I decided to export my book to use the power of libre office’s highlight feature to flag often used words quickly and painlessly and import back in. In order to keep the names of each section I also exported the titles in the document and added # at each one so I can import it back in. Now, everything went smoothly and my book returned to scrivener without too many issues, but there is room for improvement
Things I noticed that could use improvement.
You have the compile function of adding a symbol to folders (I use the @ sign) However on import and split there is no way to use this. When I imported I had to find all the folders and redo them manually.
One thing I would love to see is removing the title line after importing, see the provided snapshot
Instead of having to go through it manually and remove each line it would save a lot of time and effort, along with mistakes, by having Scrivener remove it all together and keep the title name
Hierarchy keeping. Here’s an example of my standard hierarchy
It’s for a future image system when I compile it for my publisher. It would be really nice if say the number of symbols, @, @@ would mean nested folders and documents and the # would mean one document under the @@ (nested) folder. This way once you import and split it everything would be in place without any kind of mistakes. Of course compile would have to include this too. “This folder is nested in this folder so I add another @ sign to make it @@.”
I think that’s it of my compile/import and split suggestions.
On a side note it would be wonderful if you could have advanced search and replace across all documents with highlighting options like libre office does but that might be more difficult.
I think a better solution to this problem would be for Scrivener to compile headings with stylesheet assignments instead of just using formatted text, and then when you import a document, you can choose to use the stylesheet heading structure to split the file back up into hierarchy. Hmm, might be something to look out for in the future.
Otherwise, you’re basically describing how Markdown works with headings (using “#” instead of “@”), and Scrivener does support hierarchical import of these headings already. Of course Markdown is a plain-text format so this technique doesn’t really mix well with word processor type stuff—like green highlighted words.
I’m not exactly sure what markdown means, but how would I import and split with headers? because I could search for the bolded text in libre office (or the @ sign) and replace them with headers if that turns them into folders in the future. Scrivener is awesome, but sometimes I must compile to use the full power of a good word processor, if only to save time. Highlighting my problem words to have splashes of color like that only took 10 minutes, compared to 2 days the macro way I used the last time I decided to do this.
Hmm, I wonder if the new folder sync feature might not work better for you, considering the purpose you are compiling and then importing for. The folder sync feature (see §13.1, Synchronised Folders, pg. 120 on) basically creates one file for every section in your binder. You can then use a word processor to highlight phrases within these files and then sync the changes back into Scrivener. No need to compile, no need to split things back up into separate chunks by heading after import.
You will want to test things a bit to make sure all of your formatting survives sync—LibreOffice should do fine though, you more have to watch out for simpler programs like WordPad.
Hmm, yes, it does make an easier versin to externally edit but I must remember to hit the right button to import them back in, that’s a neat feature. Thanks for pointing it out for me, I’ll examine it later and see how it works for me.
Edit: yes it is a nice feature but I must always apply my own style back to it, I have a custom formatting style that allows for quick and easy style formatting. I just have to go through each one and make sure the * are centered when I use it. (Would be nice to make a shortcut up in the top toolbar for it but that’s beside the point.) I changed a fikle and reopened it to try it out and noticed the formatting, in particular the page spacing got changed, instead of the text flowing smoothly across left to right the right edge was squished off, leaving a great white space. I tried both libre office and word.
Now I have edited the files directly with word mobile, but I saved it elsewhere for reinserting later when I was out of the house and bored. The italics became a different font tho, I wonder why.
Sorry for taking so long to reply, I’ve had a lot of stuff going on and on my mind and forgot about this post until I happened to think of it.
