Help Sharing Files/Projects

I just joined Scrivener and am having some difficulties in sharing files with my partner - I have tried just about everything suggested but nothing seems to work (Mac to Mac) I’ve tried downloading some files from the binder under drafts - to dropbox but the files show up empty in drop box - text does not appear - I’ve tried “draftin.com” and am having problems there as well - sending files back and forth - we both have Scrivener accounts - what would be ideal is for him to be able to see what I’ve done on his project from my membership and edit within the project from his membership - is there anyone out there willing to give me a hand? Much appreciated. :smiley:

Well one thing worth clarifying is that Scrivener is a stand-alone program that works on files (projects) located on your computer. There is no “membership” in the sense I think you are using it—perhaps to refer to something like an online text editor such as Google Docs?

At any rate, the idea is to send your project physically (just like you would send a .docx or PDF file for example) using whatever method is most convenient for you. The main thing to watch out for on the Mac is that your project file as you see it in Finder is actually a folder with many files inside of it (more like what you see on Dropbox if you browse through your files with the web site). Every single file in that folder is important, including the folder itself—the part you see in Finder. To safely transfer a folder between computers over the ’net, the best approach is to zip the project, which you can easily do in Finder by right-clicking on the project and compressing it. The original will be left alone, and the .zip file that appears in that folder is what you’ll want to attach to an e-mail, throw into a Dropbox folder, or thumb drive, etc.

Of course, to open a project that has been zipped, simply unzip it first. On a Mac just double-click the .zip file and the original project will appear in the same folder.

Note you can put a full project on Dropbox and work off of it there, but when collaborating (and just in general) everyone needs to be on the same page with regards to working safely around synchronised files. Again, a project is dozens, potentially even thousands, of small files. All of those have to be synced together correctly in order to use this method safely. We have posted some tips that should help with that.

Hello, I am just starting a book project with a co-author that we will both be working on full time. We both had hoped to use Scrivener collaboratively to share not only chapter drafts but also our research files associated with each chapter. I came across this thread, is there any advice for best practices for our work flow?

I am convinced that it will get too messy to work off the same synced project in DropBox and that sharing zipped project folders is the way to go. But if we are exchanging zipped folders of our respective projects, is there an easy way to merge them? For example, if Author A wrote chapters 1 and 3, and Author B wrote chapters 2 and 4, and each has notes and associated Research documents…can they easily create a project that is chapters 1-4 with all the associated files?

Thanks!

Here are a couple threads with tips and discussion on collaboration with Scrivener (searching for “collaboration” or “collaborating” on the forum here will help you find more):