I’ve never tried Spellcatcher. Maybe I should check it out. How do you get your text from Scrivener into that?
Also, I have been wondering about page numbers. I’ve imported a large file from Word and now I’m hoping to navigate within it. How do I see how many pages it is in Scrivener and what page I’m looking at?
Also,
with the search feature, I can find that there IS a ch. 36 in this file somewhere, but how about having it show me where that is?
Maybe these are just problems of importing. But I would like to use Scrivener to organize some of my longer word files. That’s how I see it being very useful.
one more. After I’ve searched, how do I get back to the basic mode, where I can see all the contents of my draft again?
Seth,
– Scrivener really works best if you use the Draft as a table of contents, rather than a list of documents like a notebook style application. I suggest having a look at the Split feature in the edit menu, including its sibling which will split and use the selected text as the name of the new document. This way, you can got through that long document and cut it up into smaller blocks. My preference is one scene per document.
– There are no pages in Scrivener, and hence no page numbers. It is not that kind of application.
– To cancel a search, press the key while the cursor is in the search field; or, click on the little ‘x’ button beside the search field; or, click on the ‘x’ button which appears in the very bottom portion of the Binder during a search.
There are no such things as “pages” whilst you are looking at a document in Scrivener, only when you print. Scrivener is not a page layout program, hence it has no “page view”. If you want to know a rough idea of how many pages you would have in your draft were it turned into a paperback, got to View > Statistics… But like I say, there is no pages view, nor is there likely ever to be one, because Scrivener is about writing, not layout.
Er, it should already do that. When you do a search, the files that are found will be displayed in the binder. All text that matches the search will be highlighted for you in the text. Short of a neon arrow with a buzzer, I’m not sure how much easier I can make it to find your results. 
This is exactly why I created Scrivener. I recommend importing the files and then going through them using the Edit > Split at Selection / Split with Selection as Title features. These will make it very easy to split up long Word documents for better organisation.
The same as you end a search in any Mac app. Click on the little “X” in the search field. Or you can click on the “x” underneath the search results.
Please do take a moment to look through the FAQ in the Tips & Tricks forum, browse what others have posted and make sure you familiarise yourself with the tutorial if you have not already. If you are still finding certain areas unclear, please post in the Tips & Tricks forum about what sort of things you would like to see particularly clarified in the Help file and documentation. I am going to start working on the docs very soon, so feedback on how to make sure they are as effective as possible for new users would be very useful.
All the best,
Keith
On your first question, you don’t need to move your text anywhere. Spell Catcher simply works together with all Mac applications, whenever you start typing (as long as you have its Interactive mode enabled). Check it out:
versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17918
On the second question… why would you need page numbers in Scrivener? This application serves a very different purpose from Word. Page numbers are pretty much irrelevant here.
I think I went through a very similar transition period back when I started using Macs. But these days I can’t use Word for anything other than short business memos. MS Word is simply not designed for… writing.
Thanks everybody for all the help. Especially thanks Ken for answering my questions and designing this program!
Gaijin,
what other programs do you use for writing? (Besides Scrivener?)
I get it about the pages. I was just looking for something that I knew was around 225 in the old draft.
But I’m ok now.
Ken? Who’s Ken?! And why is he taking credit for writing Scrivener?
G’day Ken!!!
So we finally get to meet Barbie’s real buddy.
This should set the writing world on fire - brilliant marketing strategy.
Cheers Keith.
Damn.
Keith. Sorry about that, man.
Keith. Thanks for the software.
Much obliged.
Seth