Locking files?

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

I’m a PhD student and love Scrivener. I often end up creating two versions of a file: one for a presentation (the text that I refer to in a conference or other presentation) and one for the longer, technical journal submission. After the presentation, I end up putting both files up next to each other, BUT it’s sometimes hard to remember “change on the left, ignore the right.” In the past when using Word, I would simply lock the file in the finder, and then I couldn’t make any changes to it. But with Scrivener, when I lock the file in the Finder, I can still make changes (kinda) but then the file crashes, and when I reload it, I get an error message about Scrivener not working with locked files.

So is there some internal way to lock a file? Prevent changes to one and not the other?

Edit: I see I asked this differently here- https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/text-pane-background-color/37108/2

2

There isn’t an editor lock, but snapshotting a document is a way of making an immutable copy for reference. Hit the Cmd-5 shortcut to create one (or open the snapshot inspector pane and click the + button). To load a snapshot into the editor as a reference, drag it from the list of snapshots into the editor header bar of your choice. Since snapshots are embedded into the document itself, that means you can keep things tidy with prior notable revisions, lecture dates, etc. all under one heading.

From the user manual PDF, see also:

  • §15.6, Using Snapshots, pg. 222
  • §19.8, Snapshots Pane, pg. 269.