How could one get the lists to work?

[narrsd]

@Mad_Girl_Disease

Doing this could be more convenient than it is. But if you understand how the sync feature works, and what it does and does not do, and where the gotchas are buried, and you have a good system for actually using it, and you don’t confuse yourself too badly too often, it works very nicely. When I want to work with lists, or track changes, or navigate a document using headings, I sync out of Scrivener and work in Word for as long as I need, then sync back to Scrivener.

I couldn’t resist, Mad_Girl_Disease, and so I tried this.

And it does work, well enough that I could rapidly ‘fix’ a professional document that needed a complex enough list.

• Scrivener, for its faults, doesn’t show any if you just lay out your list line by line the first time.
• The File | Sync | With external folder works fine; just remember to create a project-named folder within a general syncs folder, selecting that one to use for your project.
• getting Scrivener to show fault is easy – just change an indent in your list, for example. Big time results, including different format for a level you already had (indent). Other deviations possible.
• If you had the synced file open in Word etc., remember to close it before you use File | Sync | With external folder Now (this is the command after initial setup). Closing lets Scrivener write it again.
• Once you’ve synced Now the faulted project, open your document file where the list is by double-clicking it in the file view on windows.
• now you see the same ‘results’ as Scrivener gave you
• the best way to fix things is to avoid detail, using Format Paint to transfer formatting of a good same-level line to the faulted one/s,. This works. If you don’t have a good example, you could make one temporarily in Word, then remove it when you’re done correcting, still avoiding any detail this way.
• once things look as you want, save and close the file from Word.
• in Scrivener, once again do File | Sync | With external folder Now…Shift-F6 also does work
• if you had the document open in Scrivener, now it looks right, all taken care of for you
• There’s a new Collection showing instead of the Binder on the left, indicating any files that were changed, which could be handy on a more complex job, but just a confidence here.
• You can select the Binder again on the left, to get your appearance back wherre it was. Or another Collection if you were using one.

So, much simpler to do than to write out, and a very quick pattern to have your fingers learn.

I’m sure Tiho and Lee are very aware of the fix needed, and have it prioritzed, but this is a rreasonably simple and dependable way until that upgrade happens.

I myself am happy to understand this, as actually I’d like to use Scrivener more for EU reports etc for my few activities which actually feed the bank a few beans. Its abiliies can really shine to keep such under control…

And by the way, Word itself also has a problem or two with lists – I saw it changing the level of indent quite wrongly for the line, when only tried changing the numbering format (e.g. ‘.’ to ‘a.’ I think. So, generally, patience would be a virtue…

Thanks, Mad_Girl