I have a number of Macs and and number of Scrivener licenses bought either directly from Literature and Latte or as part of a bundle such as MacUpadate.
What I want to know is how to find out which license number I am using on a Mac that has Scrivener already installed and activated.
I am now setting up a brand new MacBook Air 13". I deactivated Scrivener on a Mac that will be sold.
I am totally at a loss as to which serial number I am using on each Mac. So I do not know which serial number to use on the new Mac I am setting up.
There’s no way to look up the serial number in Scrivener itself. This is for security purposes - if you could see the serial number from within Scrivener and had it on a work or university machine, someone could come along and easily steal your serial.
If you can’t find it that way, please drop us a line at mac.support AT literatureandlatte DOT com.
Out of interest, why do you have more than one licence? Scrivener’s licence allows you to use Scrivener on more than one computer as long as it’s for personal use (not shared among other people, unless they are family living in the same house as you), so you should only need a single serial number.
Thanks for your prompt reply. You are always so helpful and supportive!
I perfectly understand your explanation of not knowing the serial number for security reasons. And please keep it that way.
To the reason I have several licenses, I have two. Firstly, I have been under the assumption that the one license could be used on two machines, providing that both machines do not have Scrivener open at the same time. If I have misunderstood this, could you let me know and my issue is solved immediately? (I have a habit of leaving Scrivener always open on my iMac. As such, I did not want to run into the issue of being away from the iMac, opening up my MacBook Air and getting a notice that Scrivener is in use on another machine and thus unable to use Scrivener on the MacBook Air).
The other reason is that each time I see Scrivener in a promotion by MacUpdate I purchase it. Also, when my university offers funding for software each year, I purchase Scrivener directly. I know I do not need to do this, but it is my little way of funding you to keep Scrivener going. Without Scrivener, I would be at a total loss. And I am at the critical start of commencing the write up of my PhD thesis. So Scrivener is going to play a big part of getting my PhD thesis write up to final completion!
And may I be cheeky and add that the funding is also a way of supporting the coming iPad version too?
One final thing is that I really appreciate that Scrivener works wonderfully with Japanese fonts. I have been writing mainly in English, but most of my work from now on will be in Japanese for a number of books I have to write.
Anyway, looking forward to the clarification about same license being open at the same on two (or even three) computers.
Note that having Scrivener open on multiple machines is not a great idea if you are sharing projects among those machines. You’ll get an error indicating that the project is already open. While you can ignore the error message and keep working, doing so will risk creating multiple, conflicting copies.
It’s also good practice to shut down a machine if you’re not going to be using it. That provides a measure of protection against power outages, cats walking on the keyboard, and anything else untoward that might happen while you’re away.
Thanks for all the kind words, and wow, thanks for supporting us so nicely, too! Very much appreciated! (And that’s not cheeky at all - I’m glad you’re looking forward to the iPad version; it is on its way at last!)
There is no need to close Scrivener on one machine to use it on another machine - the licence doesn’t check for anything like that, as it is perfectly allowed by the licence to use Scrivener on more than one machine at a time (it’s a household licence meaning that other family members living with you could be using it at the same time, for instance). So, there is no need to worry about the licence in that regard.
As Katherine says, however, it’s not a good idea to open the same project on two machines at the same time (for instance, if it is shared between them via Dropbox), because this could cause problems. So while it’s perfectly fine by the licence for Scrivener to be open on more than one machine at a time, you should avoid working on the same project on two machines at the same time: you should either close the project and let Dropbox sync before opening it on another machine, or you should make a copy. (This will not be necessary for the iOS version, incidentally - you will be able to work on that while a project is open on a desktop machine, because it “checks out” files as it needs them.)
I’m glad the Japanese font support is proving useful, although I can’t take much credit for that as it’s something built into the OS X text system we use. However, I have spent time adding vertical writing support for a future version, which might also be of use.
Thank you for your follow up … and apologies for taking you away from developing Scrivener.
Thank you for the advice of not opening the same project on two machines. I do use DropBox and so it is good to know.
At the same time, thank you for letting me know that it is okay to have Scrivener open on two machines. There are many times I forget to close Scrivener on my iMac, so still being able to use Scrivener on two machines at the same time takes away my main concern. I now have Scrivener installed and activated on my new MacBook Air.
I am also soo excited … as is everyone … about the upcoming release of Scrivener for iPad. If you do need someone who works in a Japanese iOS and OS environment as a beta tester, I am of course most willing to help out and do what is expected of a beta tester.
I remember one post on the blog by a user asking for some screenshots, or even better screencasts, of how Scrivener for iPad is shaping up. This is a great idea as I am always encouraging my Japanese colleagues to start using Scrivener. Since the menus are in English, the screencasts are great for them to get them hooked. So having an iPad screencast would be excellent as they ALL have iPads and would make my job of explaining how the Scrivener for iPad is shaping up easier to do.
Talking about Japanese, I had been wanting to offer my assistance in localizing the Desktop menus into Japanese. Once my PhD thesis writeup is out of the way, I would like to help out if this is what you need.
The news about plans for vertical writing support is exciting. With the advent of computers years ago, horizontal written Japanese is also an accepted norm now. So currently there is a mix of vertical and horizontal writing forms. Books for the general public are written in vertical Japanese - it is easier on the eye and has a better feel about it. Academic writing for journals is in horizontal form.
Thank you again! And now onto writing … which, through your efforts with Scrivener is actually a pleasent experience!
I just finished a trial period with Scrivener and bought a license. I was having this exact same issue, but I found this thread and tried downloading the latest version again — and it worked for me! Thanks so much!
