Custom outline in Notes

Scrivener
,
1

I put Notes in outline form almost always.
is there a way to customize and save as default an outline in a different order, eg. I,A,1.a.?

2

If you don’t want this order to reflect in the binder but be recallable, you could do it by properly ordering the concerned files within a collection.

3

Thanks for the suggestion. Not sure what you mean. No files are involved.
I think like an outline. I write in Notes suggestions on how to write scenes or chapters in outline form. There is no default outline. One must drop down on the outline icon and choose. I would like to create a default outline so that I can stop wasting time with each scene and chapter designating whether it’s 1, a, ii, or I, A, a, or whatever.
I cannot find a way to create a default outline . Can you? Thanks again for trying to help.

4

Do you mean that you use the list function? image

…in the notes panel of the document in which you’ll later write the scene?

. . . . . . . . .

If so, create a blank document.
Create the list (as you currently do) in the notes panel. (Or wherever else it is you want it.)
Leave the list’s first item blank, but type in a space. (This will prevent the list disappearing. — You could also type in xxxxxxxx that you can later double-click and start typing.)
Move this document to your template folder.
→ You can set the template folder in the project settings / Special Folders.
Then create your new documents as you need them off of this template doc.

5

If you create a file template with word target etc, you can put a template in the note section that will be reproduced. I tried with a scene template with prompts for what I want in a scene. Could even do chapter template with word targets and scenes within with the notes configured with information. then very easy to build a novel by adding template repeatedily.

6

  1. I understand that you want what you want, but maybe it would be worth thinking about whether you really need all that tagging in your outline. Especially as you are (evidently) writing fiction. 2.b.iii? Who cares? The indentations show the structuring of your thought visually already – you literally see what is subsidiary to what. When you learned outlining in school, those tags were just so that there would be a way to refer externally to some point of the outline. To wit, 2.b.iii. But you are not writing a legal brief. When are you ever making such external references in your own workflow? ((And if you need such tagging purely for navigation because you get lost in the depth of outline, I strongly suggest you check out a good mindmap program. Mindmaps give you a better visual lock on where you are. Cf. (4) ))

  2. I do a lot of outlining in my own work. Fiction and non-fiction. When I do in-document outlining in Scrivener (as opposed to using Scrivener’s Outline view), I use a set of custom defined styles Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. that just have increasing levels of left paragraph indent and which I have assigned handy key commands to. There is no number or letter tagging on these paragraphs, but I have truly never felt the need. This same technique can be used in the Notes field, because text in the Notes field can be styled.

  3. I assume you have already considered and rejected Scrivener’s Outline view for your purpose. ((Admittedly Scriv has an unusual take on outlining. I need (a lot of) my outline text to be in my documents not just in their title, so it doesn’t work for me.))

  4. re: (2). A confession: For fiction, most of my preliminary outlining is done externally in a mindmap program, and is later brought into Scrivener. Mindmaps are more perspicuous than textual outlining – it is just always clearer where you are. My in-doc outlining in Scrivener is mostly for work. I will often hand label the first level, but the remainder usually needs no explicit level tagging.