How to widen the text so that more of the screen is used?

[rekidder]

My complaint is that Scrivener’s default setup made it nearly impossible to figure out how to actually start writing. I was sitting down, excited to begin the first chapter–which had just hit me, like lightning in a bottle–and now it’s gone in a haze of frustration that makes me want to put a fist through the screen.

I’ve created character sketches, and places, and read over the tutorial until it got to the part that said “you can just write, if you want to” [paraphrased]. But I created a new chapter, with a new text, and opened it in the editor, and clicked on the top line, and started typing…and nothing appeared. How do I just write? After 45 minutes of frustration and google searches, I’ve discovered that Scrivener arbitrarily included NINE FULL INCHES of margins on both sides of my teeny tiny little text and unless I click on the six inches in the center, it just doesn’t register my mouse click.

Why is the vast majority of my screen unusable? Why is there no indication of which part of my screen is usable? Why do I not find any other user’s complaint about this same problem?

I’ll most likely get over this, but for tonight I am simply heartbroken
n that a night of creation has turned into troubleshooting that simply assumes I think just like it does. I’m a creative, I think like me, not anyone else! I’ll add a screenshot, if that is even possible and easy to find.
(An error occurred: Sorry, you can’t embed items in a post.)

[Kevitec57]

Sounds like you’re just writing on the Corkboard.
Suggest you open the Interactive Tutorial from the Help menu.
That will get you writing before you worked your way completely through it.
Scrivener has three primary modes, one of which is the Editor, which itself has two main states.
Be that as it may, do yourself a favour and read through what I suggested. At most it should take an hour to work through its intro elements to give you a broader understanding.
It’s the “Quick Reference Guide” missing for newbies, though down the line you’ll find quick reference has a whole other meaning in Scrivener.

[kewms]

I’ve boosted your trust level to allow you to post screenshots. We restrict posting for new users as an anti-spam measure.

@Kevitec57’s suggestions are good.

[fto]

There are pretty good video tutorials to help you get started.

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/learn-and-support/video-tutorials?os=macOS

[AntoniDol]

@rekidder

How do I just write?

Forgo on adding any character or background information for now, make sure the left button of the three in the Buttonbox centered in your Main Toolbar is selected, create an item in the Binder if none exists already, and type away.

[ThoRab]

Hi.
It’s easy for me to say that starting a new writing project with Scrivener is simple, since I’ve been using the software on the Mac since the first version, so for many years.
Many authors I talk to often write to me that Scrivener is too complicated and they prefer normal word processing programs like “Word” because they can just start writing.
But it is precisely this expectation, often out of habit, that closes them off to the options that Scrivener offers. I never tire of explaining to my colleagues that Word (or other word processing programs) and Scrivener are not comparable. Scrivener is not a simple word processor, but an authoring tool that requires a certain learning curve.
L&L has many useful introductory videos to help you get started, and the included tutorial is extremely useful for getting to grips with Scrivener.
From my own experience, I still remember that many things seemed unfamiliar to me at the beginning, for example, dividing a manuscript into different documents, the collections, the compiler, etc., but today I can’t imagine writing without these features.
I’m sure you’ll easily overcome the first hurdle, and the forum members and support team are always very helpful. If you get stuck somewhere, just ask.

There is a lot to tell, let’s write it down!

Regards,
Thomas

[ShermaVP]

You are getting some great advice there, rekidder, as I have during my two year slog with Scrivener. I feel your pain. Persistence pays. For what it’s worth, here is something for you to smile about…

[xiamenese]

Actually, it is supremely easy to “just write” in Scrivener:

• Open Scrivener;
• Click on Blank in the sidebar of Project Templates dialog that appears;
• Click on Blank in the right pane and type Return or click on Create…
• Name the project and choose where to save it…

Thus far, the only difference between opening a Scrivener project and a word processor document from a template, is the last step of giving it a name and saving it to a location before you start typing.

At this point a window opens

with the cursor already in the editor

• Start typing.

You can type a whole novel there if you want, but Scrivener is designed to work best when you split things up. My point is that you don’t need to start by creating character and location sheets; you don’t need to immediately create a structured outline, as Scrivener gives you the tools to split things up, move them and merge them as and when you need; you don’t need to explore the use of the corkboard.

You can just start typing, and apart from that one step, it’s no more difficult than starting in Word. All the rest you can learn as you go along. And, just as Word-users generally only use a fraction of its features, few of us use anything near all the features provided by Scrivener.

Of course, if you choose one of the other templates, like Novel, it opens with a long disquisition on how to use the template. But you can always just click on Scene in the Binder (in the case of the Novel template) and start typing, only going back to the introduction to the template when you’ve got that inspirational idea down.

Disclaimer: I write this as someone who has been using Scrivener since the launch of version 1. That is how we learnt to use Scrivener, by getting in there and starting to write; there was no tutorial or templates at that time. I still start projects from Blank, though I have tweaked my own version with my project settings, and I don’t think I’ve ever done more than glance at the tutorial. That said, I still would advise a newcomer to start going through the tutorial, if only to learn some of the terminology to make it easier to ask for help. But for me, learning about the outliner, the corkboard etc. and about compiling can wait until you’ve got what it is you want to write started.

Mark

[rekidder]

I appreciate all the suggestions, but what I am mostly seeing is a recommendation that I read the tutorial, which I said in my post that I had done. This is not about whether Scrivener is too complex or whether the features are useful. I was trying to a) point out a behavior that is unhelpful and confusing and b) possibly help other new users find their way faster, since searches all took me to suggestions that there was a tutorial or explanation of how to use the complex features. See the screenshot. Areas marked with the blue lines are completely non-interactive. I had to accidentally discover that of the 24 inches of screen real estate Scrivener had available, I could only interact with 6 inches of it.

This could possibly be made easier with a border of some kind or just by allowing activation of the field by clicking anywhere, but maybe you could also include it in the tutorial, or in some sort of hint list.

I like the features, that’s why I bought it. Like I said, I’ll get over it, but I think this behavior or the explanation of it could be improved. Thanks for the trust upgrade!

[kewms]

In the View → Text Editing menu, please enable “Show Ruler” and “Show Invisibles,” then take another screenshot.

Two things that can cause the behavior you are seeing are unusual indent settings and embedded tables.

[AntoniDol]

Or rather File > Options >Appearance > Main Editor > Options > Fixed Width Editor, and the setting for Editor width on the same screen.

[kewms]

I don’t think that’s it, as the background for the fixed width Editor should be a different color from the page. But certainly worth checking if my suggestions don’t work.

[Kevitec57]

Seems not on Windows. This is with Fixed Width unticked.

This is with Fixed Width ticked.

The OP should look at this as @AntoniDol suggested, specifically the Default editor width in points.

[Terry_Haddow]

ReKidder - I feel your pain. But rest assure it is not as complication as it first seems. I am not going to recommend you watch a tutorial or use a template.
I first got Scrivener V2 with some sort of bundle (cant remember how many years a go). Like you, I opened it, looked at it and though - “Na - many use Pages or Word. This looks complicated.” I ignored it for 3 years.
I wrote a 90,000 word document in Apple Pages. As good as Pages (or Word) is, when it came to trying to edit and see where aspects of my story were, it became unyielding. I then looked at Scrivener again.
I didnt use templates. I didnt watch tutorials.
I opened a blank doc. Just made each scene (thought or chapter ) a new text (the plus symbol at the top of the page) and wrote.
Only when I had a lot of thoughts/ words/ chapters or what ever - did I come back to learn some more about the structure. I still dont use 70% of what Scrivener can do.
But the ability to have your document in parts where you can come back and edit/revise etc without haveing to search the whole thing is extremely handy.
My advice (as many here are trying to say) - just open a blank doc; get your ideas down (dont worry about page layout, font etc). A new “text” (from the plus sign at top) for new chapter or idea.
Then come back later to learn the things you will find handy (it is different for each user).
As somebody who rejected it to begin with - I now find it invaluable. Nearly all my types of writting goes in here.

[Twolane]

Just wait until you get to the Compile function. Good luck with that.

[Kevitec57]

@Twolane

Good luck with that

As we said back in Sub-A, it’s puttysticks. Really—left to right, top-down, then it flows like a process.

[pigfender]

To the peeps who posted about having adoption challenges… You’re getting some good help to get you started, which is great. One comment I would like to add, though, is don’t rush the learning process. Scrivener is complex software. It’s professional grade, and like all professional grade software you should expect to have to invest a little time getting to know the software before you become proficient.

If you had a fantastic idea for a piece of art and wanted to sketch out some ideas quickly before you lose the moment, that would be a terrible time to open Adobe Illustrator for the first time. The same is true of AutoCAD, Sage Accounting, MS Excel, Final Draft, DaVinci Resolve, Blender, Xcode, and all of a hundred other examples of world-class professional applications you could choose to add in here.

The Interactive Tutorial is a great place to start. If you prefer video learning, https://www.youtube.com/@scrivenerapp has some great resources. You’ll almost certainly find that, once you’ve gotten your head round some core concepts for how Scrivener works, it’s really pretty easy to use. If there are still specific issues / concepts you’re struggling with after that, then both the forum and formal support channels are available to help.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a burning desire to get an idea out of your head quickly, then a pen and paper is always great. Or just blurt out words in the text editor of your choosing; Scrivener will be able to import it super easily once you’re familiar with it.

But, “simply heartbroken”? C’mon. You’re not 4.

[rekidder]

Kewms - excellent. I’d recommend that we enable this setting by default. I hadn’t done anything to cause the behavior, I just have a big screen. Had the ruler been enabled by default, I would have known where I was allowed to click to start typing.

Character sketches didn’t have this issue, because they are never going to be sent to print and are left aligned in the window by default (where most users are going to click to start typing)

[rekidder]

AntoniDol - Another helpful suggestion, thank you. The default that probably got me was “center the editor when using a fixed width”. It seems the solution that would solve everything would be to just have different colors to distinguish the editor from the non-interactable area.

You see, because I have a giant screen, I thought I was doing something wrong, but no searches turned up a result because what I was doing wrong was “You just haven’t found the tiny little area that is interactive”. Thank you for these suggestions.