Incredibly frustrated with Scrivener. No comments importing and can't do an external sync

[AmberV]

At this point we probably have enough data to find the bug, but in the interest of helping you get your workflow going again, absolutely. Feel free to send a sample to our tech support address. Make sure it is a sample document that halts or crashes the external folder sync feature.

[Tromano]

I like to export to epub too to copy edit. but then you can’t do it in draft.

[Tromano]

do you want the entire scrivener file?

[AmberV]

It’s up to you whether it’s the main project you send, or a subset of the project just for testing purposes. The only reason not to do the former is if you aren’t comfortable providing that. We of course keep everything strictly confidential, but not everyone wants to share their WIP no matter.

If it’s a size problem, a subset that excludes the research, and only contains the text you sync, is best.

[devinganger]

@AmberV

The odds of such a document being littered with advanced field codes and complicated page layout features at all is extremely minimal and trivial to avoid as you have to go well out of your way to end up with a document that includes those things.

You clearly have never had to deal with a rowdy group of external reviewers.

[drmajorbob]

@devinganger

You clearly have never had to deal with a rowdy group of external reviewers.

Yeah, on second thought, I’ll remain paranoid about Word imports. Too many users report too many weird things.

[kewms]

@devinganger

You clearly have never had to deal with a rowdy group of external reviewers.

I have. What I did was accept each reviewer’s changes in full, creating a new version for each of them. (Eight, if I remember right.) Then import all the changed versions into a Scrivener as new documents, and go through section by section to reconcile the changes. IMO, attempting to automate something like that is a recipe for disaster: in several cases, the requested changes contradicted each other.

[drmajorbob]

@kewms

I have. What I did was accept each reviewer’s changes in full, creating a new version for each of them. (Eight, if I remember right.) Then import all the changed versions into a Scrivener as new documents, and go through section by section to reconcile the changes.

That sounds tedious, but any way of doing it would be. I’d have to approach it by first deciding (or being told) whose opinion matters most.

If the answer is mine, I’d deal with the reviewers one at a time, independently. I’d never import any of it or modify it outside of Scrivener. For each reviewer, I’d view his/her version in Pages alongside Scrivener and make changes as I see fit, then move to the next reviewer. I don’t see, at all, what’s to be gained by importing foreign matter into Scrivener if it won’t become the official document.

If someone else’s opinion matters more than mine, that person should reconcile the versions.

On second thought, I just realized why treating the different revisions independently could be stupid. If three reviewers have changes to the same scene or section, I’d need to think about all three before making changes. Maybe.

[kewms]

@drmajorbob

On second thought, I just realized why treating the different revisions independently could be stupid. If three reviewers have changes to the same scene or section, I’d need to think about all three before making changes. Maybe.

Exactly. In this case, I was ghostwriting a paper with six different authors from three different companies. (Plus additional comments from marketing people, which is how I got to eight.) Each of whom naturally wanted his own company’s contributions emphasized. By reviewing all of the versions together, in Scrivener, I was able to assemble a consensus draft from the sections where they all agreed (or were neutral), then flag the sections where they disagreed as “Not my job to sort this out; discuss among yourselves and let me know.”

(This project is one of many reasons why Scrivener’s Document Split/Merge function is one of my favorite features.)

[devinganger]

I was thinking more of the time that I had reviewers who insisted on attaching a different document template and globally reformatting everything before giving me their feedback. (I was a vendor for a company with very specific and strict template and formatting requirements that all of the reviewers should have been familiar with…)

After spending a few minutes looking over their feedback, most of it was lost in all the format hell (they turned track changes on before doing the above.) I tossed out that feedback.

[drmajorbob]

@devinganger

I was thinking more of the time that I had reviewers who insisted on attaching a different document template and globally reformatting everything before giving me their feedback. (I was a vendor for a company with very specific and strict template and formatting requirements that all of the reviewers should have been familiar with…)

It’s hard to imagine putting myself in a situation like that or the one @kewms described, for any amount of money. 3 math degrees taught me, first and foremost, that some problems have no practical solution. (Like helping newbies through Scrivener issues via text messages.)

[devinganger]

“Nature is not only odder than we think, but odder than we can think.”
– J.B.S. Haldane