Scrivener is the Rolls Royce of writing software - you should be congratulated on making such an excellent piece of software. Nothing does a better job of organising our thoughts for long works and turning thoughts to words on the page in a manageable fashion. But Scrivener cannot do everything (nor should it). As a writer, I find myself cutting and pasting content into other tools far too many times. Looking at other SaaS offerings, API calls that connect various services are becoming commonplace and I find myself wishing - wouldn’t it be great if an API could connect Scrivener with Vellum, Adobe InDesign/InCopy or AutoCrit editing software. In my mind, these four tools offer best in breed solutions. Being able to connect these tools to the (Scrivener) source files would make my life so much easier and allow me to not only create but improve my text and present most professionally. Being open in software design can just make Scrivener even more popular than it already is. Keep up the excellent work because we love the product.
Thanks for the kind words. Although there are no plans for an API (I’m not even sure how that would work, and we have limited resources being a very small team), have you looked at creating your own Compile formats for exporting to these other apps? In Scrivener 3, there is a whole raft of things you can do with custom Compile formats. For instance, Scrivener 3.0.3 will come with a new Compile format that is named “Vellum Export”. It contains all of the settings necessary to create a .docx file that conforms to Vellum’s specifications for Word export, allowing you to take your manuscript to Vellum very easily. Most other publishing apps have import specifications and can import from common file formats in the same way, so it should be possible to set up Scrivener’s Compile to export and meet such specifications.
All the best,
Keith