After watching a few youtube tutorials I downloaded Scrivener. Several users have stated that they just started using it and learned it as they went along. Some even admit to only having learned a small sub-set of features. This appealed to me, I grasped enough to get started.
I’m loving it so far and already have 90,000 words of my scattered notes inserted into some semblance of order for my (non-fiction, non-technical) book.
I started with a blank template (I found the existing templates to be too confusing for a first time use). In the binder on the left I have “Draft” below which I’ve placed folders as rough chapter outlines and these contain text files each containing a theme or concept.
Now I need to copy all of this into the “Research” area and write it up nicely in the main section. Please can anyone suggest how best to proceed?
Also, I cannot see the word count when I click on the parent entity in the binder “Draft,” I can only see the word count for each individual folder and text file.
I’m sure I’m not doing this optimally. Any suggestions much appreciated.
You can move items in the binder via drag and drop with the mouse, or using the Documents > Move directional commands (Ctrl+Up/Down/Right/Left like an outliner). You can also select the items and choose Documents > Move > To and select your destination container, the Research folder in this case. Those menu options are also available in the right-click context menu in the binder. So you’ve got options.
Word counts also show in a few different places, so which you want depends on what you’re after. The editor footer shows the word count of all the text loaded in the editor, so if you choose a container such as the Draft and view its subdocuments in Scrivenings mode (View > Scrivenings), the footer will show the full count. You can also view word counts as a column in the outliner. The “Total Word Count” will show the summed count of a container’s text and its subdocuments’ text. This can’t show the root-level folder count, though, so if you’re trying to view the sum count of the Draft, this won’t work for you.
Instead, use Project > Project Statistics. This gives you a word count of the currently selected documents (with an Options tab to refine the count) and also a count based on your current compile settings–it essentially runs a PDF compile in the background to get an accurate word count of what you’d see if you compiled the project right then. This takes into account any text added during compile, such as “Chapter One, Chapter Two” etc. and also any text removed–for example if you use inline annotations, these will be counted in the editor footer for speed reasons, but if you’re choosing not to compile them, they will not be included in the Draft’s Project Statistics.
Many thanks for that detailed and generous reply Jennifer. I actually discovered another option - ‘duplicate.’ Using this I duplicated the entire document structure and then moved it into the research section. Then I went back to the main section and deleted all the text effectively leaving me with a chapter structure that doesn’t contain text.
I also created a new parent folder with the book name under Draft and moved everything into it. Doing so enabled me to see the word count. This is all fine for now as I write but will of course need refining when it comes time to compile for publication. Hopefully by then I’ll have really grasped the subtleties of this wonderful program.
For total word count, now that you have your notes removed from the Draft folder, try Project->Project Targets. That window will show the total word count of your project. You can also set targets for the total draft, if you have a word count goal, but you don’t have to.
