a list within a single paragraph.
Page Break Inserts a page break within the current text. Note that, as in
TextEdit’s “Wrap to Window” mode, page breaks are invisible and will
only show up when printing or exporting to a fully-featured word pro-
cessor, or if you have “Show Invisibles” enabled. Typically, it is best to
let Scrivener handle page breaks by section, using the “Page Break Before”
option in the inspector. See General Meta-Data View (section 18.2) for
more information on dynamic document control.
Non-Breaking Space Inserts an space character which will prohibit word-
wrap from dividing two or more words from each other. For the pur-
poses of word-wrap, it will consider a sequence of words separated with
non-breaking spaces as a single word.
Word Joiner Inserts an invisible Unicode character which has zero-width, but
otherwise acts just as a non-breaking space.

Auto-number  Scrivener has a number of internal counters which are rep-

resented as tokens in the text. These will be computed and printed in
the desired format when compiling. For full documentation on how
to use the various counters, see Placeholder Tags (Appendix C), or
Help � Placeholder Tags.

Draft Word Count  Inserts a token which will be calculated during Compile
which indicates the word count for the entire manuscript. There are a
number of rounding options available, for cases where precise counts are
less important.
Draft Character Count  As with “Manual Word Count”, inserts a token for
the total character count. Again, rounding options are available.
296 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Bookmark Annotations ( – B) Inserts a special inline annotation at the be-

ginning of the current line used to populate a document’s bookmark
menu. See Text Bookmarks (section 14.11).
Inserts a special inline annotation at the beginning of the current line.
This will start a new section in a document’s bookmark menu. See Text
Bookmarks (section 14.11) for more information.

Current Date & Time ( – D) Inserts a plain-text date-stamp based on

your system’s Long Date and Long Time format.

Append Selection to Document  Provides a sub-menu populated with all of the

text documents in your project. By selecting one of these, the text currently
selected will be added to the end of that document. If it is your intention to
move the text instead of copying it, after issuing this command, you can simply
press the Delete key.
Use the New... sub-menu choice to create a new document containing the se-
lected text. You will be asked where to place this new document in a subsequent
sheet.

Edit/Add Link. . . For use with hyperlinks.

If the cursor is currently placed inside of a link, this command will let you
edit the destination for that link. If the cursor is not placed within a link, you
can use this command to make a new one. It will be inserted into the current
document at the cursor position, automatically selecting the nearest word if
necessary. The sheet will provide you with several common prefix options, or
optionally no prefix.

Scrivener Link  Creates a new Scrivener Link to a chosen document at the current
cursor position. Note you can also create a link to a document that doesn’t
exist yet. The New Link... command ( – L) will ask you for the title of the new
document, and where to place it; or which existing document to link to, in the
second tab. After providing this information, a link to this document will be
placed into the current editor.
Read more about Scrivener Links (section 9.5).

Unlink If the cursor is placed in the text of a link, this command will destroy it. If
you select a range of text, all links within that range will be destroyed. Useful
when pasting text from the Web, when you want to get rid of all the links that
are brought over.
A.3. EDIT MENU 297

Find As with many OS X applications, you will find familiar tools for finding things
both in individual documents, with some additional things Scrivener provides,
including tools for searching your entire project. This list briefly explains the
various functions. For full documentation on how to use Scrivener’s extensive
searching features, see Searching and Replacing (section 21.4).

Find. . . ( – F) The standard find and replace panel. This panel only works
within a single editing window. Most often this means one document,
but in the case of a combined text view, it might mean many documents.
Find Next / Previous ( – G / – G) Jumps to the next or last matching
text based on the criteria supplied in the Find panel. Note these can be
used even if the find panel is closed.

Use Selection for Find ( – E) Sets the selected text as the current find term,
copying it into the “Find” text field if the find panel is closed.
Jump to Selection ( – J) Will scroll the editor view so that your cursor po-
sition is centred on the page. Useful if you have used the scrollbar, or
PageUp/PageDown to briefly check other areas of the text.

Project Replace. . . Shows the Project Replace sheet, which allows you to re-
place text throughout the whole project. This operation cannot be un-
done, use with care.
Project Search. . . ( – F) Provides a shortcut for the toolbar Project Find
tool. If the toolbar has been hidden, a separate window will be opened
up for your convenience.

Both of these tools are quite powerful and have a wide range of options.
Please read Searching and Replacing (section 21.4) for more information on
how to use them.

If you are looking for the old menu commands to “Find Annotation” and
“Find Highlight”, these operations have been rolled into the new “Find by For-
matting” tool, which now also allows a much wider range of formatting that
can be searched for.

Find by Formatting. . . ( – F) Opens the Find by Formatting panel. This

tool is quite powerful and has a wide range of options, please see Searching
and Replacing (section 21.4) for full documentation.
Find Next / Previous Formatting ( –G / – G) As with Find Next
and Find Previous, will let you jump from match to match within a single
document, even without the “Find by Formatting” panel open.
298 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Spelling and Grammar  Accesses OS X’s spelling and grammar tools. Note that
most of these can be set to different defaults, in the Auto-Correction tab (sec-
tion B.8).

❧ Show Spelling and Grammar: ( – :) Opens the standard Spelling and

Grammar panel. If you wish to change the base language the spelling and
grammar checker uses, you can set that here.
❧ Check Document Now: ( – ;) Will start checking for misspellings from the
current cursor position downward.
❧ Check Spelling While Typing: ( – \) Turns on the automatic spell checker
which will underline in red, unrecognised and misspelled words as you
type.
❧ Check Grammar With Spelling: Also turns on grammar checking, which
will look for poor style or grammatical errors as you type and underline
them in green.

Speech  Controls for OS X’s built-in text-to-speech synthesis. Two menu controls
are provided to start and stop speaking. The active text editor will be used as
source text with these commands.

Writing Tools  Provides a few OS X writing tools, as well as some custom utilities.

❧ Look Up in Dictionary and Thesaurus: Sends the currently selected word,

or the word that the cursor is currently located within, to Apple’s Dictio-
nary application. You can also use – D to do quick spot-checks

❧ Search in Spotlight/Google/Wikipedia: Uses the currently selected text

or active word to search the selected resource for results. Google and
Wikipedia searching requires an active Internet connection.
❧ Name Generator: A unique Scrivener tool which will generate names based
on a wide variety of criteria. Read more in The Name Generator (sec-
tion 21.3).

A.4 View Menu

The View menu contains all of the commands related to changing the way documents
are viewed, allowing you to show and hide various elements, navigate between views
and customise the way information in the current project is displayed.
View Modes represent various ways in which you can view the presentation of
multiple items in the editor. For and overview of how view modes work, see View
Modes (section 5.2).
A.4. VIEW MENU 299

Document/Scrivenings ( – 1) If multiple items are selected in the editor, displays

the current editor as a Scrivenings text editing session, showing the text of each
document as if they were a single file. Also sets your preferred collection view
mode to Scrivenings. See also, Editing Multiple Documents (section 14.12).
Note this option is only useful if the editor is displaying documents, media will
not be mixed into an Scrivenings session.
If a single item is selected in the editor, this menu item will be labeled Document,
and switch the editor focus to its text or media view.

Corkboard ( – 2) Display the current editor as a corkboard. If the selection is a

container, its children will be shown as index cards. Also sets your preferred
collection view mode to Corkboard. See also, The Corkboard (section 12.1).

Outline ( – 3) Display the current editor as an outline. Also sets your preferred
collection view mode to Outliner. See also, The Outliner (section 12.2).

Enter Full Screen ( – F) Enters the full screen writing environment, switching to
text editing mode if necessary. In the case of Combined Text mode, the entire
session will be opened in full screen. Note this option is not available to media
and web pages.

Full Screen Backdrop  Choose a background image for your full screen environ-
ment, rather than just using the plain background colour. The image will be
stretched vertically to fit the screen. For your convenience, all of the image
resources in the project will be listed in this menu, or you can select Choose...
to select an image from your computer. To remove the selected image, select
None.

The menu items, Go To and Text Bookmarks are also available from the header bar
icon menu.

Zoom  Provides shortcuts to the zoom menu, located in the footer bar for text
documents. Temporarily zooms the display of the font up or down to increase
legibility, without adjusting the underlying font size.

❧ Zoom In: ( – <) makes the text larger.

❧ Zoom Out: ( – >) makes the text smaller.

Go To  Offers an alternate way to jump to a specific binder item without using the
binder. If the binder is hidden, a collection is selected, or a sectino is hoisted,
for instance, will let you navigate to other areas of the project without having
300 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

to alter your work environment. The contents of this menu will be populated
by the binder, or by the current Scrivenings session. Also provided are some
contextual navigation and focus functions which will let you move around in
the binder, from the editor itself.

❧ Previous Document: ( – UpArrow) Jumps to the previous document in

the binder, according to strict outline order (ignore hierarchy).
❧ Next Document: ( – DownArrow) As with Previous Document, but se-
lects the next document in the strict outline order.
❧ Enclosing Group: ( – R) Will display the currently edited item in context
with its siblings using the current view mode. In most cases, this will
select the immediate parent of the document, selecting the document’s
index card or outliner row that you came from, for your convenience, or
expand your current scrivenings session to include the siblings and parent
of the current text item.
❧ Editor Selection: ( – 4) jumps directly to the text component of any se-
lected item. This works as an isolation feature in Scrivenings, or can also
be used to quickly open selected item(s) from Corkboard or Outliner as
text (even if they are containers). The difference between this command
and – O or – O is that these latter two will respect the typical view
load priority setting. In other words, if the selection is a container, these
commands will load that item in a view. – 4 will always load the selected
item as a text file. When more than one item is selected, they will be loaded
as a composite Scrivening in Multiple Selection mode.

Text Bookmarks  Jump to places in the current document which have been book-
marked. To insert bookmarks, see Edit � Insert � . The contents of this
menu will be populated by existing bookmarks from the current document
or Scrivening session.

QuickReference  Similar to the Go To menu, except that the selected item will be
opened in a QuickReference window, rather than replacing the contents of the
editor. The contents of this menu will be populated by the binderbinder in all
cases.

Collections  Provides commands for setting visibility and options of the Collec-
tions feature. For documentation on how to use Collections, see Using Collec-
tions (section 8.4).

Show/Hide Collections Reveals or hides the collection interface which will

appear above the binder. Note the sidebar will need to be visible for this
menu option to be available.
A.4. VIEW MENU 301

Convert to Standard Collection When a Search Result Collection is active,

this command will “freeze” the results and turn it into a regular collection
that is no longer dynamically updated.

Next Collection Select the next Collection tab in the stack

Previous Collection Select the previous Collection tab in the stack

The rest of this menu will be populated by the existing available collections
in the reverse order that they appear in tabs. It will always include an entry
for the binder and Search Results. Selecting an entry will switch the sidebar to
viewing that collection, making this menu useful when the tabs are not visible,
or for assigning keyboard shortcuts to oft-used collections.

Layout  The commands in the Layout Sub-menu affect the main window elements.

Show/Hide Binder ( – B) Toggles whether or not the binder (subsec-

tion 5.1.2) sidebar is visible on the left of the main window. You can hide
the binder to concentrate on editing or composing the current document
if you so wish.
Show/Hide Inspector ( – I) Toggles whether or not the Inspector (subsec-
tion 5.1.5) is visible on the right of the main window. The inspector
displays all meta-data for the current document, including synopsis and
notes. The inspector is hidden by default.

No Split ( – ’); Split Horizontally (’ – =); Split Vertically ( Command-")

These commands allow you to choose how to view the main editor in
the main window. For more information on using splits, see Splitting the
Editor (section 14.8).
Swap Editors Only available when Split Horizontally or Split Vertically is se-
lected (see above). This commands swaps the position of the two split
panes, so that the view on the top will become the view on the bottom
and vice versa.

Show/Hide Header & Footer View Toggles the visibility of the header and
footer bar. Both are elements of the editor and can be toggled indepen-
dently for each split. See Writing and Editing (chapter 14) for more infor-
mation on what these do.
302 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Show/Hide Layouts ( – )) Toggles the Layouts panel, which allows you to

manage view settings by saving the current settings, or retrieving other
settings you’ve saved in the past. See Layouts Panel (section 9.7).
All Layouts /  This Sub-menu is populated by the saved layouts you’ve cre-
ated with the Layouts panel. It allows easy access to switching these sets
of view configurations.
This menu will not appear if no layouts have been saved on your com-
puter.

Editor  Options and commands for controlling the main editor.

Lock in Place ( – L) Locks the editor (or split) so that no binder clicks will
affect it. When an editor is locked, its header bar will turn a shade of red.

Show Titles in Scrivenings When enabled, editable titles of documents will

be placed in the editing session along with their associated texts. Titles
can be independently styled to set them apart in the Formatting tab (sec-
tion B.7). These will only appear in Scrivenings mode.
Forward/Backward in Document History ( – [ and – ]) Like a Web
browser, the editor keeps track of everything you’ve visited. Using these
commands you can navigate back and forth in the history. Note you can
also use the Forward and Backward buttons in the header bar. Each split
keeps its own history.
When selecting a number of documents in the binder prior to entering
Full Screen mode, the history queue for full screen will be pre-stocked
with these selected items.
Other Editor  Provides controls to manipulate whichever split is not cur-
rently active.
❧ The Forward and Backward in History commands ( –] & –
]) operate just like the above commands, only in the opposing split
without moving focus there.
❧ The Scroll Up and Down commands ( – UpArrow & –
DownArrow) act like PageUp and PageDown, only in the opposing
split, again without moving focus there.
Clear Document History Use this command to wipe out the document his-
tory for the active split.

Media  Controls and options for various types of media. These commands will
only become available when viewing the appropriate type of media.
A.4. VIEW MENU 303

PDF Display  This sub-menu controls how PDFs are displayed in the editor. Most
of these options should be familiar as they are common to many PDF viewers.

❧ Automatically Resize: Keeps the PDF sized to the width and height of the
editor window.
❧ Actual Size: Zooms the PDF to 100%, even if it is too large to display all
at once.
❧ Size To Fit: Like “Automatically Resize”, but only resizes the document
once. If you change the size of the editor view later, it will stay at the same
view.
❧ Single/Facing Pages: In single mode, will show one page per row like an
ordinary digital file. In facing mode, two pages will be placed side-by-side
in a column, more like reading a book.
❧ Continuous/Page Breaks: These two scrolling modes affect how the docu-
ment is handled when using the scroll wheel, arrow keys, or page up and
down keys. In Continuous mode, the pages flow by seamlessly; in page
break mode, only one (or two, if facing pages is enabled) pages will be
showed at a time, and scrolling actions flip between pages.

Play Media File ( – Return) Functionally, this acts like clicking the Play button in
the media viewer, for either audio or video files. If the editor is split between a
text document and a media file, and you are typing in the text document, this
shortcut will start and stop the media in the other split, allowing you to easily
transcribe or reference the media. When two media files are open at once, the
shortcut will affect the active split.

Fast Forward/Rewind ( –] / – [) Will jump playback forward or back-

ward by two seconds. This shortcut works while playback is running, or while
paused. In the latter case, it will stay paused at the new position. As with Play
Media File, will work in the opposing split while typing, providing further aid
for transcription.

Page View  Accesses features and options for displaying the text editor as a virtual
page, instead of filling the entire editor. It is not intended to be used as a layout
mechanism, though it can provide a reasonable estimate of how your pages
will look under certain conditions, once printed. Read more in Page View
(chapter 15).

Show Page View ( – P) Toggles Page View on and off.

These three options toggle between the three page size models.
304 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Use Printed Page Size This is the most accurate model to use as it will size the
pages and margins according to your current print. The specific metrics
and orientation used can be changed to either Compile settings or the
settings from the File � Page Setup... pane. This can be changed in the
Editor tab (section B.6).
Use Preferences Page Size A custom layout can be created in the Editor tab as
well, which will be used to define the size and margins of the page. These
metrics can be changed in the Editor tab (section B.6).

Two Pages Across When enabled, instead of displaying pages in vertical col-
umn, two will be placed beside each other as though reading a book.

Corkboard  Accesses features and visual options for the corkboard. All of the set-
tings available in this menu are project specific, and most of them will only
impact a single split, allowing you to have different view settings for each ed-
itor. For more information on using the corkboard, see The Corkboard (sec-
tion 12.1). Note that further options can be accessed via the corkboard display
options button, which is located on the right-hand side of the footer bar for
each corkboard.
See also, Setting Up Meta-Data (chapter 10), for more information on the types
of meta-data that can be viewed on an index card.

Cards Across  The Cards Across submenu allows you to define how many
index cards you would like to appear in each row on the corkboard. The
default is three. Auto will calculate how many cards to show, based on
the size of the editor and the size of the cards; kind of like word wrap, for
index cards.

Show/Hide Pins ( – P) Toggles whether the coloured pins are displayed on

the index cards. Pins take on the colours associated with the labels that
have been assigned to the documents represented by the index cards. If
you are using the Rounded Card theme, pins will be displayed as colour
swatches on the upper right side of the card. The appearance of pins can
be adjusted in the corkboard tab (section B.3) of preferences.
Show/Hide Stamps ( – S) Toggles whether stamps are displayed on index
cards. Stamps show the current status associated with the document rep-
resented by the index card as though it has been “stamped on” the index
card. The appearance of stamps can be adjusted in the Corkboard tab
(section B.3), and the Appearance tab (section B.2).
A.4. VIEW MENU 305

Show/Hide Keyword Colors ( – K) Keywords assigned to a document can

be visually indicated along the right-hand side of the index card as
coloured pieces of tape. The number of keywords that can be shown at
once can be changed using the corkboard display options button. For
more information on using keywords, see Setting Up Meta-Data (chap-
ter 10).

Show Card Numbers Cards will be numbered according to their sequence in

the binder outline structure. Ordinarily, this will match the order in
which the cards appear, but in Freeform mode, this can be a valuable tool
as the order of cards are likely to become desynchronised with the actual
manuscript structure.
Number Per Section When more than one container has been selected, and
the corkboard is displaying cards in Multiple Selection mode, card number
will be re-started for each new section. Otherwise, cards will be numbered
in the order they appear from start to finish.

Freeform Activates the Freeform Corkboard mode, which allows you to move
cards around on the corkboard without any grid or ordering constraints.
This can also be toggled in the Footer bar.
Commit Freeform Order It is possible to instruct Scrivener to use the cur-
rent freeform layout to re-order the actual manuscript outline structure.
Scrivener will provide several options for how this should be done. For
more information on how to work with Freeform Corkboards, see The
Corkboard (section 12.1).

Outliner Columns  Displays a list of toggles which will reveal or hide the corre-
sponding columns in the active Outliner view. These settings are stored by
individual editor split, letting you have custom columns for the two views, and
are saved in the project file. You can also manage columns using the “>>”
button above the scrollbar in the outliner itself.

Use Label Colour In  A document’s label colour (see Setting Up Meta-Data (chap-
ter 10) for more information on labels) can be applied as a tint to various inter-
face elements throughout Scrivener. This menu contains a list of toggles which
will enable tinting to the corresponding elements.

❧ Binder: Rows in the binder will have a background bar placed behind
items with labels in a fashion similar to how Finder applies labels to files.
306 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

❧ Icons: Only the icons will be tinted throughout the project. Wherever the
icon for a binder item shows up (such as in the Header bar, next to the
title in Corkboard, in the binder, and so forth) it will be tinted using the
colour of the assigned label.
❧ Index Cards: The entire background “paper” for index cards will be tinted
using the assigned label colour. This includes the index card which appears
at the top of the inspector.
❧ Outliner Rows: As with binder tinting, the background for the entire row
will be filled in with the label colour.

Move Focus To  Provides application focus navigation tools. Rather than navigat-
ing around in your project, these commands will let you quickly select different
parts of the application without using the mouse. The first lets you cycle be-
tween common elements, while the rest will jump immediately to that element
of the interface, no matter where focus is currently placed. Note that in all
cases, the elements you wish to cycle or jump to must actually already be visi-
ble. These shortcuts will not automatically reveal parts of the interface that are
currently hidden.

❧ Left/Right/Top/Bottom Editor & Binder: ( Tab) This menu item follows a

chain of the three most common areas of desired focus, the primary split,
second split, and the binder. It will cycle between these three going left to
right, and the label of this menu item will be changed to indicate where
the next target will be.
❧ Binder: ( – B) Moves focus to the binderbinder from anywhere in the
interface, if the binder is visible.
❧ Left/Bottom Editor: ( – E) Moves focus to the Left or Bottom editor,
if the editor has been split. Otherwise selects the primary editor if there is
no split.
❧ Right/Top Editor: ( – R) Moves focus to the Right or Top editor, if
the editor has been split. If it has not been split, this shortcut will not be
available.

Inspect  A continuation of the navigation functions, these deal solely with the re-
vealing and focussing of elements within the Inspector. All of them work on
the following principle: if the keyboard shortcut revealed the item (it was hid-
den before), then the action will simply reveal the meta-data without disturbing
your original focus. If the item is already revealed, then the shortcut will switch
focus to that meta-data area. If the Inspector is hidden, it will be opened if nec-
essary, which counts as a “reveal” action.
A.4. VIEW MENU 307

❧ Synopsis: ( – I) Reveals or switches to the index card in the inspector

(will use the last inspector pane coupled with the synopsis and meta-data
panes, if necessary).
❧ Notes: ( – H) Reveals or switches to the notes editor within the inspec-
tor.
❧ References: ( – N) Reveals or switches focus to the references table. *
Keywords: ( – J) Reveals or switches focus to the keywords table. Ar-
row keys can be used to navigate amongst keywords; Return can be used to
add new keywords; and Delete to remove keywords.
❧ Snapshots: ( – M) Reveals or switches focus to the snapshot text area,
allowing quick copy and paste of its contents.
❧ Comments and Footnotes: ( – K) Reveals or switches focus to the com-
ment list. Arrow keys can be used to navigate amongst contents; and
expand and collapse notes.

Outline  Provides navigation and disclosure commands which work in both the
outliner and in the binder, referred to below as the “active outliner”. Container
is defined as a folder by default, but if “Treat all documents with subdocuments
as folders” is enabled in Navigation preferences (section B.5), the definition of
container will be expanded to include document stacks as well.

❧ Expand All: ( – 9) Expands all of the visible items recursively. When this
command is used in the binder, it will expand the entire binder (including
all non-Draft sections). When used in outliner, it only works within the
context of the currently viewed portion of the binder.
❧ Collapse All: ( – 0) As with Expand All, this works the other way, closing
all visible open items recursively. Note that in both cases, you can use the
Option key in conjunction with a mouse click to selectively perform this
function on the arrow (and everything beneath it) clicked.
❧ Previous Container: ( UpArrow) Will select the previous visible con-
tainer in active outliner, no matter what the depth. In this case, previous
means a container higher on the list than the current position. If a con-
tainer is currently hidden, it will be skipped. If you only wish to select the
parent container of a the current item, you can use the LeftArrow key.
❧ Next Container: ( DownArrow) Works the same as Previous Container,
only selecting the next visible container downward from the current posi-
tion.
308 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Reveal in Binder ( – R) This command is available from either editor split, and
will show the location of the currently edited file in the binder, disclosing con-
tainers as necessary to do so. This is most useful when the method you used
to arrive at the current document did not involve clicking in the binder. This
menu command is also available from the header bar icon menu.

Binder Affects  Adjusts where binder clicks will be sent. By default all clicks will
be sent to the active editor (so long as it is not locked). This will adjust that
behaviour so that the clicks go to a predetermined editor in all cases, depending
on the choice made below. If the editor is not split, this menu will be deactivated
as all clicks will naturally go to the only available editor.

❧ Current Editor: Default behaviour as described above.

❧ Other Editor: Whichever editing split is not current active.
❧ Left/Top Editor: The left/top editor no matter which editor is active.
❧ Right/Bottom Editor: The right/bottom editor split, no matter which ed-
itor is active.

Show/Hide Toolbar Toggles the visibility of the main application toolbar.

Customize Toolbar. . . Lets you configure the toolbar of the main window so that
it contains the commands that you most use in the order most intuitive to you.
This can also be done by right clicking on the toolbar itself.

A.5 Project Menu

The Project menu addresses commands and configuration options which are specific
to the active project, such as document format over-rides, custom meta-data, statistics,
and more. If more than one project is open, this menu will target the foremost project
window.

New Text ( – N) Creates a new text document below the current selection. When a
folder is selected, the new file will be created within the folder. Otherwise the
new file will appear as a sibling to the current selection.

New Folder ( – N) Creates a new folder document at the current selection. Fold-
ers will always be created as a sibling to the current selection.

For more information on the differences between files and folders, see Project Plan-
ning (chapter 12).
A.5. PROJECT MENU 309

New From Template  There are two management commands always available
from this menu, which let you set or remove a designated template folder. Once
a template folder is set, this menu will also be populated with the children of
that template folder, which may need to be set with Project � Set Selection As
Templates Folder, below. Read more about Document Templates (section 8.5).

For tricks on how best to use text and project statistics, read Goals and Statistics
Tracking Tools (section 21.2).

Text Statistics ( – S) Brings down a sheet displaying statistics for the current
document (and thus only available when a text document or Scrivenings are
focussed).

Project Statistics ( – S) Brings down a sheet displaying the statistics for the cur-
rent project, including the word and character count for the draft and for the
current binder selection.

Show/Hide Project Targets ( – T) Toggles visibility of the targets panel, which

lets you track a few simple metrics in real-time as you type and edit.

Meta-Data Settings. . . ( – ,) Displays a sheet which lets you adjust the two main
document meta-data fields (Label and Status by default, but these can be re-
named), as well as the custom meta-data columns for this project. For further
information on using this panel, see Setting Up Meta-Data (chapter 10).

Set as Templates Folder / Clear Templates Folder Will convert the selected
binder item into a special template folder (though note it could also be a
document stack). Each project can only have one template folder at a time. If
more than one item is selected in the binder, this menu item will be disabled.
When a Templates folder has already been set in the project, this menu item
will changed to “Clear Templates Folder”, removing its designation, but not it
or its contents.

Text Preferences. . . Displays a sheet which presents a configuration pane very sim-
ilar to the one found in the Formatting tab (section B.7) of application prefer-
ences. Changes made to this panel will override the application level settings. It
works in the same way as the application defaults, affecting all new documents,
but not existing ones.

Edit Auto-Complete List. . . Displays a sheet which lets you manually add and re-
move terms to the project’s auto-complete list. Depending on your auto-
completion settings, this will let you add custom names, places, and workflow
310 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

indicators to assist in typing out repetitive items. Modify how agressive auto-
complete should behave in the Auto-Correction preference pane (section B.8).

Empty Trash. . . Permanently discards the current contents of the project trash can.
You will be warned before this is done. Once contents have been deleted, there
is no way to undo that action. This can also be done by right-clicking on the
Trash itself in the binder.

A.6 Documents Menu

The Documents menu contains all commands relating directly to documents, such
as duplicating and splitting documents, viewing them in combination and moving
them, and hoisting the binder to view isolated parts of the draft.

Open  The Open sub-menu provides you with a number of ways in which to open
a selected item. These menu items are relevant from the binder or collection
views, as well as corkboard and outliner views, but note that in most cases, a
single click will open a file all by itself. How it does that is dictated by the
settings available in the View � Binder Affects... sub-menu. The corkboard and
outliner can be configured to immediately open clicked files too.

The first two menu items open the selected documents in either the current
editor or the other split. To open an item in the current split (and replace the
existing view), use – O. To open selected item(s) in the other split, use –
O. This will open a new split if necessary, using the previous split orientation.
The actual labels of these menu items will change, depending upon the current
editor that is active, and whether or not split orientation is horizontal or verti-
cal. For example, if the focus is in the bottom editor of a horizontal split, the
label for – O will be “in Bottom Editor”.

as QuickReference Opens the selected document in a QuickReference Win-

dow, rather than any active or inactive splits.
in QuickLook This menu command is only available for types of files which
Scrivener does not recognise. It will hook into the Mac’s QuickLook sys-
tem and display that file according to its QuickLook settings.

With All Subdocuments  If the selected item has sub-documents (this can be
determined on the corkboard if the index card appears as a stack of cards;
and in the outliner if it has an arrow beside it’s name) you can choose to
open it as a corkboard either in the current editor or the other split.
A.6. DOCUMENTS MENU 311

❧ On Editor Corkboard: ( – O) Replaces the current editor view

with the selected item’s contents. This is similar to pressing –
DownArrow in the Finder.
❧ On Other Editor Corkboard: As with above, but uses the split editor
to open the item, instead of replacing the current view.

in External Editor ( – O) This command is available on any type of item

that is not a text or folder document. It will open the file using the default
editor for that type of file. An example would be opening a picture in
Preview. Opening items this way allows them to be edited in their native
applications, and the results of those edits (if Scrivener can display the file
type) will be visible upon saving that file, if Scrivener can display that file
type in the editor.

Snapshots  Provides commands to manage a document’s snapshots, make new

ones, and commit large-scale snapshot actions on selected items or even the
entire project. For more information on how to use snapshots, see Using Snap-
shots (section 14.9). Note that in some cases these shortcuts will not be avail-
able. Generally this happens when the selection includes items which are not
text items, or the text of the item(s) are empty.

Take Snapshot ( – 5) Available when viewing any text or folder document,

this command will take a snapshot of the current text and store it for later
use.
When more than one item is selected, the title of this item will change
to “Take Snapshots of Selected Documents”. All selected items will be
snapshot.
Take Snapshot With Title ( – 5) As above, but will prompt you for a de-
scriptive title prior to taking the snapshot, which will be displayed next to
it for future reference.
When more than one item is selected, the title of this item will change to
“Take Titled Snapshots of Documents”. The supplied title will be applied
to each snapshot taken for all selected items.

Show Snapshots Will reveal the Snapshots pane in the inspector, revealing it
if necessary. While this menu item does not have a shortcut, an identical
function in View � Inspect � Snapshots provides the shortcut key, –
M.
312 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Show Changes  When a snapshot is selected from the snapshot list, it is possi-
ble to view the changes between that snapshot and the current document.
Note these features are also accessible from the snapshot pane itself, in a
button at the top of the inspector. If two snapshots are selected, these two
snapshots will be compared between each other, using the oldest snapshot
as the exemplar.
❧ Compare/Original: Toggles visibility of the change tracking mode.
❧ Comparison Granularity: These options can be toggled on and off
individually to determine how closely changes will be tracked, with
the finest level selected being the used method. By Paragraph will only
mark changes at the paragraph level; By Clause only marks changes
made at the phrase level; By Word is the most detailed level of change
tracking available. Use these settings to fine-tune the results if what
you are getting is too precise or vague to be useful.
❧ Next Change: ( – ]) Scrolls the view to the next available difference
in texts.
❧ Previous Change: ( – [) Scrolls the view to the previous difference.

Roll Back When a snapshot is selected, this will roll back that selection to the
main editor. The option to snapshot the current editor before making this
revision will be given.
Delete Permanently removes the selected snapshot from the disk.

Duplicate  There are two different methods you can use to duplicate the selected
item(s).

❧ with Subdocuments and Unique Title: ( – D) This is the default method

in most application. The entire item (including all of its children if it
has any) will be duplicated, and it will be provided with a unique name
automatically.
❧ without Subdocuments: ( – D) Also referred to as “Simple Duplicate” in
prior versions of Scrivener, this is most useful when you only want to
duplicate the container of an item by itself, such as a chapter folder, but
not all of the scenes within it. In this case, a unique name will not be
provided.

Set Selection as Title ( – T) Available when text has been selected in the main
editor, the title for the current document will be replaced with whatever text
has been selected.
A.6. DOCUMENTS MENU 313

Split  Provides two methods for splitting the current document into two different
documents. In both cases, everything below the current cursor position will
be moved into a new document below the current one. Everything above the
cursor will remain unchanged. This action cannot be undone (except via the
Merge command).

❧ at Selection: ( – K) Simply create a new document with all text below the
current caret position. In cases where text has been selected, the caret
position will be considered as the start of the selection range.
❧ with Selection as Title: ( – K) Works the same as above, but in this case
the currently selected text will be used to title the new document that is
created, rather than requesting a new document name after pressing the
shortcut.

Merge ( – M) The opposite of splitting, merge will take two or more documents
and combine them all together into a single document, using the top-most doc-
ument in the selection as the “template” for the merged document’s meta-data.
This action cannot be undone (except via the split command). Note that in
those fields where combination makes sense, such as notes and keywords, all of
the documents will be used to create a combined meta-data result.
How documents get merged together can be controled in the General prefer-
ences pane (section B.1), under Separators.

Group ( – G) Takes one or more selected items and creates a new folder, placing
the selection within that folder. You will be given the option to name that
folder after invoking the command.

Ungroup ( – U) The opposite of grouping, ungroup will move the contents of the
selected container up one level so that they become siblings of that container.
This action will not destroy the original container, allowing you to move the
items back in, if it was made in error.

Move  Provides keyboard shortcuts for moving the item around in the outline
in two dimensions, as well as completely displacing it to another spot in the
binder.

❧ To: This menu will be populated with all of the items in the binder. The
selected item(s) will be moved beneath the selected item as children. Note
that if you select a document as the target, it will become a document stack
as it now contains children.
314 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

❧ Left/Right/Up/Down: Use – with the appropriate keyboard arrow

key to move items around in the outline. Left and Right will promote
or demote the item in the hierarchy; Up and Down will change its order
in context with its siblings.

Sort  Sort acts on the children of a selected container, and sorts items alphanumer-
ically, either in Ascending or Descending order. Note that this a permanent
change that cannot be undone. Additionally, you can choose to shuffle all of
the children randomly. If you wish to just temporarily sort a list of items by a
criteria, use the outliner.

Hoist Binder Mimics the behaviour of traditional outlining software, allowing you
to temporarily obscure the full binder and focus on only one portion of it.
Hoisting will display the selected container all by itself in the binder side-
bar. Unlike collections, hoisting the binder retains all of the binder’s abilities.
Changes made to ordering and structure while hoisting will be made to the
book outline itself. If you want a non-destructive way of viewing portions of
the binder, it is recommended you use Collections (section 8.4) instead.

Unhoist Binder Returns the binder to its full display.

Favorites  Provides commands to manage your favourite documents. Favourites

will be displayed in various places around the interface, particularly in item
selection menus, at the top of the list, such as “Go To”, “QuickReference”,
“Scrivener Link”, and more.

Add to Favorites Adds the selected item(s) to the favorite list.

Remove from Favorites Will remove the selected item(s) from the favorite
list, ignoring those selections which are not already there.
Clear Favorites Wipe out the entire favourite list with one command.

Manage Favorites. . . Displays the Favorite Management Palette wherein you

can change the order in which they will appear in the interface, remove
one or more selected items, or drag new items into the palette to add them
to the list.

Convert  Provides tools for converting the document’s type, writing mode, or for-
mat defaults.
A.6. DOCUMENTS MENU 315

❧ to Folder/File: Converts the selected item(s) to folders or files. Note that

these two types are very similar in Scrivener, so this tool makes it easy
to change your mind later about whether or not something should be a
folder or a file.

❧ Web Archive to Text: Activates when viewing a WebArchive item. Will

analyse the archived page for its text content and create a rich text alter-
native that is editable and considered a text document from that point on-
ward. Note this cannot be undone, create a duplicate of the web archive,
first, if you wish to retain a copy with its full layout.

❧ Formatting to Default Text Style: If the font and ruler styles of the docu-
ment do not conform to the application or project defaults, you can use
this command to use those to reset its appearance.

❧ Script Format. . . : Useful when you need to switch from one scripting stan-
dard to another. Note that if all you wish to do is change the current doc-
ument writing mode, you can press – 8 to do so. This function is strictly
for converting between pre-existing scripts to bring them up to spec. For
more information on scriptwriting, see Scriptwriting (chapter 20).

Auto-Generate Synopsis For single items, you can click the button in the upper
right-hand side of the index card in the Inspector. When you wish to perform
this automated function on many items at once, use this menu command. The
command will work in the same fashion as imported text documents, taking
the first 500 characters of text in the document. Note this cannot be undone;
do not run this command on cards you’ve already manually entered synopses
for, unless you are sure you want to replace them. Scrivener will warn you if it
looks like you are about to overwrite custom synopses.

Change Icon  Provides access to existing icons and lets you change the document
icon to a custom icon for the selected item(s). Icons can also be managed either
globally, or by project, from here. Your custom icons will be available, as well
as many built-in icons that you are free to use in any of your works.

❧ Reset Icon to Default: Removes custom icons from the selected item(s). If
no custom icons are in place, this menu item will do nothing.

❧ Manage Icons. . . : Reveals the Manage Icons Palette, where you can add or
remove your own custom icons either to the project, or make them avail-
able globally to all Scrivener projects. For more information on managing
and creating icons, see Custom Icons (section 12.5).
316 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

A.7 Format Menu

The Format menu contains all commands that deal with formatting the text of an
individual document. It contains all of the usual OS X commands (previously found
in the Text menu in older versions of Scrivener) for changing the font, setting line
spacing, creating tables and lists and controlling the ruler, along with commands for
highlighting and setting the current text mode. Additional Scrivener specific tools for
formatting the text can be found here as well, including various forms of notation,
text conversion utilities, and bibliography software integration.

Font  Displays the standard OS X Font submenu, which contains useful tools for
controlling the character-level appearance of your text. Fonts family, variant,
and size can also be controlled with the The Format Bar (subsection 14.4.2).

❧ Show Fonts: ( – T) Access the system-wide standard font palette, which will
change the font you type in from that point forward, or alter the existing
font of a selected range of text.
❧ Bold/Italic/Strikethrough: All of these operate in the same fashion by ei-
ther modifying the behaviour of typing if there is no selection, or toggling
the selected text between the various styles. Note that not all fonts sup-
port these styles. If it appears that one of these is not working, check your
font for proper variant support.
❧ Underline: Has been expanded from the system default menu item to pro-
vide additional support for underlining styles, including dotted, dashed,
and by word.
❧ Remember Typing Style: Use to set up fonts and ruler styles in blank doc-
uments. Ordinarily, if you change formatting settings on a blank docu-
ment, these settings will be removed to optimise the RTF file. Use this
command to force these settings to be retained. Generally you will only
need this when setting up Document Templates (section 8.5).
❧ Outline: Changes the style of the font to outlined instead of filled.
❧ Bigger: ( – =) Increases the size of the font by one point.

❧ Smaller: ( – -) Decreases the size of the font by one point.

❧ Kern: Supplies access to the OS X typographic kerning engine.
❧ Ligature: If the font family supports typographic ligatures, they can be
enabled or disabled here.
❧ Baseline: Adjust the baseline height of the text, most commonly referred
to as superscripting and subscripting.
❧ Character Shape: If the font family supports typographic shape alternates,
they can be adjusted here, such as Old Style Numerals.
A.7. FORMAT MENU 317

❧ Show Colors: ( – C) Toggles the visibility of the colour selection palette.

Note that Scrivener uses this palette in a number of different places, not
strictly related to text colour.
❧ Copy/Paste Font: ( –C / – V) Copies the font settings from the cur-
rent cursor position. Use Paste Font to applies these settings to other
selections of text.

Text  Displays the standard OS X Text submenu, which contains useful tools for
controlling the paragraph-level formatting of your text. Paragraph alignment
and spacing can also be controlled with the The Format Bar (subsection 14.4.2).

❧ Align Left/Center/Justify/Right: Controls the text alignment of the cur-

rent paragraph, or all paragraphs falling within a selection range.
❧ Keep with Next: Inserts an invisible character which will keep this para-
graph together with the next paragraph, so that they will not become sep-
arated by a page break.
❧ Writing Direction: Toggle between Left-to-Right and Right-to-Left writ-
ing styles.
❧ Copy/Paste Ruler: ( –C / – V) Copies the ruler and paragraph for-
mat settings from the current paragraph. Use Paste Ruler to apply these
settings to other selections of text.

Table  Provides tools for adding and manipulating tabular data in the text editor.
Tables can be set up with a given number of rows and columns, but using the
options in this menu, you can add or remove either to fit the constraints of your
data later on. You can also normalise the width and height of columns and rows
respectively with the Distribute functions.

Lists  Supplies basic list styles, and few advanced controls for bullet and enumerated
list management. Unless you need custom list styles, you can generally make
do with the list button supplied on The Format Bar (subsection 14.4.2).

❧ List. . . : Build your own custom list type using the standard OS X tool for
doing so.
❧ Next/Previous List Style: ( – RightArrow / – LeftArrow) Selects the next
or previous built-in list style available and converts the current list to that
style.
318 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Formatting  Provides tools for creating and applying ruler and font presets3 to
your text. For more information on using the presets system, see Formatting
Presets (Styles) (subsection 14.4.3).

Scriptwriting  Although Scrivener is not a dedicated script writing application

such as Final Draft or Montage, the Scriptwriting submenu does make it rela-
tively straightforward to create first drafts which can be later fine-tuned in these
applications. For full documentation on this, see Scriptwriting (chapter 20).

Show/Hide Ruler ( – R) Toggles the visibility of the tab-stop and page margin ruler
for the active editor. Note that all formatting tools have been moved from this
ruler to the format bar.

Show/Hide Format Bar ( – R) Toggles the visibility of the character and para-
graph formatting bar, which provides quick access to many of the most com-
mon types of formatting tools.

Highlight  The highlight menu lets you place a background highlight behind the
selected text, much like using a highlighter marker on paper. In addition to the
five provided presets, this menu also displays any favourite colours that have
been set on your system. For more information on how to use highlights, see
Text Colour and Highlights (section 17.4).

Revision Mode  Revision modes force anything you type to be displayed in a pro-
vided colour until you disable the revision mode. This menu provides access
to these levels. For more information on using this, see Marking Revisions
(section 17.5).

For more information on annotating and footnoting your text, see Annotations
and Footnotes (chapter 17). Note that while the menu system refers to these as foot-
notes, it is possible to export them as endnotes during compile.

Comment ( – 8) Attaches a comment to the selected text (or previous word), mak-
ing a new linked comment in the inspector pane. Useful for keeping notation
text out of the editor.

Footnote As with Comments, adds a linked footnote style comment to the inspector
pane. Useful for keeping footnote information out of the editor.
3
Note that Scrivener does not supply word processor stylesheets. Styles are strictly saved formats
which can be applied to your text. Once applied they are static changes to the text and will not be
updated later if you change that favourite style.
A.7. FORMAT MENU 319

Inline Annotation ( – A) Converts the selected text into an inline annotation, or

toggles the writing mode to annotation mode. Useful for placing notes right in
the editor, alongside the relevant text.

Inline Footnote ( – F) Converts the selected text into a footnote, or toggles the
writing mode to footnote mode. Useful for keeping footnotes directly in the
editor session.

Convert  The convert submenu provides useful tools for the manipulation of text
and notation features.

To Uppercase Converts the selected text to all uppercase characters.

To Lowercase Converts the selected text to all lowercase characters.
To Title Case Converts the selected text to title case, which takes into account
common English grammar conventions.
To Small Caps If the current font supports proper small caps, the text will be
converted to that variant. However it will fake the results using font sizes
otherwise. If your workflow requires true small caps, be certain the font
you are using can handle them.

Quotes to Smart/Straight Quotes Converts between typographic “curly”

quotes and straight inch and foot marks.

Multiples Spaces to Space Useful for cleaning up a document that has been
typed up with multiple spaces in between sentences and so forth.
Bold and Italics to MultiMarkdown Syntax Converts rich text bold and
italic formatting codes into respective MMD syntax. Note that in some
cases this can produce odd results; be sure to proof the results before send-
ing off to the printer.

Inline to Inspector and Inspector to Inline Conversions These four com-

mands allow you to convert inline annotations to linked Inspector com-
ments, vice versa, and footnotes. These commands work on the entire
current document.

Options  Provides options which impact the display or behaviour or the text editor.

❧ Show/Hide Invisibles: Toggles visibility of hidden control characters, such

as paragraph breaks, tabs, spaces, page breaks, and so on. A few control
characters do not have associated special characters.
320 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

❧ Typewriter Scrolling: ( – T) Toggle a feature which keeps the currently

edited line of text in the middle of the screen, vertically centred. This set-
ting is global, but will impact full screen or the regular editors depending
upon the current mode.

Bibliography/Citations. . . ( – Y) If a citation manager has been set up in the Gen-

eral tab (section B.1) of Scrivener’s preferences, this command will launch or
activate the set manager, allowing you to select a citation and paste it back into
Scrivener using whatever system that application provides.

A.8 Window Menu

The Window menu contains commands for controlling windows and panels along
with a list of all open window

Minimize ( – M) Minimises the window to the Dock (the same as the yellow button
in the top-left of the window). Hold down the Option key to minimise all.

Zoom ( – -) Zooms the window in or out (the same as the green button in the
top-left of the window). Scrivener will try to zoom intelligently to best fit the
contents of the window, taking into account your preferred editor width. Hold
down the Option key to change to Zoom All.

Zoom to Fit Screen ( – =) Zooms the window in and out, so that it takes up the
whole of the screen.

Float Window “Floats” the project window above other application windows, so
that you can have it visible at all times should you wish, even when switching
to other programs. Be sure not to use this in conjunction with Zoom to Fit
Screen.

Project Notes ( – P) Displays the project notebook in a separate window. For

more information on using project notes, see Project Notes (section 12.3).

Show/Hide Scratch Pad ( – � ) Displays or closes the floating Scratch Pad Panel
(section 11.3); useful for collecting information while using other applications.

Show Keywords HUD ( – H) Displays or closes the Keywords HUD (sec-

tion 10.2).
A.9. HELP MENU 321

Bring All to Front Brings all Scrivener windows to the front. Hold down the Op-
tion key to change to Arrange in Front.

Window List The rest of this menu will be populated by all of the windows (ex-
cluding panels, like the Keywords HUD) that are currently open in Scrivener.
Selecting from this list will bring that window to the front.

A.9 Help Menu

The Help menu provides standard access to Snow Leopard’s menu search utility, as
well as useful tools and links for learning Scrivener. A note on performance: large
projects that contain many items in the binder will cause this menu to exhibit a no-
ticeable delay, thanks to the menu search feature. This is a limitation in Apple’s code,
and there is no good way around it.
The Search menu is the only menu that can be directly activated from the keyboard.
Tap – � to call it up. This will place the cursor in the search field (on Snow
Leopard only), so you can begin searching immediately.

Scrivener Manual A quick link to the PDF that you are likely reading. The ver-
sion that ships with Scrivener will be kept as up to date as possible, but newer
revisions might frequently be available on the web site’s support page4 .

Interactive Tutorial If you have not yet gone through the tutorial (you should!)
this menu command will walk you through the process of creating the tuto-
rial Scrivener project. You will be given the option of where to save it, and
from that point on you can load it like an ordinary project. If you have already
created the tutorial project, you can use this menu command to quickly load it
again.

Video Tutorials A handy hyperlink to our web site’s video page5

Placeholder Tags List. . . There are many placeholder tags you can use with
Scrivener, and this will provide an exhaustive list of them all in a floating win-
dow so you can copy and paste them into your project (or compile settings) as
needed.

Support A handy hyperlink to our web site’s support page. Here you can download
the latest copy of the PDF in US Letter or A4, find contact e-mail addresses,
links to our forums and wiki, after-sales support from our vendor, eSellerate,
and more.
4
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/support.php
5
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/videos.php
322 APPENDIX A. MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

User Forums A handy hyperlink to the official Scrivener forums where you can
meet other authors around the world using Scrivener, share tips, report bugs,
request tech support, or have a cup of latte in our off topic section.

Literature & Latte Home A handy hyperlink to our home page6 which provides
easy access to everything else we offer on our web site.

Scrivener Home Link to the main Scrivener page7 , where you will find useful down-
load links for updates, case studies, links to share Scrivener with Twitter and
Facebook, and more.

Keep Up to Date. . . Presents a form which you can use to submit your e-mail ad-
dress and name to subscribe to our newsletter. This is a low volume list that
we use to send out important updates and news. Please take care to whitelist
“litereatureandlatte.com” in your spam filter, prior to submitting this form, as
you will be sent a confirmation e-mail which must be responded to before you
will be subscribed. You can also click on the Twitter and Facebook buttons to
visit our official social pages.
Privacy Notice: Your e-mail address will never be shared with third-parties or
sold to marketing lists.

6
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/
7
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
 Appendix B

Preferences
Because Scrivener is a multi-project application, preferences are split up in different
areas so that you can supply new projects with some starting preferences. Once these
projects have been created, they will maintain their own individual settings from that
point forward. One step beyond that, there are a sub-set of preferences which apply at
the document level, and each document will diverge from the project and application
preferences.
Not all preferences work in this “cascading” fashion. The ones that do will be
indicated as such in their notes. Many of the preferences which are wholly project
specific and make no appearance in the application preference system at all. A good
example of this is whether or not pins are displayed on index cards. By default they
are, but you can turn them off for a project—and it will remember that setting. There
is, however, no way to change that behaviour globally.
All of the project specific preferences are located in menus, and most of these are in
either the Project menu or the View menu. This section will not cover these specif-
ically, though some might be mentioned in passing where applicable. Instead, this
section strictly focusses on the application preferences dialog. For information on spe-
cific menu options, see the appendix, Menus and Keyboard Shortcuts (Appendix A).

B.1 General
General preferences govern the basic application’s behaviour, its integration with
other programs, and how appending or merging text with existing documents should
be presented.

B.1.1 Startup options

Reopen recent projects on program launch Reopens recently-opened projects
whenever Scrivener is launched—thus saving you the effort of opening what
you were last working on.

Show start panel when there are no projects open Toggles the display of the start
panel, which lets you create new projects, open existing projects on your drive,
or select from a list of recently worked on projects.

323
324 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

Automatically check for updates If this is checked, whenever Scrivener is launched

it will check the website to see if there is a newer version available, and if so will
ask you if you want to update. Note that if you do not have this checked, you
can still check for updates by choosing “Check for Updates. . . ” from the Auto-
matically check for updates: if this is checked, whenever Scrivener is launched
it will check the website to see if there is a newer version available and, if so,
will ask you if you want to update. Note that if you do not have this checked,
you can still check for updates by choosing “Check for Updates. . . ” from the
application (Scrivener) menu.

B.1.2 Saving
Auto-save after n seconds of inactivity Sets how long Scrivener waits to save
changes after it becomes inactive. Scrivener automatically saves changes made
to projects. So that it is not constantly saving - and to avoid any slowdown this
might cause - when any changes are made to a project, Scrivener takes note and
waits for a suitable time to save them. It then waits until the user stops interact-
ing with the program for more than than two seconds (by default). If the user
makes no edits after this period, Scrivener deems it a good time to auto-save the
project without the save process interrupting what the user is doing. You can
change the period Scrivener waits to auto-save with this preference. If you in-
crease the period significantly, be sure to use Save from the File menu regularly
to force saves to your project.

Automatically name untitled text documents upon saving When enabled, text
documents that have been left untitled will acquire the first few words from
the document.

B.1.3 Separators
This table lets you configure how Scrivener will separate texts from one another in
various situations. In all cases, you have three choices available:

1. Single Return: Inserts a single carriage return between selections. If two para-
graphs appear together, there will be no whitespace between them, save for any
style-based paragraph spacing.

2. Empty Line: A full empty space will be inserted between selections. If you
prefer or require working with double-spaced paragraphs, this is the option you
will want to use.

3. Custom: Lets you type in a custom separator. Some default common examples
have been provided. If you wish to insert carriage returns, use Return to do so.
B.1. GENERAL 325

The four different types of selections you can separate are as follows:

1. Merged Documents: Determines how documents will be merged when using the
Merge command from the Documents menu. Note that this setting only affects
the main text - the notes of merged documents will always be separated by a
double newline.

2. Append clippings service: When using the global Append Clipping Scrivener
service, clippings will be separated from any existing text by this option.

3. Append selection: When selecting text and using the Edit � Append Selection to
Document command, the selection will be separated from the existing text by
this option.

4. Scratch pad notes: When appending text to documents from the scratch pad,
incoming text will be separated from existing text by this option.

B.1.4 Scratch Pad

Hot key Sets the global hot key for showing or hiding the Scratch Pad. Since this
key will be accessible from any application on your Mac, it would be wise to
choose something that would likely not conflict with any other hot keys in
other applications.

Notes location In Scrivener 2, your scratch pad notes are now stored on the hard
drive using RTF files. This option lets you choose the location for where those
files will be automatically saved. By default, they will be stored in your Docu-
ments folder, under a special folder that Scrivener will create for them.
Note that in secured working environments, you might wish to alter the loca-
tion of this to also reside in the encrypted area of your drive.

B.1.5 Miscellaneous
When you first start using Scrivener, actions which have a destructive nature (such as
importing in such a way that original formatting might be lost) will produce a warn-
ing dialogue. You can choose to disable these as you see them. The Reset button will
clear all of these dismissals and make them appear again the next time it is appropriate.

Bibliography/Citations Manager Scrivener can integrate with several popular bib-

liography management programs. Use this option to select your favourite from
the Applications folder. The reset button will clear your choice.
326 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

B.2 Appearance
Most preferences relating to the appearance of Scrivener can be modified here. In
a few cases, things which modify appearance, but are more related to the specific
function they fall within, will be located in the special section for them. A good
example is the background texture for corkboards, which is located in the Corkboard
section.

B.2.1 Options
General and miscellaneous appearance options.

Binder uses source list style If this checked, the highlight bar in the binder takes
on the gradient that it does in programs such as the Finder and iPhoto - that
is, it will have a blue (or silvery if the Graphite theme is selected in System
Preferences) gradient when it has the focus or a grey gradient when it doesn’t.
The colour of the binder will be set to a light blue, as is standard for source lists
(although you can change the colour again after checking this option if you so
wish). If this option is not checked, the binder’s selection highlight is drawn
based on the system highlight colour - although it is still drawn as a gradient, in
contrast to most other programs. If your system uses the standard Aqua theme
and blue highlighting, you will notice very little difference between this option
being turned on and off.

Show subdocument counts in the binder Beside each container in the binder, a
number will be displayed showing how many documents it contains. This num-
ber is recursive, meaning that it will count not only its immediate children, but
all of the descendents beneath those children as well, if applicable.

Keep text on lines in index cards and notes When enabled, Scrivener will adjust
the ruling beneath lines to match the current font size. In most cases, this will
produce the most pleasant result, but if your notes have a lot of different font
sizes, it might look nicer to keep the rules uniform, regardless of font size.

Show notepad lines in documents notes Turns on notepad style ruling for docu-
ment notes, giving it the appearance of a pad of paper.

Show notepad lines in project notes As with the above, will toggle whether or not
notepad style ruling is used in the project notes pane.
Check the secondary box to also apply this setting to the project notes window.

Smooth text and line art in PDF documents Anti-aliasing is used by default to
keep your PDF documents crisp at all levels of magnification. If you computer
runs slow while viewing PDFs, disable this to increase performance.
B.2. APPEARANCE 327

Target progress bars use smooth transition between colours By default, the three
colours you select for progress bar display will be used to gradually blend be-
tween each other as you type. When this feature is disabled, the progress bar
will “snap” from one colour to the next. If you prefer a more noticable notifi-
cation of when you’ve reached a goal, this can be a useful option.

Label colour tint opacity Define how much blending Scrivener should use between
label colour and the underlying icon. Moving the slider right, to “High” will
cause icons to be coloured more vividly; moving the slider left to “Low” will
cause the effect to be more subtle.

B.2.2 Outliner
Options for adjusting the appearance of the Outliner view mode.

Uses alternate row colours Draw alternative background colours behind rows in
the outliner. When this is turned off, the background will be a solid shade.
You can define the actual colours used in the section below.

Has horizontal grid lines Draw seperators between rows in the outliner.

Has vertical grid lines Draw seperators between columns in the outliner.

B.2.3 Fonts
Options for setting application fonts. If you wish to adjust the editor fonts, visit the
Formatting tab (section B.7).

Binder font Choose the font which will be used to display the text labels of items
in the binder, and Collections. Note that some font choices will not allow all
of the checkbox options available, because they do not have the proper font
variant. The default font choice, Lucida Grande, for instance, does not have
an italic variant. If you wish to use these options, make sure to choose a font
which has the proper variants available to it.

Outliner font Sets the display font in the outliner.

You can also select font variants to be used to alter the appearance of items in the
binder. The font variants you wish to apply must be available to the font you have
selected. Folders and document containers can be treated separately, if you wish.
These variants will impact the outliner as well, but only if the outliner is set to not
show embedded synopses. Scrivener needs to reserve the bold variant for titles, in
order to differentiate them from the synopsis.
328 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

B.2.4 Customisable Colours

The number of interface elements you can customise has been dramatically increased
in Scrivener 2. Consequently, interface colours are now chosen using a selection tree,
as it would take many pages of preferences to display them all together. To alter the
default colour for the desired interface element, first select the major category in the
left-most column, and then the item itself from the centre column. Click on the
colour well at the right to assign a new colour, or click Use Default Color to reset the
option to the system default.

Category Interface Element Description

Views Binder Background Background colour for the
Binder
Search Results Background Background colour for the
search results collection and its
tab
Outliner Background Background colour for the Out-
liner
Media Background Colour displayed around im-
ages, PDFs, movie clips, etc
Comments Pane Background colour for margin
and footnote comments in the
inspector
Scratchpad Text BG Background colour for the
scratch pad text editing area.
Editor Text Background Main editing background, or
“paper colour”
Combined Titles BG Background colour behind ti-
tles when enabled in combined
scrivenings mode
Fixed Width Background Colour displayed around the
pseudo-page in fixed width
mode
Notes Background Notes editing background, or
“paper colour”
Project Notes Background As above, but for project notes
Search Highlights Highlight used to accentuate
search results in the editor
Invisible Characters Text colour used to draw special
symbols depicting invisible char-
acters
B.2. APPEARANCE 329

Category Interface Element Description

Index Cards Index Card Background The “paper colour” for index
cards. Will be blended with the
label colour when View � Use
Label Color � Index Cards is
enabled, so it is often best to
choose a subtle shade
Index Card Status Stamps Text colour used to draw status
stamps on index cards in cork-
board view.
Full Screen Paper The “paper colour” for the edit-
ing area in full screen
Combined Titles BG Background colour behind titles
in full screen, when enabled in
scrivenings mode
Background Colour displayed around the
pseudo-page in full screen
Text Selection Choose an alternate text high-
light colour for selection. Of-
ten the system defaults are too
bright.
QuickReference Paper The “paper colour” for the edit-
ing area of the QuickReference
window
Notes Background Alternate “paper colour” used
behind the notes section
Text Selection Choose an alternate text high-
light colour for selection.
Comments Background Choose an alternate background
colour for margin comments
and footnotes display
Snapshots Background The “paper colour” for the snap-
shot text area. Note this will ap-
ply both to snapshots shown in
the inspector, and snapshots be-
ing displayed in the main editor
Deleted Text Text colour to use when indicat-
ing text that has been deleted in
the difference between the snap-
shot and the current version
New Text Text colour to use when indicat-
ing text that has been added in
the difference between the snap-
shot and the current version
330 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

Category Interface Element Description

Revision Colours All elements Set individual colours for the re-
vision level text tool.
Target Progress Bars Start Colour Progress bars blend between
three colours, this is the colour
the progress bar will be when it
is at its lowest
End Colour The final colour that the
progress bar will appear as
Midway Colour If you don’t like the way
the progress bar looks when
blended between Start and End,
use the Midway option to set a
third blend

B.3 Corkboard
Provides options and settings which will impact the way the corkboard functions and
appears.

B.3.1 Appearance
Draw lines in index cards Determines whether lines should be drawn in the text
area of index cards (affects both the corkboard and the index card in the inspec-
tor).

Display images as photographs Media files such as QuickTime movies and images
can be displayed as “Polaroids”. Disabling this option will show a standard
synopsis index card to represent the image, instead.

Arrange cards from right to left Will cause index cards be ordered from right to
left, top to bottom. If you are accustomed to working in right-to-left languages,
this will make the Corkboard more intuitive.

Status stamp opacity Allows you to set the opacity of stamps on the corkboard.

Corkboard shadows Sets the intensity of the shadows around the cards and borders
of the corkboard view.

Position pins Allows you to choose whether pins on the corkboard (if displayed)
should be drawn in the centre of the title area of each index card (which looks
more authentic but can partially obscure the actual title) or in the top-right
corner. If using the rounded card theme, this option will have no effect.

Index card theme Lets you choose the line colours used in the index card. “Red
and blue” divides the title area from the text with a pinkish-red line and draws
B.3. CORKBOARD 331

blue lines in the text area; “Blue and black” divides the title area from the text
area with a blue line and draws black lines between the text. These represent
the most common colours of index cards in the real world. The rounded card
theme displays cards in a more stylistic fashion. Cards will have rounded edges;
labels will be represented as a colour block instead of a pin; and lines will be
drawn in grey. This setting will also impact the index card in the Inspector
(though it will always have square corners).

Corkboard background Lets you customise the corkboard background. Select

“Corkboard pattern” to use the default corkboard background; “Custom color”
allows you to choose a background colour from the colour well on the right of
the pop-up button; “Custom background. . . ” lets you select an image file from
disk to use as the background image.

B.3.2 Fonts
The options in this section let you alter the fonts used to draw index cards. To change
the font, click the Select... button to the right of the option you wish to adjust. This
will present the standard font selection palette and any choices you make here will be
applied to the preview immediately.

Index cards title font Lets you set the font used in the title area of index cards (this
affects the index cards both in corkboard mode and in the inspector).

Photographs title font If you have enabled “Display images as photographs” option,
the title of the image will be drawn below the thumbnail using this font choice.

Index cards text font Lets you set the font used in the text area of index cards (affects
index cards both in corkboard mode and in the inspector).

Status stamp font Lets you set the font (and whether or not it should use bold face)
of the stamps that can be drawn diagonally over index cards in corkboard mode
to show the status.

B.3.3 Dragging and Double-Clicking

Options for how index cards react to click-and-drag events, as well as double-clicks.

Allow drop ons When enabled, lets you drop index cards on top of other cards to
store them as children beneath that card. This action is similar to dragging
items beneath other items in the binder.

Double-clicking on the corkboard background Adjust the behaviour of what

should happen when double-clicking in a blank area of the corkboard.
332 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

“Opens the parent corkboard” will select the parent of the current corkboard.
If the corkboard you are viewing is already at the top of the binder, it has no
parent and nothing will happen.
“Creates a new card” follows a common behaviour amongst diagramming ap-
plications. When in linear mode, the new card will appear at the end of the list.
In free-form mode, the new card will appear beneath the mouse pointer.
“Do nothing” ignores all double-clicking on the corkboard background.

B.4 Full Screen

These options affect the appearance of the full screen mode.

B.4.1 Text Color

If this is unchecked, the text in full screen mode will use the actual text colour - that
is, the colour it is normally, in the main editor. If this option is checked, you can
choose a different colour for the text in full screen using the colour palette. Note
that the real colour of the text remains unchanged - if it is black in the main editor,
underneath it remains black, even if you have chosen to override the text colour with
green in full screen mode - it will merely be displayed in green. This colour can have
an opacity assigned to it, which will allow you to blend the text colour with the page
background.
This uses OS X’s built-in “temporary text attributes” feature, which allows text to
be drawn using a different colour without affecting its real, underlying colour1 .

B.4.2 Options
Highlight current line Enabling this will place a background highlight colour be-
neath the current virtual line (not paragraph), making it easier to see where you
are in your text. The colour of this will be determined depending on your Text
Color settings. If overriden, it will use a lighter shade of this colour behind the
text. Otherwise, it will use the preference for Current Line Highlight, under
the Editor section, in the Appearance tab (section B.2).

Fade between modes Gracefully fades the screen between full screen and regular
editing mode.
1
Note that temporary attributes can only affect colour - it is not possible to choose a different font
in full screen, for instance. Some other plain text applications do allow you to change the font in full
screen. They can do this because the whole of the text only ever uses one font at a time - plain text
doesn’t hold any font information, fonts are used only for display. However, because Scrivener is a rich
text application, it is possible for a single piece of text to use multiple fonts. It is therefore impossible
to change these fonts to one font temporarily, edit the text and then change the font back.
B.4. FULL SCREEN 333

Close full screen when the Escape key is pressed When disabled, you will need to
use the keyboard shortcut for full-screen mode (Opt-Cmd-F by default) to tog-
gle between modes.

Hide main window when entering full screen mode Check this to hide the main
window during full screen sessions. If this is unchecked, you can see the main
window beneath the translucent areas of the full screen background (unless you
have set the opacity to opaque using the slider in the full screen control panel),
and you can also have the main window visible on another screen if you have a
multi-screen set up. Checking this so that the window is hidden means that you
could use the translucent areas of the full screen window to look at the contents
of the windows of other applications. Note that in some circumstances, having
the main window visible during full screen mode can slow down typing, so it is
usually best to leave this checked as it is by default.

Open full screen window on secondary screen when available If this is checked
and you have more than one display, the full screen window will be opened
on the secondary screen.

Scroller type Allows you to customise how the scroll bar looks in full screen mode.
“Standard full screen scroller”: The scroller will look like the ones you would
see in the full screen modes of iPhoto or other iApps (the translucent grey-
white against black). This scroller will always be visible if there is enough text
to warrant a scroller and disappear when there is not.
“Auto-hiding scrollbar (uses text color)”: The scroller will take on the colour
of the text (as set using “Override text color” - see above), and will only appear
when the cursor is over it. Move the cursor to the edge of the paper area to get
this scroller to appear. This is an unobtrusive scroll bar that gets out of your
way when you don’t need it, and fits in with the the retro green-on-black full
screen look that a lot of users like.
“No scroller”: Full screen mode will not feature a scroll bar under any circum-
stances if this is selected.

B.4.3 Insertion Point (Caret)

Adjust the behaviour of the insertion point to increase visibility.

Disable insertion point blinking When enabled, the cursor will be always visible
on the screen.

Use block insertion point of n pixels Adjust the width of the insertion point from
its default of 1 pixel. This will dramatically increase the visibility of it, however
with variable-width fonts (like Optima), this setting can produce odd results. It
is best used with a fixed-width font like Courier.
334 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

B.4.4 Margins
Sets the margin spacing between the text and the “paper” edge. You can select a dif-
ferent distance for horizontal and vertical margins. The top and bottom margin will
only affect the very top and bottom of the document on the page.

B.4.5 Default Settings for New Projects

You can dynamically adjust all of the following options while in Full Screen, using the
HUD. These options will not impact any open projects, but will set the defaults
for all future projects that you create.

Default Text Zoom Dynamically scale the size of the text font for full screen mode.
This will not impact the underlying font settings, letting you use a larger or
smaller font only while in full screen.

Paper position There are three possible choices, “Left”, “Center”, and “Right”. Gen-
erally this is useful in conjunction with a high amount of Background fade, so
that you can place reference material alongside the full screen page.

For the next two options you can use the Use Current button to grab the settings
from the active project. Often it is easier to visually arrange things how you like them
using the HUD. These buttons let you do that and then transfer the settings to your
defaults.

Paper width Adjusts how much width the virtual page should take up (not including
the margin space). Move the slider all the way to the right to take up the entire
screen, or all the way to the left to use only a narrow column.

Background fade Lets you adjust the blend between the background and the chosen
background color. All the way to the right means no blending at all, it will be
completely opaque. All the way to the left means no blend will be used and
you’ll see the windows behind Scrivener as if there were no background at all.

B.5 Navigation
The navigation settings provide settings to alter how Scrivener reacts to the various
actions you can take to navigate around in your project. There are numerous ways
of doing so, from clicking directly on items, to using buttons to scroll through doc-
uments like a flip-book, to using menus to jump directly to a specific place in your
book, and more.
In nearly all cases, unless otherwise indicated, navigation options are globally ap-
plied; that is, no matter how you select an item, these options will apply.
B.5. NAVIGATION 335

If you are coming to Scrivener 2.0 from older versions, you may note that a lot
of the preferences pertaining to default group modes have been removed. This is be-
cause they have been replaced with a smarter, dynamic system that no longer requires
maintaining preferences.

B.5.1 Folders and Files

Treat all documents with children as folders When this is checked, any document
that has subdocuments will act like a folder - that is, the options selected
above will affect any document that has “children” (subdocuments). If this isn’t
checked, a normal text document or image file that has subdocuments (any type
of document can act as a “container” for other documents in Scrivener) will be
opened in editor mode when it is selected. If this is selected, it will be opened
in whatever mode folders are set to open in above.

Include enclosing group in Scrivenings When clicking on a folder (or document

stack, if “Treat all documents with children as folders” is enabled), by default
the text contents of that container will be included in the Scrivenings session at
the very top. If you never use folder text, or document stack text, then disabling
this will remove the empty entry at the top of the Scrivenings session.

Show folder text when selected from search results Overrides default behaviour
of opening folders (and if “Treat all documents with children as folders” is set,
document stacks as well). When this is enabled, all container style search results
will reveal their text when clicked on in the search results, rather than reveal-
ing their children in accordance with the selected view mode. This option is
enabled by default, because generally speaking, most search results are based on
the text of the matching item, not its descendent items, and so the reason the
item is in the search list at all is because of its text.

Collapse auto-expanded outline items after drag and drop When dragging items
into containers if you pause over the container Scrivener will helpfully reveal
the contents (if hidden) allowing you to drop items several layers deeper than
you could initially see. This option will close all automatically opened contain-
ers for you, after dropping the items. This setting impacts both the binder and
the outliner view.

Always create new items as siblings Ordinarily, when a container is the selected
item, creating a new text item will place that item within it as a child, at the
end of the list if necessary. This will hold true for text groups as well as folders,
if “Treat all documents with children as folders” is enabled. When this option
is enabled, all newly created items will be created at the same level, below the
selected item.
Folders are always created as siblings, even when this option is off.
336 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

Create back-link references when creating Scrivener Links and references

When you create links or references to internal items, Scrivener will automat-
ically place a “back-link” to the originating document in the References table
for the target. In other words, if you link from “Scene 81” to a character sheet
named “Joseph”, as reference link to “Scene 81” will be added to the “Joseph”
document’s reference table in the inspector. If you would prefer to maintain all
of your references by hand, you can disable this option.

Option-dragging creates duplicates Enable this feature to cause the various organi-
sational views to mimic the Finder in that when you hold down the Option key
while dragging items, it will create copies of those items in the location where
you drop them, rather than moving the items.

B.5.2 Return Key Behavior

Return ends editing synopsis in corkboard and outliner By default, the Return
key will submit the edits being made to the synopsis in index cards and the
synopsis outliner field. To add carriage returns to the synopsis, use Return. If
this is unchecked you will need to use the Esc key to submit changes, and the
Return key will add carriage returns.

Return creates new item in list, outline, and corkboard views If this is checked, a
new item is created whenever you hit the return key in the outliner, binder,
corkboard or certain list views (such as the keywords list). Note that if you are
editing the title of an item, return ends the editing, hitting return again will
then create a new item.

B.5.3 Locked in Place Behaviour

Binder selection affects other editor when focussed editor is locked Typically,
when a split is locked, if a binder click would have impacted that editor, the
click action is blocked. Thus this excludes cases where the click would not
have impacted the locked editor, such as when Binder Affects is engaged and
targetting the unlocked editor, or the unlocked editor is not the active split.
When this option is enabled, unless both editors are locked, a binder click will
always load something, even if it has to redirect the click action to the inactive
editor to do so. Using this function is equivalent to manually setting up the
binder to affect whatever editor you are not using, without the need to set that
up in the menus.

B.5.4 Corkboard and Outliner Space Key Behavior

Space key opens selected document in. . . The spacebar can be used to quickly
open selected items in Corkboard or Outliner. By default this opens the item
B.6. EDITOR 337

in the editor, replacing the current view. If you would prefer it to match the
binder behaviour, change this to “QuickReference Panel”.

B.5.5 Scrivener Links

There are two conditions relating to Scrivener Links which both have the same set of
three options. You can choose to handle them by opening the link in a QuickRefer-
ence Panel which will preserve the current editing session, the Current Editor, which
will replace the current editing session (this was the default behaviour in Scrivener
1.x), or the Other Editor, which will open the link in the other split, creating a new
one if necessary.
Newly created Scrivener Links refers to the creation of new links with the –L
shortcut, or the menu command Edit � Scrivener Link � New Link.
If the item which is being linked to is not a document, full screen will ignore this
setting and always open it in a QuickReference Panel. This is because full screen can
only display text, and there is no split view in full screen.

B.6 Editor
The options for the main text editor control how text is displayed within the editor it-
self. For options pertaining to fonts, see the Formatting tab (section B.7); and options
pertaining to text input and typography in the Auto-Correction tab (section B.8).

B.6.1 Editing Options

Smart copy/paste This functions in the same way as TextEdit. When enabled, ex-
tra whitespace around the words will be stripped out, cleaning the pasted text
significantly.

Typing clears search highlights When using the Project Search feature, Scrivener
will highlight the matching search results for you. If this is enabled, the high-
lights in the current editor will be temporarily removed as soon as you start
typing. To restore them, select another document from the search result list
and then use the Back button ( – [) to return.

Use hyphenation When full justification is turned on, it can increase readability to
use hyphenation at the expense of not being as “pure” to the actual text you
have keyed in. Consequently this is off by default.

Use fine kerning Uses a higher quality text rendering model which reduces known
screen artefacts, such as “text wobble” while typing, and ugly kerning at odd-
number zoom settings. Disable this feature to marginally increase performance,
if necessary.
338 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

Highlight current line Enabling this will place a background highlight colour be-
neath the current virtual line (not paragraph), making it easier to see where you
are in your text. To change the colour of this highlight, use the Appearance tab
(section B.2), in the Editor section, under Current Line Highlight. This setting
will also impact full screen, unless text colour override is enabled.

Disable insertion point blinking When enabled, the cursor will be always visible
on the screen.

Use block insertion point of n pixels Adjust the width of the insertion point from
its default of 1 pixel. This will dramatically increase the visibility of it, however
with variable-width fonts (like Optima), this setting can produce odd results. It
is best used with a fixed-width font like Courier.

Default Text Zoom Dynamically scale the size of the text font in the editor. This
will not impact the underlying font settings, letting you use a larger or smaller
font while editing. Note this only sets the default. Each editor split can have
its own settings and these settings will be preserved between editing sessions.

Ruler Units Lets you choose the units (centimetres, inches, picas, or points) that
should be used in the main editor’s ruler (available by hitting – R when the
editor has the focus or by selecting Show Ruler in the Edit menu.

B.6.2 Wrap to Editor Mode

There are two primary editor modes in Scrivener 2. Wrap to Editor is the method that
most will be familiar with, coming from Scrivener 1. In this mode, text is wrapped
according to the width of the editor view, or an artificial limit when Fixed width is
enabled. Wrap to Page mode is a new method which emulates a printed page much
like in many word processors.

Margins Sets the margin spacing between the text and the edge of the view. You
can select a different distance for horizontal and vertical margins. The top and
bottom margin will only affect the very top and bottom of the document in the
editor.

Default Editor Width This value, in pixels, is used to determine the overall width
of the project window when using the menu command, Window � Zoom.
Scrivener will attempt to scale the window so that your preferred editor width
fits in with the binder, and optionally, the Inspector if it is open. Click the User
Current button to capture the current width from the active project. Setting this
to 0 (zero) will cause the editor to always take up as much space as possible (in
effect, making Zoom act like Window � Zoom to Fit Screen).
B.6. EDITOR 339

Use fixed width When this is enabled, Scrivener will also use the above setting to
artificially restrict the width of the editing “page” no matter how wide you
make the editor itself. The area not used by this page will be filled in with a
background colour, which you can set in the Editor section, under Fixed Width
Background, in the Appearance tab (section B.2).

B.6.3 Wrap to Page Mode

Show page layout in new projects By default, Wrap to Editor mode is the default.
Enabling this will force Wrap to Page mode in all new projects.

Draw shadow around pages Add a shadow around the virtual page, offsetting it
from the background colour.

Center pages horizontally Instead of always pegging the virtual page at the left side
of the editor, no matter how wide, Scrivener will place the page in the middle
of the editing view.

Show margin guides Will draw a border around the printable are of the virtual page.

Spacing between pages When more than one page of text is displayed, the number
of pixels entered here will buffer the pages from one another.
If you enter a value of 1 (one), a single line will separate pages vertically.
If you enter a value of 0 (zero) pages will flow from one to the next (but will
still have top/bottom margins separated them).

The following two options are used when “Use Printed Page Size” from the
View � Page Layout menu is set to off. This will let you work in a different layout
configuration than what will eventually be printed.

Margins Sets the margin spacing between the text and the edge of the view. You
can select a different distance for horizontal and vertical margins. The top and
bottom margin will only affect the very top and bottom of the document in the
editor.

Page Size Using pixels, define a custom page size. Scrivener already provides for a
3x5 card custom page size, for those wishing to work in a smaller format, and a
page size that will conform to your print settings. This will let you set up a third
display page which, like the 3x5 setting, does not impact your print output.

Base printed page size on: There are two ways to print from Scrivener. “Document
printing Page Setup settings” will use the settings provided in the standard Mac
application Page Setup window, in the File menu. The other choice is to use
the “Compile Draft settings”, which is how you will most likely be publishing
340 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

your work. If page proportions are important to your workflow (such as in

screenplays), be sure to choose the option which you will be using to distribute
copies of your script.

B.7 Formatting
B.7.1 Main Text Style
These settings determine how new documents will be configured. They will not
adjust the formatting of documents you have already created, in any projects, so you
needn’t worry about these settings destroying your formatting.
Further, these settings can be adjusted per project. To change the settings for each
project, select the menu command Project � Text Formatting Preferences. These will
always be set to the application defaults shown here, when you make a new project.
If you change the settings in the project formatting preferences, changes made to this
tab will not impact that project.
It is best to visualise default formatting settings in the following order of prece-
dence, starting with the “weakest” and ending with the “strongest”:

❧ Application preferences as set in this tab

❧ Project preferences as set in Project � Text Formatting Preferences

❧ The document itself will always override either of the above.

To reset a document to either the project preferences (if changed) or the applica-
tion preferences, use the menu command, Documents � Convert � Formatting to De-
fault Text Style.
The top half of the tab is dedicated to setting up the default settings for new text
documents (files and folders). You will have access to the full standard ruler settings,
as well as font controls via the Show Fonts... button. All changes you make here will
be immediately previewed against the provided sample quotation.
If you already have a document set up the way you would like all future documents
to appear, make sure that editor (and not the other split, if one is open) is active before
clicking the Use Current button.

Do not color the text of inline notes (faster) Turns off the text colour for inline
annotations—this option should speed up typing on slower machines.

Inspector comments font Sets the default font for inspector comments. Since these
fields are rich text, this setting will only impact new comments. Inline annota-
tions will always take on the styling of the text around them.
B.8. AUTO-CORRECTION 341

Footnotes font When enabled, the font within an in-line footnote will be changed
to this setting. It will still conform to the ruler settings of the text around it.
To apply this setting to inspector footnotes as well, check the box labelled, “Use
for inspector notes too”.

Notes font The default font for all notes. This setting impacts Project Notes and
Document Notes alike. Note that both of these are rich text fields and can
be changed from this default. As with the main text editor, if you change this
setting later on, old notes will remain as they were.

Writing direction In most cases, you will want to use the “Natural” setting, which is
set up depending on your default system language. This should go from right to
left, or left to right, automatically. If however, you do most of your writing in a
language that is different from your system settings, you can manually override
this here. Note you can also manually override individual documents as well in
Format � Text � Writing Direction, this only sets the default. Authors working in
both Arabic and German, for example, will probably want to leave this setting
at Natural and change each document according to the language it contains.

B.7.2 Edit Scrivenings Titles Style

When View � Editor � Display Titles for Edit Scrivenings is enabled, this font setting will
adjust the appearance of the text used to show titles in the edit scrivenings session.
The following options are available:

❧ Center: the title will be centred in the editor, rather than left-aligned

❧ Underline: standard single-stroke underlining will be used on the title

❧ Use title background color: when checked, the title background colour will be
used to highlight the title. This can be set in the Appearance pane (section B.2).

❧ Separate with single line breaks: uses a lower-profile and more vertically accurate
divider marker, rather than the single-line full-width divider. This option is
useful when page formatting must be precise, such as in scriptwriting, or if you
usage of scrivenings tends more toward very small chunks rather than section-
oriented chunks. Some may also find it to be more visually appealing than the
divider line.

B.8 Auto-Correction
The Auto-Correction tab contains many of the options that were previously found in
the Typography section in Scrivener 1.
342 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

B.8.1 Spelling
Check spelling as you type in new projects Displays red underlining for words
that are not found in the built-in dictionary, as you type. This setting only
impacts future projects. To change the behaviour of existing projects, toggle
this feature on in the Edit � Spelling and Grammar menu.

Correct spelling errors as you type Will correct common spelling errors and typos
automatically. For example, “teh” will be corrected to “the”.

With grammar check Displays green underlining for words and phrases which the
built-in grammar checker deems to be in poor style or in violation of grammar
rules.

B.8.2 Auto-Capitalization
Fix capitalization of sentences Will fix letter case issues if a lowercase letter follows
a period and a space.

Capitalize ‘i’ If the letter ‘i’ is found by itself, will automatically capitalise it.

B.8.3 Word Auto-Complete

Word auto-completion is usually used to speed up the entry of places and names and
other common project specific terminology. However, it can be set up to use the
entire language dictionary and attempt to auto-complete every word you start typing.
By default this is not enabled as most users find it too intrusive.

Suggest completions as you type Enables auto-completion in general. When this is

unchecked, no auto-completion will every be dynamically performed, but you
can always manually request word-completion by pressing the Esc key, or – ..

In script mode only Disable the auto-completion feature unless the editor has been
set to script mode.

Only suggest completions from custom auto-complete lists Will restrict the
auto-completion list to only those words that you have specified in Project � Edit
Auto-Complete List.... When disabled, will attempt to find words using the
exhaustive built-in language dictionary.

B.8.4 Substitutions
Enables a wide array of commonly used symbols and typographic conventions, by
detecting when their use is appropriate. Not all text entry areas are capable of using
substitutions, but they will always be available in the main text editors.
B.9. IMPORT AND EXPORT 343

Note that if you are using the MultiMarkdown export system, it is best to leave
typographic substitutions disabled, as it will handle all of that automatically after
export, and in some cases special characters can confuse the exporter.

❧ Use smart quotes: will convert inch and foot characters into typographic quotes
(also referred to as “curly” quotes) as you type, according to your system lan-
guage settings. To customise these, click the System Text Preferences... button
that is provided at the bottom of the window.

❧ Replace double hyphens with em-dashes

❧ Replace triple periods with ellipses

❧ Disable smart quote, em-dash and ellipsis substitution in script mode. The
above three options will be ignored in script mode.

❧ Superscript ordinals. When numbers are typed with a following ordinal, the
ordinal will be superscripted and set to a smaller font.

❧ Automatically detect web addresses and [[Scrivener links]]. If you start typing in
a web address, Scrivener will automatically generate a web link for it so you can
click on it and open the link in your web browser. Scrivener document titles
can be linked to by surrounding the title in brackets. For more information on
this feature, see Scrivener Links (section 9.5).

❧ Symbol and text substitution. Accesses the system level substitution engine
for OS X Snow Leopard and higher. To modify the list, click the System Text
Preferences... button.

B.9 Import and Export

Scrivener supports a wide variety of file formats, both for import into a project and
exporting and compiling. The options in this tab adjust how these functions operate.

B.9.1 Import Options

Import supported file types only By default, Scrivener will only allow you to drag
file types into the binder2 if it can internally display them. When this is enabled,
Scrivener will store unsupported files with the rest of the project, but will not
be able to display them. You will still be able to load them using their default
applications.
2
You can only ever drag text files into the Draft
344 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

HTML Import You can set how HTML files will be handled if you drag them into
Scrivener. The WebArchive option will package the document into Apple’s We-
bArchive format, which is viewable in many Macintosh applications. Do note
that if you plan to work with colleagues using the Windows version, or wish
to share project resources universally, you should use the Text option instead.
Text will preserve basic formatting, but complex page formatting will be lost.
Optionally, you can also choose to convert dropped WebArchives or imported
web pages directly from the Internet to text as well.

OPML Import When OPML files are dropped into the binder, Scrivener will at-
tempt to convert these outlines into Scrivener outlines. This can be useful if
you do your initial brainstorming in a dedicated outliner application. Some of
these applications support attached notes to each outliner header. If notes exist,
Scrivener can be instructed to apply these notes either to the Synopsis alone,
the main text, or the document notes for that heading in the outline. Note that
in the case of the last two options, the synopsis will still be set automatically.
If you want dropped OPML structures to be generated inside of a special folder,
rather than directly into your existing Binder structure, enable the “Create
folder to hold imported OPML items” option.

Plain Text Import When importing plain-text files (usually they have a .txt file ex-
tension), you can have Scrivener either apply the current default styling prefer-
ences, or optionally use a special font for these files.

Import Final Draft FDX script notes as. . . Final Draft’s export format saves your
commentation notes. Scrivener can convert them to linked Inspector Com-
ments, inline annotations, or footnotes.

Import RTF comments as inline annotations If this is unchecked, RTF comments

will be converted to linked Inspector Comments.

Import RTF footnotes and endnotes as inline footnotes If unchecked will con-
vert RTF footnotes and endnotes to linked Inspector Comments.

B.9.2 Export Options

Microsoft .doc export In most cases, you will want to leave this set to the default,
RTF-based .doc file. Scrivener’s enhanced RTF export engine supports a great
many features that OS X’s built-in exporter does not.
This setting will affect the manner in which compile produces .doc files, as well.

HTML Export Document type refers to the web standard that should be used dur-
ing export. If you are unfamiliar with web standards, chances are the default
setting of the older “HTML 4.01 Strict” will suffice. If you intend to publish
B.10. BACKUP 345

your writings within a modern blogging system, however, in most cases using
one of the XHTML formats will be more compatible.
Styling can be set to three levels. Embedded styling will declare CSS styles
at the top of the exported file, allowing you to easily adjust them with your
own custom stylesheets. Inline CSS puts the styling directly into the HTML
elements themselves, and so is useful in situations where you wish to override
default stylesheets. Finally, “No CSS” will export devoid of any styling. In
many blogging and content management systems, all presentation formatting
is already handled for you, and this will be the best option.
“Preserve white space” will attempt to convert your ruler settings into the ap-
propriate CSS style codes.
This setting will affect the manner in which compile produces .html and .we-
barchive files, as well.

MultiMarkdown export SmartyPants language The MultiMarkdown exports run

the compiled draft through the SmartyPants document cleaners. These are lan-
guage specific, so choose the language converter most appropriate to what you
are writing in.

Use Word-2011 compatible copy If checked, copying and pasting from Scrivener
into Word 2011 will use true footnotes and comments. This is needed owing
to changes in Word 2011 (which now accepts RTFD pastes), but is off by de-
fault because RTFD is useful for pasting into other Apple and Cocoa text-based
programs.

B.10 Backup
Scrivener 2 has a fully automated backup system. The options in this tab will control
the various aspects of it.

Turn on automatic backups Enables the automated backup system. It is best to

leave this turned on, unless for performance or security reasons you wish to
control the process manually.

Back up on project open Whenever a project is opened, a backup will be created

before you can begin working.

Back up on project close Whenever a project is closed (either directly or via appli-
cation shutdown), a backup will be created.

Back up on each manual save Will create a backup copy whenever you manually
save a project with – S. Note this is not the same as Scrivener’s auto-save fea-
ture, which by default is triggered after every two seconds of idling. Backups
will only be triggered if you select the menu command manually.
346 APPENDIX B. PREFERENCES

Back up every n minutes In addition to the event-based backups above, you can set
Scrivener to create a new backup while you work. In the case of very large
project, this can be the setting that most adversely impacts your writing experi-
ence, as Scrivener will restrict you from editing during the backup.

Compress automatic backups as zip files If you are storing your backups on a net-
work drive, or Internet syncronised service like DropBox, this option will not
only save space but will protect the project format from the sorts of damages
which can occur when lots of files are transferred over the Internet. However,
it will adversely affect the performance of your backups, as Scrivener not only
has to collect and assemble a copy of the project, but compress it as well, before
letting you return to your work. With very large projects, this can take many
minutes to complete.

Only keep n most recent backups To avoid the proliferation of hundreds of copies,
use this option to have Scrivener restrict the number of backups to a defined
amount. Once this amount is reached, it will rotate through the copies, over-
writing the oldest available copy.

Backup location The default location stores your backups in your user Library
folder, under Application Support/Scrivener. If you would prefer these back-
ups be kept somewhere more visible, or on a synchronized, external drive, or
secured area, click the Choose... button and use the folder navigator to select
the destination folder. If you choose a location that later becomes invalid (a
common example is external drives), Scrivener will immediately warn you as
soon as it tries to back anything up.
As a convenience, you can quickly access the backup folder by clicking the
Open backup folder... button.
 Appendix C

Placeholder Tags
For a complete list of all placeholder tags available in Scrivener, see Help � Placeholder
Tags List....

347
 Appendix D

Tips and Tricks and Trouble

D.1 Bookmarks or Small Files

Scrivener 2.0 introduces a new feature called text bookmarks, which make it possible to
insert markers into your files which can be used to populate a menu in the header bar
for rapid navigation within a document. In the past, the best way to go about breaking
apart a large section of a book was to split it up into separate files in the binder and use
Scrivenings to view them all together when necessary. Bookmarks makes it possible
to avoid that in cases where you deem it is appropriate, and provides flexibility for
those who prefer to work in longer sections rather than lots of short sections.
There are a few things to consider when deciding between the two methods.
Scrivener still retains all of its prior power when it comes to managing lots of small
pieces of text. In fact, if anything this level of power has been dramatically increased
in the new version. So if you are already used to working in that method, there is no
reason to switch to using bookmarks.
Small portions of text will still remain more useful in terms of search results. When
you have your text broken down into smaller pieces, project searches produce more
relevant search results because only the context of the returned items is displayed;
no scrolling through ten pages wondering why a particular document matched your
search criteria.
So a good rule of thumb to follow could be: if the overall theme or context of
a file is similar enough to be represented as a single piece, but still large enough to
require navigational assistance, bookmarks could be a good strategy for approaching
it. If however the section of the book covers a number of separate topics which would
benefit from outlining flexibility, more relevant search context, and fine-grained meta-
data handling, splitting it up into separate pieces is probably a better move.

D.2 Using Scrivener in a Secure Environment

Disclaimer: This advice is designed to make you aware of all known Scrivener data
leaks, and does not constitute security advice. Consult with your security team on
the viability of the listed strategies and adjust them as necessary to produce results

348
D.2. USING SCRIVENER IN A SECURE ENVIRONMENT 349

which conform to whatever guidelines are required of you. Literature & Latte
make no claims about the security of Scrivener in confidential environments.

If you work in a field that requires confidentiality and/or encryption, it may be pos-
sible to convert Scrivener into a semi-secure application. Be aware that Scrivener is
not coded with maximum security in mind, and unless you are using third-party tools
and hardware to protect your active RAM and hardened equipment, security is only
going to apply to the data which is stored on the disk. Your project will be held (in
full or in partial) in unencrypted RAM whenever you are working on it.
If you are not using FileVault or some other technology to protect your user folder,
you can create pockets of encrypted storage in your user folder with Apple’s Disk
Utility application, which comes installed on every Mac and can be found in the
Utilities sub-folder in Applications. Use this tool to create encrypted disk images to
the size and protection level that you require, and then store your Scrivener projects
on these disks. Documenting the production of these disk images are out of scope for
this manual. You will find full documentation in Apple’s help files for Disk Utility.
Further steps will need to be taken to ensure that data in these projects are not
accidentally disseminated. By default, Scrivener creates a backup of your project,
every time it is closed, to your Library folder. You will want to adjust this location to
reside within an encrypted drive as well (it need not be the same one). Do note that
sequential backups can take up a lot of space over time and prepare an encrypted disk
large enough to accommodate at least five copies of each project you are working on
with plenty of room to spare. You can alter the location of automated backups using
the Backups preference pane. The default location is:
~/Library/Application Support/Scrivener/Backups

If you are working in a mixed environment, or only wish to protect a single file,
you might instead opt to exclude the sensitive project from the backup system individ-
ually. This can be done with a menu toggle, File � Back Up � Exclude from Automatic
Backups. You will now need to maintain your own manually scheduled backups.
Finally, the Scratch Pad also stores information in a non-encrypted area of your
Documents folder. Either take care to refrain from putting sensitive data into the
Scratch Pad, or use the General preference pane to relocate it’s storage location to an
encrypted disk image. The default location for Scratch Pad files is:
~/Documents/Scrivener Scratch Pad Notes

When Scrivener panics because it cannot write to the disk, it will terminate your
editing session and dump anything in RAM to your Documents folder. These files
will be placed in a folder named for the project itself, using the format, “Project
Name.scriv Recovered”. If you lose the connexion to the encrypted disk or for some
350 APPENDIX D. TIPS AND TRICKS AND TROUBLE

other reason find yourself dumped out of your project, you will be warned with a
dialogue box, and you should take steps to move the files from Documents to the
encrypted area and digitally shred the originals.
If you are using FileVault or a disk-level encryption tool, then your entire user
folder will be encrypted, and you can use Scrivener in its normal configuration. It
does not save any project material to places outside of your home folders, including
diagnostic and error recovery data.

D.3 Hidden Preferences

Hidden preferences are features which have been developed for niche purposes or
to modify the behaviour and appearance of the application in ways which are not
supported. If you use these, and encounter errors, please do not report them as bugs.
To set hidden preferences, you will need to use Terminal.app to copy and paste in
command line codes. If you are not familiar with using Terminal, please reference
how to use it in its documentation, and be aware that UNIX level access to your
system inherently has less safe-guards than the standard OS X interface (for instance,
files can be deleted en masse and without any confirmation whatsoever, in a way which
completely bypasses the Trash). Always double-check your commands and make sure
there are no typos.
The basic syntax for adding preferences to OS X applications is as follows:
defaults write application.address PreferenceCode Value

For each hidden preference, you will be supplied with the complete command re-
quired to enable it. To remove the preference, you will need to use a slightly different
command:
defaults delete application.address PreferenceCode

No value is required when deleting a preference setting as the whole key will be
removed from the preference file. For example, to reset Scrivener’s built-in divider
with to 1px borders instead of thick Jaguar era split dividers, type in:
defaults delete com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2
SCRNoSinglePixelSplits

It is always a good idea to close Scrivener while executing these commands, or at

least restarting it after they have been executed.

D.3.1 Hide Binder Icons

To disable icon drawing in the binder and produce a text-only outline style, paste the
following into Terminal:
D.3. HIDDEN PREFERENCES 351

defaults write com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2

SCRHideBinderIcons 1

This will impact the entire application. However if you would like to disable icons
for only some projects, use the following format:
defaults write com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2
[MyProjectFileName].hideBinderIcons

The project file name should not include the extension. So for instance, to hide
binder icons for MyNovel.scriv project:
defaults write com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2
MyNovel.hideBinderIcons 1

Finally, you can disable only the text file and text file stack icons by adding the
following command:
defaults write com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2
SCRHideOnlyTextIcons 1

For this to work, you will need to have SCRHideBinderIcons set, otherwise it will
do nothing.

D.3.2 Adjust Table of Contents Indent

The ability to copy binder items and paste them as a rough Table of Contents can be
adjusted by setting the default indent, in points. By default, items relative to the top
level of the ToC will be indented half an inch (36 points) for each level. To change
this, copy and paste the following into Terminal:
defaults write com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2
SCRToCIndentLevel 18

Where the final value is the number of points you wish to indent by for each level.
This setting will also impact the offset of the secondary tab, which can be used in the
link prefix to offset numbering from the title.

D.3.3 Use Thick Dividers

Since Leopard, the use of single-pixel dividers between interface elements has become
the visual standard. Some prefer the older look where the divider is an element that
can be grabbed along any point easily, rather than hunting for the pixel, or using the
drag strip at the bottom. To set Scrivener to use thicker dividers, paste this command
into the Terminal:
352 APPENDIX D. TIPS AND TRICKS AND TROUBLE

defaults write com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2

SCRNoSinglePixelSplits 1

D.4 Troubleshooting
D.4.1 Some compile pages start too far down on the page
If some of the pages in your printed or compiled copy start further down on the page
than you anticipated, and you can find no extra carriage returns in your draft, you
might have the page padding feature enabled in the Formatting compile pane. For
each type and level, check on the right-hand side of the formatting area for a Page
Padding value of greater than zero. This will insert padding on pages that follow a
page break in the compilation.

D.4.2 Rebuilding Search Indexes

Scrivener keeps a search index of everything you import or create in your project.
This makes searching speedy and efficient, but it also means that in some rare cases,
the search index can become “desynchronised” from the actual material in your
project. This usually happens when the project file has been manipulated from out-
side of Scrivener. If you feel the search index does not accurately reflect the content,
or your otherwise suspect that the project might have been damaged by an external
application, you can manually rebuild the search index by holding down the Option
key and selecting File � Save and Rebuild Search Indexes.

D.4.3 Smart Quotes and Smart Quote Conversions Don’t Work

Scrivener uses the Snow Leopard system language preferences. If you are using Snow
Leopard, and have your system Text preferences set up to use straight quotes for smart
quotes, then it will use straight quotes, and will not “see” other quote types when
using the Format � Convert � Quotes to Straight Quotes command.

D.4.4 Scrivener icon turns into a question-mark in the Dock

This usually happens when Scrivener has either not been properly installed on the
system, or the application was dragged from the downloadable DMG or CD product,
instead of the Applications folder. The Dock does not store your application, but
merely a reference to it. If the original target existed on a drive that is no longer
attached to the computer, it will not know where to look, and produces a question-
mark icon. To fix it, drag the question-mark icon out of the Dock, and in Finder
press – A to open your Applications folder. Locate Scrivener, and drag it from
there into the Dock.
D.5. REVISION 2.0.3-01 353

If you cannot find Scrivener in the Applications folder (or wherever else you
thought it had been installed), then it likely never get properly installed in the first
place. Follow the instructions in Installation and Upgrading (chapter 4) to fix the
problem.

D.5 Revision 2.0.3-01

Major Changes

❧ Fixed compile option panes to include new Kindle exporter, splitting up the
old option pane into its new appropriate sections, Cover (section 24.17), and
E-Book Options (section 24.18). Additionally, the KindleGen (section 24.19)
section was added.

❧ Clarified Expanded Compile Interface (section 24.3) by breaking it into sub-

sections with clearly labelled common desires.

❧ Reorganisation: Searching and Replacing (section 21.4) has been promoted to

chapter level, as that is an important topic and was a little hard to find in the
section list within the table of contents. The organisation within this chapter
has also been optimised.

❧ Added new compile sections, Script Settings (section 24.7), Layout Op-
tions (section 24.12)[cpane-layoutoptions], and Statistics (section 24.13)[cpane-
statistics].

❧ Added tips for choosing the correct image size for e-book covers (section 24.17).

❧ Wrote an introduction to the Final Phases (Part IV) part.

❧ Added new section, Back to the Binder (subsection 8.4.5), addressing the ability
to drag items from collections back into the binder to gather and/or reorder
them.

❧ Added new section, Using Scrivener in a Secure Environment (section D.2),

addressing methods for ensuring that confidential projects stored on encrypted
DMGs do not “leak” out into the rest of the system accidentally.

Minor Changes

❧ Fixed introduction page for the Writing (Part III).

❧ Moved all compile option panes up to the Section level so that they can be
referenced from the table of contents. Also moved the file format info and
tables higher up in the chapter as it is relevant to more people than the advanced
options.
354 APPENDIX D. TIPS AND TRICKS AND TROUBLE

❧ Fixed wording in Page Settings (section 24.16), which implied the “Page Setup”
button access the global project settings. In fact, it sets the paper settings for the
compiler alone and is not connected to the main page setup feature.

❧ Added tip box in Searching and Replacing (section 21.4) which highlights where
the binder goes while searching, and how to get it back.

❧ Added tip box in Linked Notation (section 17.2) for handling cases where you
want to move a linked note’s anchor position.

❧ Added small section, Working with Print-Ready Images (section 14.4.6) which
addresses proper handling of large, high resolution images in Scrivener.

❧ Created a new chapter in Writing, called Writing Tools (chapter 21), to house
topics on bibliography management, statistics and goals, search and replace, and
the name generator.

❧ Fixed wording in Project Statistics (subsection 21.2.2), which did not accurately
explain the paperback page counting model.

❧ Added an addenda footnote to Exporting Binder Files (section 25.1) which fur-
ther explains the limits of binder->finder ordering.

❧ Fixed inaccurate keyboard shortcut in Controlling the Opposing Split (subsec-

tion 14.8.2) which stated media can be started and stopped with Opt-Cmd-R.
Fixed to Cmd-Return.

❧ Added tip for annotating PDF files in Viewing PDFs (subsection 14.7.2).

❧ Added entry to Supported File Formats (subsection 11.1.1) for the OPML for-
mat.

❧ Fixed various entries for Edit � Copy Special � Copy Without Comments or Foot-
notes to properly reflect new changes that strip out linked notes as well.

❧ Added small section, Managing Linked Notes (subsection 17.2.1), by moving

the paragraph about deleting notes and writing a new paragraph to explain the
new feature which allows you to move the anchor point to a new range of text.

❧ Updated Folders and Files (subsection B.5.1) preference list to match current
feature set.

D.6 Revision 2.0.1-01 (Nov 25)

Major Changes

❧ Added section Text Appending Tools (section 11.4), in Gathering Material.

D.7. REVISION 2.0-01 (NOV 1) 355

❧ Added Advanced Replacements Usage (subsection 24.14.1) to the Replacements

section of the Compilation chapter.

❧ Added Annotations and Footnotes (chapter 17) to the part on Writing (name
changed from “Annotating and Marking your Text” as there would have other-
wise been no clue on where footnote management was addressed in the ToC.

❧ Added two tips for advanced MMD usage, Functional Annotations and Com-
ments (section 27.1), and Multiple Footnote Streams with MMD (section 27.2).

❧ Added section for Exporting (chapter 25).

❧ Added section for Built-in Presets (section 24.1), for the compiler.

❧ Added section for Printing (chapter 26) and a small cross-reference section to
the main printing section, in the compiler chapter.

❧ Added section on Custom Icons (section 12.5).

Minor Changes

❧ Numerous menu, shortcut, and label errata have been folded into this revision;
including minor adjustments introduced in version 2.0.1

❧ Chapter on Scriptwriting (chapter 20) has been revised and updated to 2.0
changes.

❧ Moved Naming Text Highlights (subsection 17.4.1) from setting up meta-data

to Annotations and Footnotes (chapter 17).

❧ Completed Help Menu (section A.9) appendix page

D.7 Revision 2.0-01 (Nov 1)

Initial public release.
 Appendix E

Legal
Scrivener and this manual are copyright �c 2006–2011 by Literature & Latte LLC.
All rights reserved. Literature & Latte are not affiliated with, or endorsed by the
following companies and their products or services:

❧ Microsoft Office; Microsoft Windows

❧ Apple Pages; Apple Mac OS X and all utilities mentioned therein

❧ Dropbox

❧ Simperium Simplenote

❧ DenVog Index Card for iPad

❧ Hog Bay Software SimpleText.ws; WriteRoom

❧ OpenOffice.org

❧ Final Draft

❧ Movie Magic Screenwriter

❧ CeltX

❧ Mariner Montage

❧ EndNote

❧ Bookends

❧ Sony Reader

❧ Amazon Kindle

❧ Adobe Acrobat; Adobe Reader

❧ RedleX Mellel

❧ Nisus Writer Pro

356
 357

❧ Papyrus

All products above and otherwise mentioned in this text are trademarks of their
respective owners.
Literature & Latte take no responsibility for any text lost through synchronisation.
As with all synchronisation processes, you should ensure you back up regularly and
double-check that the right documents are being synchronised.
Visit our website for a copy of the licence agreement1 . By using this software you
are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this licence.

1
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/licence.php