I save all my scrivener files in dropbox. Sometimes I’d like to view my writing from my android phone but every app I’ve tried shows all the formatting stuff and it’s almost impossible to read.
Does anyone know an Android app that would open the RTF files in an easy and readable way?
The project format is open so that one can always be safe with the knowledge that recovery is possible using basic tools. It is not meant to be an invitation to go in and mess with the internal files using other editors. Think of the project format as a bit like a “database”. Everything in there is interconnected, and messing around with it could cause corruption.
If you must work using a mobile platform, then consider exporting the files you need to work on, and then bringing the updates back into Scrivener once you are home. The File/Export/Files... command will also give the files a friendly, recognisable name, instead of using internal ID numbers, and sort things into folders similar to how they appear in the Binder. You can also choose to export to plain .txt, substantially broadening the number of editors you can use on tablets and phones.
I don’t want to change any files just view them…yeah I know i’m asking to screw things up royally.
Passively viewing things should be fine, no worries there. I’m not familiar enough with Android to recommend any RTF editors, but that is what you are looking for. There are a few proprietary codes in the raw core files that you may encounter, depending on how many of Scrivener’s editing features you use, but these can be easily read around (unlike trying to view RTF in a plain-text editor).
I keep OfficeSuite around just for reading RTF – it’s about the only Android app I know of that will. The document viewer on Jelly Bean would do it, but in KitKat that was replaced by QuickOffice, which doesn’t do RTF. There’s also a Microsoft Office app for phones, but I don’t know if that would read .rtf or only .doc/.docx.
I had the same issue. What I managed to do (for Mac OSX only) is make a converter I could put in my Dropbox to change from RTF format to the much more flexible MD format. Note: Your pretty text formatting will be lost in this change, but your italicising, bold, headings, dot points will not.
So my work flow is to sync Scrivener (for example) to my Dropbox folder, run the converter and then edit the files as Markdown on my phone. Then I save them.
When I get home, I run the Markdown to RTF converter and then resync and bam, I’ve got my RTF formats imported into Scrivener.
The files are command line, but self-explanatory. If you want to convert from Markdown to RTF, you type md2rtf *.md
That converts all the files in the directory with the .md extension.
Here’s the link to my blog post with the files:
http://sparkygetsthegirl.com/blog/2014/08/28/scrivener-dropbox-android-writing-app/