I use two monitors for novel-writing: On the one facing me I work on original drafts;
on the one to my right I load research data and notes, which I look at and then transcribe into the draft section.
Although you can split Scrivener horizontally or vertically, it causes way too much screen clutter to view those two ‘windows’ on one monitor, and way too much time scrolling up and down to find needed material.
Now, when I use Scrivener, I have to take time to copy relevant research for the chapter I’m writing onto to a Word file, or files, which I can drag to the second monitor to view during the writing session.
Is there anyway to separately split or drag Scrivener folders onto different monitor screens?
I take a somewhat different approach in that all reference notes and research for all writing is stored in a separate Scrivener project. I use labels, keywords and collections to filter for a specific writing project.
While the opportunity for procrastination is high it does allow me to utilize both monitors and sometimes make connections I possibly wouldn’t have made otherwise.
rfreeborn:
Thanks for your suggestion as well. I can see where it would be a useful alternative to TextMaker – by keeping text narrative separate from research & notes. And if the TextMaker option doesn’t work over time, I’ll give your idea a try.
That’s a bit of vital Windows knowledge. Right click on one of those files, and look for Open With. Depending on which version of Windows you’re on, you’ll get a choice of which program to use, and an option to use that program, i.e. Word, as default for that file type in future.
Whew! That worked… Thanks
Now the files are back in Word.
Jerome, I played with TextMaker for an hour or two yesterday. And it may have some use as a text viewer overall, but I haven’t found it flexible enough to use with Scrivener.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I can only drag a complete Scrivener file or folder into TextMaker – and not a paragraph or two. Nor can you copy text from Scrivener into an already loaded TextMaker file. My book is set in the 1970s. Background note files in Scrivener (locations, clothing, dialog, etc) are usually three or four pages long. I need to be able to ‘grab’ a couple of those items for a chapter or scene, and have them available for quick viewing in the second monitor. I can do that with Word, as indicated above – but not with TextMaker.
OK, if you’re interested in dragging paragraphs at a time for viewing and updates on the second screen, you can do that as well with Scrivener’s very own Scratch Pad, which will append any changes out to the document of your choice.
I am using dual monitors for revisions. Compiled the book (120+ K words) in MS Word and gave it to two people to review/edit. I put the two marked-up MS Word files on one monitor side-by-side, and set them to scroll together. On my main monitor I have the book open in Scrivener. This is by far the best solution to the editing problem I’ve found. I have all the tools I need now and I can stay in Scrivener until the end.
it does allow me to utilize both monitors and sometimes make connections I possibly wouldn’t have made otherwise.