I am writing an illustrated history book projected to have about 120 photographs. So while I’m working on it, I want to organize a series of files of images with captions within my manuscript for potential inclusion in the final book. I see that I can do that in the Research folder, but not the Manuscript folder. What I’d really like to do is this, at least while I’m working on the Manuscript:
Have folders organized by Chapter (Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.). Within each Chapter I would have the different parts of the text that I am drafting, as well as a folder with images and captions that I can also look at in Corkboard mode, which is very useful. It’s just easier to have the contents of each Chapter nested in a single folder together in the sidebar, instead of having part of Chapter 1 in the Manuscript portion of the sidebar and part of it in Research folder. Is there any way to set it up to allow that? Or am I forced do this the opposite way: move the whole Chapter folder, including the text draft, out of Manuscript and into Research?
I am assuming Scrivener is set up this way so that you can only have images in the Manuscript that have been inserted directly into the text in the places when it comes time to compile. But right now, while I’m still selecting which images to use in each chapter, I’m not ready to do that. The book designer will no doubt handle the images and captions separately from the manuscript anyway.
If anyone has already figured out a good system to work on an image-driven book that also contains straight text, please let me know. I am on a Mac, in case that’s relevant.
In a book with many images, I had folders per chapter in the Project folder, but not inside de Scrivener Project folder. I used Transformations with the full filepath to the image files, except for the folder, filename, and the extension, which stood in the tag itself, and were replaced during Transformation. Captions were in the Editor with a Editor Style. You cannot see the images themselves until you compile, but it doesn’t slow your Project down in any way.
Not quite. Chapter 15.6 does go over putting images directly into the manuscript, which I had already figured out. It also explains that one is not permitted to put them in the draft, so that explains why I was only able to put them in the Research folder.
From what I see there, I have two choices. Let’s say I am working on Chapter 1:
I have two folders called Chapter 1. One is in the Draft and contains a file with the text portion of the chapter. One is in Research and contains images and captions so I can view them all on the Corkboard, reorder them, etc.
I have only one folder called Chapter 1 that is in Research and contains both the draft of the text and the images and the caption drafts. I guess I can work that way for now unless someone has a better idea.
I appreciate your responding although I don’t completely understand all the references, especially about the Transformations, but maybe if I study Chapter 15.6 I will. It seems like you are describing embedding images in such a way they will be available to the compiler which could be useful at some point but I’m not ready to do that yet.
I have a couple of possibly tangential thoughts (meaning that you should ignore them if they are not interesting or helpful):
If you plan on publishing through a traditional publisher, check to make certain that it wants images in the manuscript versus separate from it. For example, the publishing house that I head requires references to each image in the manuscript, but the images themselves are to be separate.
Scrivener’s power and flexibility amaze me, including the ability to place images. However, if you plan to publish independently, a dedicated layout program might give you more control over the final layout–though it’s more work and there is a learning curve, to be sure.