How can one add a bookmark / link to a piece of text?

[DavidR]

@liz

I think the kind of thing that the users on this thread are referring to would be a situation such as where Document A has some narrative that includes something Bob said, and then in Document B there is another narrative where someone else says “To address what Bob said…,” and the writer would like to have a link on “Bob said” to exactly what it was that Bob said in Document A, in the context of Document A. It makes no sense whatsoever to split Document A near Bob’s quote if it’s a tiny part of some larger coherent narrative.

A workaround for this might be to copy Bob’s quote to a comment in Document B linked to “Bob said” and put a Scrivener link back to Document A in that comment, but then if you want the context you still need to scroll through Document A and find it. So this would in fact be new functionality that, at least as far as I can see, is not currently implemented in any convenient way.

Yes, this is the kind of thing I’m thinking of. Thanks for putting it so clearly!

[kewms]

@liz

I think the kind of thing that the users on this thread are referring to would be a situation such as where Document A has some narrative that includes something Bob said, and then in Document B there is another narrative where someone else says “To address what Bob said…,” and the writer would like to have a link on “Bob said” to exactly what it was that Bob said in Document A, in the context of Document A. It makes no sense whatsoever to split Document A near Bob’s quote if it’s a tiny part of some larger coherent narrative.

Well, since I do this sort of thing all the time, I disagree that it “makes no sense.”

Remember that there is no requirement that you show the internal structure of the project to the reader. The section “stuff Bob said” doesn’t need to have a (displayed) title, or a separator, or any other indicator that it’s not part of the flow of Document A.

Katherine

[MosesGhostwriter]

I’ve looked over this topic with decreasing expectations for help for my problem. Basically, I’m creating what amounts to a dictionary that has entries for a number of items in the book it is related to. The dictionary has grown to over a dozen pages and scrolling through it takes time. I recently added a few entries that are related. In the past, I had text to the effect of “see also XYZ”. But I have discovered that in the past, I have added an entry that relates to one of the later ones. I’m forced to rely on memory (you know, brain cells that are, in my case, beginning to die off) to know if I have another entry already in the dictionary to also consult. I imagined that it would be great if I had a link I could click on in one entry to take me to another entry (and back). I find, now, that the software won’t do this. It can do a simple find, but having a “link” operand that “finds” a pre-set content is a non-starter. So I am going to have to do a lot more manual work to get the results I’m looking for. Oh, well, it is just another distraction that keeps one from doing productive writing.

[kewms]

This is the Windows sub-forum, but your profile indicates you are on a Mac?

I ask because sub-section 8.5.1 of the Mac Scrivener manual discusses wiki-style linking, which might be relevant to your situation, but this feature does not appear to be available in the Windows version.

For a dictionary specifically, I would use the split editor feature. Split the entries so that each has its own name. In one pane of the editor, use the Outline view to give you an alphabetical list of entries. As you need new entries, you can create the (blank) document in the appropriate location in the Outline view, link to it from the other view, and keep writing with minimal disruption.

Katherine

[MosesGhostwriter]

@kewms

This is the Windows sub-forum, but your profile indicates you are on a Mac?

For a dictionary specifically, I would use the split editor feature. Split the entries so that each has its own name. In one pane of the editor, use the Outline view to give you an alphabetical list of entries. As you need new entries, you can create the (blank) document in the appropriate location in the Outline view, link to it from the other view, and keep writing with minimal disruption.

Katherine

I followed a search result which pointed to this sub-forum.

As to your suggestion… so if I were to create a dictionary set of entries such as:
H2O - water
(line of text for another, intervening entry)
(line of text for another, intervening entry)
(line of text for another, intervening entry)
Water - a liquid [at habitable temperatures] which can enter either a gaseous or solid state depending on ambient temperature.

and that resides on one or two pages of the final product, you would suggest (from the example) 5 separate documents to create the ability to link between the H2O entry and the Water entry. Hmm.

I can see it being valid if each entry were a multi-page (possibly with sub-topics each having their own document) document such as might be stylized after an encyclopedia. But my “dictionary” is less ambitious taking up, to date, only twelve pages and ultimately only used by myself to keep track of items that will appear in my main text. Basically, what I’m saying is that I would like to open the file in a Quick Reference window, have, as per the example, the H2O line showing in addition to other, preceding entries, click on the word “water” and have the QR window scroll down to show the Water entry. As I read the manual, there is no linking to a specific point within a document, only to the document as a whole. So, if I had a document on chemical molecules with 10,000 entries within, I can only link to the document rather than to the text within it for water. Thus, clicking on the “water” in the H2O entry would require scrolling through a very long document. Not very practical in my situation.

Thanks anyway, John

[kewms]

Using multiple documents allows you to insert new entries in their proper alphabetical location at will. Whether you wish to preserve that structure to facilitate linking in the final document is another question.

Katherine

[MosesGhostwriter]

So, if I understand you correctly, I would proceed as follows:
I have an digital file of a book on chemical compounds with 10,000 entries. I import the file and then select each entry, cut it out of the original and paste it into a new document, titling it with the entry title. This would give me 10,000 documents under the document that represents the original. Using the link assignment, I could edit an entry reference to another compound. [Though I have no idea how I would get back to the original if, say 50 entries are linked to the same document.] [Hmm. A trivial task, forming all those documents, should only take a minute or two away from the central task of writing.]
Of course, there still is the original problem. Supposing one or two or many or all of the entries take up 10 or 20 or 60 pages and the bit that I am wanting to link to is on page 39. {Oh, wait, isn’t it easier than going through the hundreds of pages looking for the one sentence that I am looking for? Won’t it only take a few seconds out of my writing time? I could use the FIND command, unless, of course, I’m looking for a phrase that has the word ‘compound’.}
Another possibility is to keep everything in the original document until I need a particular entry and then do the cut and paste in a new doc link to it thing. Of course, that is better if I use my divine ability to see into the future and know that I will need it again.

Hmm. I will have to think again on your suggestion.
John

[lunk]

@DavidR

I have to admit that I haven’t really explored Scrivenings.

Scrivenings i simply how yo view stuff in the editor. It can be anything from simply showing one single binder document, to showing everything in all sub-documents under a parent document (or folder) or to showing a combination of individually selected documents.

The granularity of my writing differs. In some of my writing I have rather large chunks of text in each binder document, in others only a single paragraph. It all depends and doesn’t even have to be consistent within the same project. That’s the beauty of it.

[kewms]

@MosesGhostwriter

So, if I understand you correctly, I would proceed as follows:
I have an digital file of a book on chemical compounds with 10,000 entries. I import the file and then select each entry, cut it out of the original and paste it into a new document, titling it with the entry title. This would give me 10,000 documents under the document that represents the original.

No, for a situation like that you would use the Import and Split command to have Scrivener automatically chunkify the document for you. Or you could defer splitting it at all until you needed to break out a particular piece of text.

But how did you get from a dictionary of a few dozen pages to 10,000 entries? I’m afraid I’m having trouble visualizing the project from your description?

Katherine

[Mac]

@Biff

How can one add a bookmark / link to a piece of text (not to an item in the binder)?

This is possible, if use some HTML.

I don’t have any experience of Scrivener for Windows, but it does work on the macOS version of Scrivener.

You have to create an anchor at the target destination (word, sentence, paragraph, etc) and then create a link from the source location that points to the anchor.

The thread below includes a sample Scrivener project and its associated output to ePub.

Help with HTML?

I understand it is possible to insert an HTML link within a Scrivener manuscript, and that the link will be maintained in a compiled ePub. I’m struggling to make this work. In the attached example, when I touch the word Source, I want to jump to the Destination paragraph within the same ePub. If anyone can show how to insert the necessary HTML link into the Scrivener manuscript, I would appreciate it. Thx FYI: I know that Edit > Scrivener Link provides the ability to jump within a manuscript…

[Biff]

Sorry, I don’t get e-mail notifications mostly.

The thread below includes a sample Scrivener project and its associated output to ePub.

So it seems to work only with the output, not within the text in the docs / folders.

Many thanks!

[Silke]

Just thought I’d add my 2Cents, because I was also looking to bookmark sections of text, and have them show up in the side bar.
I do not, never have, never will, create a book chapter by individual chapter.
I write from Chapter 1, to The End.
However, I often have to refer back to something and being able to bookmark a location in a long document would be useful.
The Windows version does not have it, at least not in any useful (to me) format. It would be great to set project bookmarks.
Favorites only links the whole document, not the location. So it’s useless to me.
I use Find a lot (Would be nice to add that to the toolbar) because I can’t bookmark anything – it’s one reason I find myself writing in Scrivener, then copy/pasting to word, so I can do a TOC there.
Obviously that’s not the idea.

[CrossLinked]

I am curious if there has been any progress on this issue?
The question (at least for me) is how to cross-link to specific sentences or paragraphs within or between documents, as far as the writer side is concerned? (not in terms of compiling or reader side)

[AmberV]

Here is the discussion you are looking for. As noted there, we lack the underlying technology to make this feature, but there are some good ways of doing so that—as I go into at depth further down in the thread—rival the efficiency of more “proper” cross-referencing features in other software.

Feel free to contribute to the discussion there. I’m closing this thread specifically, to avoid fracturing the conversation further across duplicate threads.