My proof reader want to work in MS Word. I know that I can compile for Word and send the file to her like that. What is going to happen when the corrected files comes back? Will all the marked-up corrections be lost? How do you deal with this situation?
I always send the text to be proofread as a PDF, asking the proofread to use the annotation features of his/her PDF reader. I don’t like the mess track changes make of a document, and prefer to keep the document I’m working on separated from the revised/annotated one.
In any case, you have to work on any single change. You can’t just click a button and accept them all, without evaluating them. So, it’s not as if having your proofreader work in Word makes your work easier.
If your original is still in Scrivener, then, you have to split the revised document into separate documents in Scrivener, if you want it as it was before sending it to the proofreader.
Paolo
I am more than happy to work with PDFs but the proofreader wants to work in Word. I send a .docx, I get a .docx back with comments/corrections. I don’t have Word and have no intention of buying it. What will happen if I import the corrected .docx back into Scrivener? Sorry, I don’t have any way of testing this as I haven’t used Word since the 1980s.
What do you use as a WP? I don’t have Word, but use Nisus Writer Pro; I also have Pages and Mellel, but don’t normally use them … occasionally Pages if I have to work with a single-page, one-off docx. All of them can read and write .docx and work with comments and track changes.
Scrivener doesn’t work with track changes, so if your proof-reader is insisting on that, you’ll need to use one of those or Open/Libre/NeoOffice to go through the edits and changes. Comments shouldn’t be a problem with Scrivener, I believe.
Mr X
A few months ago I sent my publisher a .docx file of my book compiled from Scrivener, and the editor sent back a track-changes markup in Word. I opened it in Pages (having ditched Word some years ago), and track changes, and marginal comments, worked transparently.
Thank you very much, Ahab, that is just what I wanted to hear.
Another vote for Pages. Flawless IME.
Worth getting your proofreader to send back a sample Word file with a few changes and comments to make sure everything works as you need before editing the whole manuscript.
Or get them to use Scrivener.
Best
Briar Kit — a fellow resident of Wessex / the Bucolic Ocean