I’m completely new to Scrivener, learning as I go along (I guess learning on a Beta version isn’t ideal but I like the software so much I want to get cracking with it).
I created 20 folders to import my current WIP chapter by chapter. Once I’d pasted them in I realised I’d created sub-folders of the first one for each chapter. Is there a quick way to convert each of these folders, taking them up a level?
As it stands, each of my chapters are currently sub files of chapter 1 and I’m guessing that’s not good for any further ‘meta’ work.
And the obvious question for next time. What did I do wrong? I can’t seem to create new folders at the same level as the first one.
One more question Is there a quicker way than piecemeal cutting and pasting, to import previous work, so that it’s already organised chapter by chapter? It wasn’t mentioned in the tutorials that I can remember.
You should be able to just select them all in the binder
(hold down ctrl to select multiple entries one at a time, or hold down shift and just click the first and last you want in your list.)
You can then just pick them up and move them around the binder - put them at the same level as your Chapter 1 folder.
To add a new folder at the same level as an existing one, select the folder at the same level, and then right-click, hen go Add > New Folder.
Alternatively select the folder of the same level and then click Ctrl+ Shift+N
Not sure about your final question on importing. Anyone?
The simplest way to import into chapters is to import the the whole document, position it at the chapter level in the binder, then work through using ‘split at selection’. That will give you a series of documents at the same level in the binder.
You can improve the basic process by selecting existing chapter titles in the imported document and using ‘split with selection as title’.
Thanks for that Pigfender. It took a bit of faffing (due to the combination of my poor skills and working on a netbook mousepad - laptop in for repairs) but I’ve got all my chapters at the right level now.
I’ll give that a go next time Mr Gruff, thanks. In fact would the same principle work for splitting a chapter into scenes?
Yes. Split at selection/Split with selection as title are made specifically for splitting your current document into an number of sub-documents.
When you go to import another manuscript into scrivener, I’d use your word processor’s “Save As” feature to save it as “Rich Text Format”/RTF. Then drag that file into the binder to import it. Once that’s done, you’ll be able to start splitting it up however you like.
Working with the mouse can be a little tricky sometimes; Lee’s trying to make that a little easier, but it’s tough given the framework being used. Once you get the hang of it I think it gets easier, but personally I tend to use the keyboard for this most of the time. Just hold the Ctrl key in conjunction with the Up/Down/Right/Left arrows and you can move your items around in the binder. (These map to the Documents>Move commands, as you can see in the menu.) Right-clicking and using “Move To” to send items directly to another folder is also convenient, especially when you get a fuller binder and need to move pieces bigger distances.
Thanks. The downside of being self taught, basic skills, is I have no finesse.
ETA What is the benefit of RTF? What difference does it make to the process?
Thanks. I’ll try this. I was wondering about moving things in more complicated ways.
Ditto my comment above. Self taught is great up to a point and then…
RTF is Scrivener’s native format. Most word processors do a better job of exporting TO RTF than other tools do of translating the native formats of those word processors. So Scrivener probably isn’t as capable of translating .doc files into it’s native RTF as Word is at translating it’s own .doc files into RTF. The bottom line is that you’ll loose fewer bits of formatting by saving your document to RTF before importing it into Scrivener. Unless there’s something about WinScriv’s importers that makes the different approaches moot.
I wanted to amend my suggestion about first converting your .doc files to .rtf.
I’m much more familiar with the Mac version, where I don’t have MS Word installed, so I assumed that .doc might only be marginally supported, even on the Windows version of Scrivener. But I’m beginning to see that WinScriv uses whatever version of MS Word you have installed to convert to Scrivener’s native Rich Text Format. My assumption now is that dragging a .doc (or .docx) file into the binder will automatically convert it to RTF using the same tools that MS Word uses to do the conversion.
In short: you should probably ignore my advice for converting to RTF before dragging your Word documents into Scrivener.
Is there a quicker way than piecemeal cutting and pasting, to import previous work, so that it’s already organised chapter by chapter? It wasn’t mentioned in the tutorials that I can remember.