Moving from Word wish list

[bimbogumbo]

General:

1. Email to beta readers option - having a regular group that I email to, I’d love an option to send to group, either direct or via email of choice

Some things that don’t work as well as Word:

1. Highlighting: I prefer Word’s ability to highlight a whole word just by dragging across part of it
2. Tables: cumbersome use & mgt in Scr; lines too thick; can’t add a new row by putting cursor on right of last row
3. Autocorrect: when mis-typing the same word regularly Word has a great feature which lets you specify the right spelling with ‘autocorrect to’
4. Improved custom dictionary import - at least have a feature where you can highlight all words from a list and hit ‘Learn all’ spellings (I had to add 799 by hand when switching from Word)

[reepicheep]

@bimbogumbo

1. Email to beta readers option - having a regular group that I email to, I’d love an option to send to group, either direct or via email of choice

I wouldn’t want this as functionality in Scrivener (on Mac). The management of mail groups is a function of the mailer the individual user prefers so a “beta readers” list should be in there not in Scrivener in my opinion. Feature bloat is a real problem with other packages (especially Microsoft Office). Separation of function is better.

@bimbogumbo

Some things that don’t work as well as Word:

That’s a matter of opinion.

I don’t use a word processor at all any more. Scrivener does all that I need. When I have to provide .doc/.docx format files I use the File > Compile option. When I want professional documents then I File > Compile to LaTeX and get the best typography possible.

@bimbogumbo

Highlighting: I prefer Word’s ability to highlight a whole word just by dragging across part of it

I prefer the way that Scrivener does it. The commonest use I make of highlighting text is to correct occasional typos or undo autocorrect (from Apple’s Textedit module). If such a change were to be made to Scrivener than I hope it would be a user-selectable preference.

@bimbogumbo

Tables: cumbersome use & mgt in Scr; lines too thick; can’t add a new row by putting cursor on right of last row

Yup but tables are hard in any application. Here I would deal with the table setting in LaTeX after I had File > Compile to LaTeX.

@bimbogumbo

Autocorrect: when mis-typing the same word regularly Word has a great feature which lets you specify the right spelling with ‘autocorrect to’

Maybe it’s a Mac-only thing but the Project Auto-Complete list feature is really useful. Great for dealing with common misspellings and project-specific so the unnoticed change of words in a second project protects the user from their own stupidity.

@bimbogumbo

Improved custom dictionary import - at least have a feature where you can highlight all words from a list and hit ‘Learn all’ spellings (I had to add 799 by hand when switching from Word)

Again that’s easier on a Mac as Scrivener uses the OS X dictionary maintenance functionality. If a word was added in another application then Scrivener picks it up.

[AmberV]

1. The common Mac way of highlighting by word is to double-click on the word and then drag to expand the selection in either direction. Incidentally, you can also triple-click to select with a line/paragraph level of granularity.
2. Try pressing Tab in the last cell of the table to advance to a new row. We have very little control over the appearance and functionality of tables though. This is a pre-supplied kit that comes with the Mac.
3. Also note that OS X’s automatic spelling correction can be toggled in Scrivener’s Corrections pane: Correct spelling errors as you type. I believe that “learns” as you go, but I’m not terribly familiar with it. I prefer using hand-crafted lists for things that I know I tend to typo frequently, as these global solutions choose the wrong word more often than not. You can create such a list using OS X’s Keyboard:Text preference pane (there is a button that opens it at the bottom of the Corrections pane). You can use that for typos as well as symbols. If you want more control and better management, there are some good options for the Mac. I use Typinator, TextExpander is a popular choice around here, too.
4. Future reference: the custom dictionary in Mac OS X is super easy to work with. It is just a plain-text file, one word per line, located in your ~/Library/Spelling folder. You can edit that to batch add or remove word lists.