I’ve bought Scrivener 1, which was updated to 2, and then years later to 3. My Mac died, and I ended up with a PC for now.
I can download the trail for Scriviner 3 and I tried to write in my serial, but it just tells me it’s not a valid one.
I’ve tried to contact Literature & Latte to correct it, but other than the automatic email, I’ve received nothing else.
I try to not open the app unless emergency, but the trial is about to run out and I’m super bummed to not have access to all my projects, for months now.
We don’t discuss licensing issues on the public forum due to privacy concerns.
You said you submitted a help ticket and received an auto-reply but not any other messages.
We have had some issues with outbound messages that we’re looking into now.
I checked for your ticket to see that it has been addressed. However, I’m not seeing any help tickets from the email you’re using here on the forum.
If you’re using a different email for the help ticket, you can click on my forum user’s name and then click the Message button to send me a private message through the forum with that email address.
The reason your Scrivener 3 for macOS license isn’t working on the PC version is that our licenses are specific to the version of Scrivener you purchased and to the operating system.
If you’re moving permanently to the Windows platform, that process would allow you to purchase the Windows license at a discount. It would be paying the same price for the Windows license that you would have paid if you purchased the macOS and Windows as a bundle.
You might also find this Knowledge Base article about working on two platforms helpful.
I just discovered that Mac and PC version are not the same license anymore. And this computer is until I can return to Mac.
Given that authors have very limited income, even less when spending everything I have in the medical sector. I will have to abandoned Scriverner completely and maybe try to save my old files and transfer them to another platform.
I’ve been on Scrivener since 2008 so I’ve super sad about saying goodbye to it now, but I guess this is how it is.
Seriously? Abandoning an App you’ve used/benefited from for 16 years for a few $? As a pensioner, I do understand money is a precious resource.
There is a generous discount for transferring to a Win licence, and while I can’t speak for L&L, I’m certain they would be even more accommodating if a time comes to transfer back to Mac.
Obviously your choice to abandon the Scrivener app, but seems a little self defeating.
The two platforms (Mac/Win) are so substantially different that they required two complete development processes (The Win 3 version was something like 2-3 years of development work) and two teams that have to be paid.
If it is your final decision to abandon Scrivener, you can export to .doc/x and open the file in Word (which costs a lot more than Scrivener) or one of the free Word compatible apps, and continue to write in that substantially inferior app (for long-form writing).
Hi Laralei. It’s certainly your choice to move on to another program.
However, please keep in mind that you do already have a Scrivener 3 for macOS license. It’s a one-time purchase, and a household license.
That means if you purchase a new Mac that’s compatible with Scrivener 3 at a later date, you can use that license again.
If you do need to move on, compiling your existing work to RTF would allow you to easily move it to LibreOffice, Microsoft Word, or a similar program that can handle RTF files.
I can’t use my older mac thus I can’t get back those files at the moment. I have medical bills that are far higher than I can afford and medication and food is where I end up cutting.
I was hoping to get back my files to get some extra income but it’s not happening right now.
It may sound defeating, but I can’t buy without the money, no matter how little, so no matter what I do or try, it won’t change the situation. The safest mental approach is to accept the situation and move on.
I’m not buying a Mac a gain right away, and this PC is a loan, so I’m not buying for something I can’t keep.
Maybe, one day the situation will be different. Sorry if my message sounded off. I was just not aware of the splitting of licenses as I’ve been on it for so long. I’m not saying the app is not worth the price, just that life is not allowing me to adapt to the situation right now.
If you’d like to take advantage of the crossgrade discount on @Laralei’s behalf, probably the best way to do that would be to obtain the necessary information directly from them, then purchase the license through our store.
Note that making use of the crossgrade discount does not void the original license. It will still work when/if you’d like to return to the Mac. More information about crossgrading can be found here: Crossgrading Scrivener - Literature & Latte
Just to put in a word here on this specifically, in case there’s confusion, access to Scrivener is not the same as access to your projects. If the project files were only saved on the Mac that’s unusable, you won’t be able to access them from another device unless you have copied (or can still copy) the files off that computer and onto the new one. If the projects or their backups were syncing to Dropbox or another cloud service, then you should be able to download them through that service on your Windows computer; or if you have backups on an external drive and can copy the backups to the Windows PC, then you’ll be able to work on them with Scrivener.
(If you backed up files as zip archives, be sure on Windows to extract the project from the zip folder before opening in Scrivener; by default Windows, unlike Mac, will let you open and view the contents of a zip folder without extracting it, but if you try opening it in Scrivener from within the zip, the project will appear empty, which can be alarming!)