Press Enter to Skip to Next Search Result

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
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Hi, is there a way to skip to the next result when doing a Search simply by clicking Enter? The default seems to be: Cmd-F, add Search Text, results appears in binder, click on a result, then a dialogue box comes up with “Next” highlighted. That’s fine if you’re looking for just one or two instances, but if I have numerous instances in different contexts in a lengthy document what I’d like to do is press Enter to skip to the next one that appears in the Editor. The situation now is that I have to mouse over and click on Next, which becomes onerous if you’re trying to find the one particular instance out of 35 where you’d like to insert/edit text, etc. Basically, the same fast process in Word or Pages: Enter . . . Enter . . . Enter . . . Enter . . . Great, that’s the one, done. But in Scrivener when I press Enter (muscle memory) it shuts the dialogue box and I have to redo Cmd-F to open it again. Is there something obvious here I’m missing?

(BTW, Quick Search can’t do it as I can’t see much of the context of the search word.)

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Cmd-g is the standard MacOS shortcut for ‘next result’ and it works in Scrivener in the same way. Cmd-shift-g is for ‘Previous result’.

So the ‘Mac’ way of searching is `cmd-f``, enter the search text, then:

  • Enter to go to the first result (or click the Next button) and close the find dialogue OR
  • cmd-g to go to the first result and keep the find dialogue open

Either way, after that first find, open or closed, cmd-g / cmd-shift-g will move forwards and back through the results.

Another useful command (in Scrivener and some other apps) is cmd-e with text selected, then cmd-f will bring up Find with the selected text already in the search field.

I’m not sure if Scrivener has added extra features to the standard Find dialogue or not, but the above works on most properly programmed Mac apps.

Does that help?

2 Likes
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You are a certified genius! I never knew that, about Cmd-G, but now that I do it pretty much solved a problem that’s been bugging me for many years (and which I only just got around to asking about). Many thanks.

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You’re very welcome!