No Sync option in Windows

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
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Hi all. Apologies if this has been covered before, I did search but didn’t seem to get anywhere.

I’ve been working with Scrivener for the best part of a year now, and love it. I recently joined Joseph Michael’s Learn Scrivener Fast to see what I can do better and noticed he had a tutorial about How To Work On Your Project From Any Location (Without Scrivener)

As much as I’d always choose to use scrivener to write in, I can’t install it on my work laptop, which means whenever I want to write on that if I’m travelling, I have to export the whole project to Word, use that while on the other computer, then manually carry it back into Scrivener.

This module of the course looked like a godsend, because it detailed how you could sync your project to a dropbox folder in a way that you can make the documents editable in Word for offline use. Sounds amazing, and would revolutionise my writing! Only one problem, the instructions are to use the Sync function, which isn’t on the Windows version.

Is there any way to get this functionality, so that I have the ability to work on sections of my book in word via dropbox, then get it to sync back up?

I already store all my scrivener folders in dropbox, so it’s surely just a way of setting up how they save?

Help me litterature and latte, you’re my only hope!

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This feature hasn’t been introduced quite yet, but we are getting close! In the meanwhile, all this feature really does is automate what you can do yourself by hand—and indeed this is what I did myself before the sync feature was added to the Mac. The trick is to simply use the File/Export/Files… command to export RTFs, bring them to work with you, work on them in Word, and then when you get back home, just open them back up in Word and copy and paste the changed version back into Scrivener. Given that you can add Modified Date as a column to Windows Exporer, it’s pretty easy to see what needs to be imported.

Yeah, it’s not as nice as clicking a button, but it works. :slight_smile:

Some people also import the modified RTF files and delete the old ones that they are replacing. I personally do not prefer that method because I like to use links between sections, labels, keywords and other features. Wiping out the old section and replacing it with a new one would destroy all of that vital organisation—but if you do not use snapshots or synopsis cards, that will be even easier than copy and paste.

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Cheers Amber, sounds simple enough, I’ll give it a shot!