How to add Bookmark (aka Project Note)

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
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1

I generally understand how to open various panels to see bookmarks (Project Notes), but how do I INSERT one? This has mystified me for years.

I need to somehow tell Scrivener that this exact location in a certain chapter is a place I want to be able to easily navigate right back to. Once the bookmark (aka Project Bookmark aka Project Note) is in there, I know how to find it again. But how do I INSERT it?

Every time I try to do this, a menu comes up that wants me to select some chapter from the list of everything in my manuscript. I don’t want to go the long way around—I’m already at the exact spot!

Can someone please tell me how to do this or if it is or is not possible? I have literally spent years trying to hunt this down. Thanks.

2

Maybe there just isn’t any “Bookmarks” feature in the program (that will allow you to jump right to a certain location).

Using the Comments section, I can select some text and create a locatable anchor that way. But this doesn’t show up in a global navigation panel (that I can see so far).

3

Just grab a Binder item and drag it into the Bookmarks panel.

4
5

That “bookmarks” an entire chapter. I don’t what that. I want to jump to an exact point in my book. Like the way a physical bookmark in a physical book works.

6

OK. So is there a feature that does something similar?

7

Make your own tag.
Something like =$= for example.
Then later use search to find it for you.
That’s how I go about it.

8

As Apple would say: “You’re splitting it wrong.” :disguised_face: You may use comments instead.

9

Or yes, use comments.
. . . . .

10

That’s a hack that would work, yes. But a program this sophisticated should have something that doesn’t require such a hack. Of all things, a writing program. People read books. People use physical bookmarks to keep the place where they’re at in the book.

If I have been paying for and using Scrivener for over ten years and this still hasn’t been implemented yet as an easy piece of UI, then it seems like an issue worth fighting for.

I have just finished over the weekend the first draft of the first novel in a series, 164,000 words. I have five more books to write. I need a bookmarks feature.

11

Seriously, “comments” do exactly what you want.

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12

Almost.
They don’t show up anywhere in any list.

Unless you give them a personal tag, and use project search.
(Which is exactly what I depicted above, but without the extra step of inserting a then useless comment.)

I agree to some extent with the OP on this. (Assuming it is part of his issue.)

13

OK, great, I’m open to an alternative. But how do I get them to work globally?

If I have one chapter selected in the left-hand binder, I will only see that chapter’s comments in the right side Inspector. (Whereas the Bookmarks icon shows Project Bookmarks across the entire manuscript, albeit not navigating to specific locations.)

14

Of course they do. Select the chapter (or even the book or any items “above” the document containing comments) and all comments of all items show up and you can jump from there to the exact comment location.

15

Right.
There’s that.
Good point.

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16

The Edit/Project search (search in “all” field) would provide you with a list without the need to select all your documents. (Assuming you use some sort of tagging system like I do.)

Or select all (or what you think is necessary) of your documents from the binder, and go with @November_Sierra’s how to.

But still, yes, it’d be really nice – really really nice – to have a feature to go about it.

17

OK, this is actually getting somewhere. Thank you so much!

For inserting:

  • select text
  • Command-C (to copy)
  • Shift-Command-* (to create comment, which immediately opens the Inspector sidebar, Comments panel, and selects the date-time stamp the program just put in automatically)
  • Shift-Option-Command-V to paste the text you just selected (so that it becomes the Comment name), thereby deleting the date-time stamp
  • Click in the white space below all the comments OR in the text somewhere on the left in your chapter (to exit the Comment)

For navigating to Comments:

  • Select your Book in the Binder (to get all the text of all chapters brought up in the viewer)
  • Open Inspector
  • Open Comments panel

It would be great if there was some option like Shift-Opt-Command-B (which brings up a floating panel of Bookmarks) that would bring up a floating panel of Comments. Maybe there is?

18

It’s not called “Bookmarks”, true. But select your manuscript in the Binder (the root item, if you want), hit ⌃ ⌄ ⌘ K and boom, all your comments. In a list. Jump-ready. To the exact locations.

19

What would that be, menu wise ?

20

Navigate → Inspect → Comments & Footnotes (something along those lines, using the wrong interface language right now).

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