![]() ![]() ![]() With the trial period coming to an end, I set about exporting the text I’d written in Scrivener, so I didn’t lose it. But that kind of negates the added functionality they give. You can hide both left and right panels to give yourself full screen width. But in Scrivener, with a panel to the left and right, and the option of splitting the screen to look at two documents at once.? Well, those functions just aren’t practical on a small screen. It’s small, and therefore portable, so I can carry it around with me (and occasionally go and write in a coffee shop while sipping at a long black – bliss!) But the screen is, of course, small, which is a disadvantage even with a standard word processor. But who wants to be playing that game when you’re deep in the creative process of writing?Īnother problem is that I write on a tablet, with a keyboard attached. I can go back to the tutorial whenever I need to. Plus, it’s now over a month since I went through the tutorial, and I’ve forgotten most of it. I have put most of my reference material and notes in too, but I just haven’t been doing enough with the various functions to learn how the software works. I think part of the problem is that I’ve really just been typing (I’ve put in one notebook worth of text) rather than making full use of the program. The relevant comment is highlighted when you click into the text at the point it refers to (or, conversely, if you click on a comment, you jump to the point in the text it refers to). The comments look just like comments in MS Word, except that rather than aligning with their position in the text, they appear as a continuous list. ![]() The spellchecker insists on starting from the beginning of the document, and won’t let you highlight a particular word. Some of the functions are rather strange and annoying. And I still haven’t found how to change the measurements for indents from inches to millimetres (maybe you can’t). It took me a while to find where to change the paragraph indents, for example. Finding options was difficult, as it differs from Word quite a bit (and, as I’ve said, there aren’t as many options). I had quite a few problems trying to get the program to give me what I wanted. You can have attachments pinned to a cork board background. There are different views – you can look at two chapters or documents side by side (or split horizontally) which could be very useful when you’re referring to reference material or notes. On the right, another column is for comments, notes, references, plus a synopsis of each chapter. Folders can contain text, images, videos, sound – whatever you need. A column on the left, which they call the binder, is effectively the file structure a list of the chapters, plus notes, research – anything else you want to put in there, you can just create a folder and/or a document for it. The main panel looks very much like MS Word – presumably this is what it’s based on – but without the full range of controls and options you get with Word. This is a screenshot (snip) of Scrivener: They suggest you give the chapters titles, rather than numbers, to save having to re-number if you either change the order or insert more chapters as you progress. I created a new document for each chapter. ![]() I had nearly two full notebooks ready to be typed up. And then later, the process of typing up what I’ve written acts as an additional level of editing and proof-reading. I get to do the creative bit unencumbered by soulless ‘tech’. I write the old-fashioned way, with pencil and notebook. And then I was ready to create a new project, and start typing. My first task was to work my way through the tutorial, which took some time. You can download it for a free one-month trial (where rather than a calendar month, only the days you actually use the software count towards the trial). Called Scrivener, it is, according to its makers, ‘the go-to app for writers of all kinds’, designed to provide everything you need to start writing and keep writing. And I’ve been trying out some writing software. I’ve recently been working on my latest novel again, having put it aside while there were too many other things going on for me to find the time. ![]()
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