Hi!
I have just downloaded the free version of windows and see that it will run out 9/30/11. When I downloaded it I did not see that I could buy it as yet and am wondering what will happen to the writing I put into the program after the 30th. It seems silly for me to use it and then lose it. I am NOT good at understanding computer lingo or even anything as basic as backing my files up. Until now I have been saving word docs on a memory card, that is why I wanted a program like this to store eveything in one place.
Would someone be kind enough to explain to me if or how I can save the work I have done after the trial expires or how I can buy the program so that it won’t expire, or how to back the work I have done up? Please remember you are speaking to someone who has no idea how to back up file.
I appreciate your time and patience.
Thank you so much!
To take your questions in order, although this beta will expire on September 30th, there will be a new beta available to download and install before that so that you will continue to have access to your work. Public betas will continue to be available up until the official 1.0 release, at which point you’ll be able to buy the program. (There will also then be a 30-day trial, so that new users get a chance to test out the program before parting with their hard-earned cash.) Lee will post an announcement here in the forums when the next beta is available, and you may also get a notice when working in the program–I’m not completely sure on that, as Lee’s been working on the auto-updater and I don’t know whether at this point it will check for updates on its own and let you know they’re available or not. It’s usually best though to check the forum, since Lee will provide notes on what’s new and any particular instructions that may be necessary for installing and using the beta.
Since Scrivener for Windows is still in beta, and since it’s always a good idea to back up your work anyhow, you will want to backup regularly. There are a couple ways to do this. First, when you’re working in a project, you can choose File>Backup Project To… and create a complete backup of your entire project. I recommend checking the “Backup as ZIP” option, just because it makes it a little clearer that it’s a backup and not your current working version. (You have to be a lot more deliberate about extracting files from a zip archive, which makes it harder to accidentally open the wrong version and work in it and confuse yourself later.) You might want to make a “Backups” folder somewhere on your computer or an external drive where you can keep these together and organized.
Second, you may want to compile your draft at various times. Compiling is when you take all the separate documents in your Draft folder–e.g. you may have a separate document for each scene or each chapter–and save them out as a single cleanly-formatted manuscript. Even if you don’t want to go to the trouble of tweaking your compile options early on, it’s still useful to occasionally create a single file of all your various documents and save it outside of the project. Compile is still undergoing some fixes, mostly to do with formatting, but it will work fine to get all your text together and copied out of the project. You can compile straight to print or to different file types (RTF or DOC, for instance) so you can open your writing in another program like Word. Since this provides you a “backup” of your writing outside of Scrivener, you’ll have a copy of your work that you can continue with even if you no longer have Scrivener. (Scrivener does, however, keep your writing in a standard RTF format, so if it did become necessary, you could retrieve the individual files from the project folder and open them in Word.)
I hope that helps to relieve your worries. Feel free to post any questions as you get going, and once again, welcome!
Hi Jennifer!
Thank you so much for your reply! Now I will get started compiling all my writing in one place! What a relief that will be! I am going to start small and practice “backing up” and if I get confused I will come on here and ask questions. I don’t want to be a pest and if I do become one it won’t be for too long, so I am appreciating your patience in advance. It will take me a few tries to master it, but I’m looking forward to learning, because I feel like this is just the tool I’ve been looking for!
Thank you again for your help! Be well and happy!
Maria