I cant seem to solve this problem on my own.Ive tried to upgrade Scrivener several times but it seems Im stuck with Scrivener version 2.8.1 . At the same time my MAC is literally SCREAMING for an upgrade from Mojave to Catalina, but if I do that, my Scrivener 2.8.1 (witch refuses to update) crashes and I loose my 100 000 word crime fiction manuscript. PLEASE HELP!!!
Will that version be compatible with Catalina? And last, but not least, Is this “new versions” you have to buy something that occurs on a regular basic? (Maybe I should have stayed with my trusted “Word”, at least It cheaper)
If you bought from the Mac App Store, but are willing to switch to buying direct from L&L, contact sales AT literatureandlatte DOT com for information on how get a discounted upgrade to v. 3 with your Mac App Store proof-of-purchase. That’s also your contact if for some reason #1 didn’t work for you.
If you wish to remain a Mac App Store customer, you will pay full price.
In the meantime, you can download a trial version of V. 3 (that will run for 30 days before it demands a license) from this page: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/download. It’s a full version, not a crippled one.
Finally, if you wish to revert to Word (cringes), the simplest way is to compile to Word and use that as your starting point.
I’m not sure how you have come to that conclusion. Microsoft Word on its own is $140; alternatively you can subscribe to Office 365 for, at the lowest price, just over $8 per month ($99 per year). Scrivener is $49. In the thirteen years since Scrivener was launched, there have been two paid updates (v2 and v3), at $25 each to existing users. So the total price to a user who purchased Scrivener in January 2007 and has used it ever since has so far been $99 (actually less because Scrivener’s price has gone up a little over the years with inflation). It would have cost you a lot more to pay for all the updates to Word over the years!
There are basically two main software payment models:
You buy the current version, and can carry on using it forever if you want (although it’s only guaranteed to work on your current OS, so if you update your OS you may need to check if you need a newer version). You get minor updates for free but pay (either full-price or at a discount depending on the software) for major upgrades. (Again, it’s your choice whether you pay for the upgrade, but you might need to if you decide to upgrade your OS.) It depends on the software company how often paid updates are. Screenflow used to push out a paid update every year. Ours have been three and seven years apart respectively, and it’s already been three years since our last paid update (v3 was released in 2017).
You pay a monthly or yearly subscription to keep accessing the software.
We prefer the first option. Either way, though, software developers can’t create upgrades for free forever, because they need to eat.
The inability of Scrivener 2 to work with Catalina is due to Apple’s decision to end support for 32-bit applications. We have no control over Apple, and therefore cannot guarantee that they won’t do anything similar in the future.
As noted, though, Scrivener 2.8.1 was released in 2016, and the last paid upgrade, Scrivener 2.0, was released in 2010.