Moving from Scrivener to Word and Back

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

The work I do involves a lot shifting back and forth between editing and writing.

I enjoy editing my files in Scrivener but I often prefer to write in Microsoft Word.

I’m trying to figure out the best way to keep track of my changes – and to keep my files in sync-- as I go from Scrivener to Microsoft Word and back again.

For instance, if I’m editing a file called “FIRST SCENE” in Scrivener, and I want to do some writing in the file in Word, I usually will export “FIRST SCENE” into Word and then work on the file until I’m done for the day. Then I’ll Import “FIRST SCENE” back into Scrivener. At that point, I’ll have two files called “FIRST SCENE” in Scrivener and I’ll delete the earlier file.

Although this works, it feels like a laborious process to me and I wonder if anyone works in a similar way and if so, if they’ve discovered a better way to move between the two programs.

Thank you!

2

I prefer copy and paste for numerous reasons. If you’re constantly creating new binder items whenever you edit, then you can’t rely on a number of features such as Scrivener Links, references and pretty much all meta-data will be too clumsy to use (you’d have to apply your keywords all over again each time you edit, for example).

As for keeping track of the past, that is what the Snapshot feature is for. Open up the Inspector and click on the camera icon at the bottom to store the current state of the text. If you do that before pasting updates back in, you’ll have a nice list of historic document states.

3

Thank you. That’s very helpful!