I have been experimenting with a trial copy of Scrivener and also one of Writing Outliner for MS Word.
I wonder if the great layout of Scrivener over rides the integration with Word offered by Writing Outliner.
I can not get settled into either at this time and really need some advice from someone who may have experience or knowledge of both programs.
I realize this may be an odd question to ask on here but it seems like a great crowd with honest opinions.
Thaink you
Jim
Well, I began writing for a living with MS Word 1.01 back in the 1980s (I think it came free as a tip-in floppy disk in a computer magazine), and I used Word through Windows 95, and then about 10 years ago shifted to the Mac and its version of Word, along the way writing many magazine columns, three books, and editing around 200 books and over 100 issues of a magazine.
In 2006 I tried a late beta of Scrivener, and as it grew in capability I used Word less and less, until I now no longer use it at all. There’s a copy of Word 04 on my hard drive, but I haven’t opened it in at least a year, and I’ve edited the magazine, from raw manuscript to output to InDesign, exclusively in Scrivener since last August.
There’s a bit of a learning curve–not because Scrivener is hard to use, but because it doesn’t follow many of the old-saw conventions that word-processing users have come to expect, mostly because it was written by a writer who knew what he wanted and learned how to program it, and not programmers who focus-grouped what writers wanted, and tried to give it to them.
The WIndows version is still a work-in-progress, as near as I can tell, but people do use it successfully, and the Mac version, once you learn how to use it–go through the interactive tutorial, start doing simply things and let the difficult things come to you–it’s a very powerful and intuitive tool, the most useful single program I’ve used since I bought a WordStar clone for my Commodore 64.
Thank you
I appreciate you sharing your experience and opinion.
All of my previous work is saved in Word or OneNote format so wondered if it would be cumbersome to work with these files in Scrivener.
Jim
Jim
Not cumbersome at all for word docs (never used OneNote)
Perhaps Amber or Jennifer can help you with the OneNote info
Drag any of your docs into the desired folder in Scrivener
Scrivener makes an RTF copy of any of your files leaving your originals intact
Marta
Hi Marta,
I have found my way along there and am amazed at how well Scrivener handles the conversions.
Links work well for me on the larger documents in both Word and OneNote.
My problem now is utilzing notes. AmberV gave some great help but there are situations when it does not yet come together for me.
Thanks
Jim