I recently compiled my first novel into .doc, did some work on it, then imported it back using File>Import>Import and Split. The Word file used ## between scenes. In my (possibly imperfect) recollection, the import brought in chapters as folders, with scenes nicely tucked into the folders. Is that possible? I just tried it again on second novel, which was compiled using the same template as the first pass. I had to add ## before the word “Chapter” (attached item 1, the word document). I got all the scenes and chapters as scenes (item 2, a Scrivener pane).
WHat’s the best way to bring the document back into Scrivener?
Your best bet would be to use the Move command to nest the scenes under their respective chapters. Import and Split has no way of knowing the difference between a chapter and a scene: it’s not going to be able to reproduce the hierarchy of your outline.
Documents -> Move -> Right/Left will nest/un-nest the selected file(s). Documents -> Convert -> Convert To Folder can be used to “folderize” your chapters.
Hi, I’m new, standing on the diving board ready to take the plunge. I’ve put some hours in in trial mode and Scrivner “thinks” like I do. In fact I’ve been trying to replicate its organization in word documents for years and the last time I tried to reorganize where my novel starts, well. I discovered scrivner.
My word documents are, while I can’t claim organized, structured in a way that I’ve almost managed to import, split, useing document outline. My problem is that I can only seem to import 1 level (chapters).
My current word structure:
Level 1 Title page. – happy to ignore as your structure is better.
Level 2 Chapters – These are coming in very nicely as folders.
Level 3 Scenes – This is my atomic or building block level and is being ignored on import, or more precisely as text… Ideally these would import as text groups or folders that I would convert to text groups as sanity protection.
Body Text - Imports very nicely as - text.
So if I could preserve the second level of nesting I’m ready to cut over to Scrivner and begin dragging and dropping my new structure.
Again, Scrivener has no way of knowing what your structure in Word looked like, but it’s fairly easy to tweak the hierarchy once you get everything imported.
If you haven’t already, I’d recommend taking a look at our Interactive Tutorial, available from the Help menu. It’s a good overview of the Scrivener interface.
Thanks for the quick response. I suspect this is a problem many new users face and the import functionality is,so powerful.
I have done the tutorial, which was overwhelmingly informative, thank you. I’m still a little confused on this function. This old thread is the only documentation ive been able to locate, but I am a complete novice with your knowledge base and forums.
I actually stumbled across the import using document outline by deleting the # character in the import dialog. It triggers a context menu with the outline import checkbox. It’s possible the context menu only triggers when a document with outline structure is selected and no delimiter is in the dialog, I haven’t experimented.
This Scrivner import function does appear to understand the chapters are distinct folders and associates the correct text in them. So how is it reading level 2 structure perfectly but doesn’t perceive level 3 structure immediately below it? Its not an easy manual process to recreate, several days work unless im missing something.
It would be easy to tweak after the fact if it imported all outline levels and dumped them as indiscriminate folders (ie unnested) . I could easily drag and drop to re-nest them but level 3 (scenes) are coming in as dumb run on text , appending the entire chapter into one undifferentiated text document.
Hope that makes sense. I used to work tech support in a different industry so understand that we may have to try a couple of things.
There’s always the manual, available from the Help menu. Section 9.1.6 explains the Import and Split function in detail, and Section 15.4.1 talks about manual splitting.
