Facing the daunting task of converting a multilevel Scrivener Project to a Finder folder hierarchy populated with RTF / RTFD files

Scrivener
, ,
1

Hello,

I have a large multi-level Scrivener project containing technical info with many levels of subdocuments. It’s basically a technical procedural manual. I expected the recipient of the task to consult the project in Scrivener, but the answer is a categorical NO.

It must be in Finder and the folder hierarchy must obviously replicate that of the project.

The project contains:

  • Scrivener documents (which include images)
  • all Scrivener docs are in the research folder. I never use the drafts folder
  • imported PDF Files

The only concession I extracted was the ability to populate Finder with RTF / RTFD files instead of Word. PDF files would remain the same.

Importantly, I will constantly be updating the info, so the compile to PDF route is not possible. I am not going to start editing PDFs.

I tried ext folder sync (thank you @sobs for the suggestion).

  • In the generated folder I find all files as RTF, but no hierarchical folder structure which makes my task a bit easier, but leave a lot to do in playing around in Finder to create the very many folder sub-levels.
  • all Scrivener Docs are synced as RTD, but there is some bizarre behaviour I cannot comprehend
    If I take a Scrivener doc containing text and images, I end up with a RTF file in Finder, not a RTFD file.
    In addition, if I open that RTF file with either quicklook or in textedit, the image is absent, but if I open the RTF file in either Nisus Writer Pro or MS Word (both of which I dislike), the image is present.

thank you very much for your time and help

2

External folder sync suitable for that?

1 Like
3

Never heard of it. Will have to consult the manual.
thank you

1 Like
6

Old, but this gives a basic intro.

Sorry not to have more time now to go into detail.

1 Like
7

OK thank you for the reference.

8

I haven’t used ‘sync with external folder’ for years.

I used to use it before iOS Scrivener was launched to work on my own projects on iPads and iPhones, using iCloud as a sync service and iA Writer as an editor.

When iOS Scrivener was launched, I switched to that, but gave up using it after a few weeks. Secondarily because I had problems with Dropbox, and primarily because the user interfaces and feature disparities between iOS and macOS Scrivener made it clear to me that Scrivener wasn’t going to be useful to me as a cross-platform app in its present incarnation.

Looking at ‘sync with external folder’ now, I think it is probably one way of collaborating with a second writer, although not as robust and fully featured as you need.

If it was me, I would export all the Scrivener files in MultiMarkdown format, copy any PDFs and images to a reference folder in Finder, and then let the co-writer work with any plain-text or Markdown editor that they want to use. If I needed to use Scrivener again, I’d re-import to Scrivener at the appropriate point in the project cycle.

Perhaps other people will have better ideas.

1 Like
9

thank you but it’s much too technical for the people I am dealing with.
Since this morning, I discovered that:

  • I can export all to MS Word. RTF are converted to Word and PDFs are preserved.
  • since I will be doing all the editing and updating, I can Edit and document in Scrivener Project → Export and Replace the whole project.
    I tested it and it works perfectly and basically solves my problem.
    thanks again very much
1 Like
10

Good to hear you have a solution.

1 Like