Hi everybody. I’m a French comic book and novel writer, and I’ve been happily using Scrivener for a decade now… Recently, I came across a roadblock, and I would like to know if it’s something that Scrivener doesn’t do, or if I’m missing something.
When importing an image in the binder (e.g. as a reference document in the Research folder), the image is imported in full size. Is there a way to reduce it within Scrivener, or do I have to do it before importing ?
Thanks for your answers.
1 Like
If you search this forum for “reducing image size” you’ll get some ideas that have been previously discussed. Before putting into my Scrivener Projects, I usually resize and convert my (not photographs) to *.png files. Photographs are kept as jpeg and resized. I use a number of tools , including Pixelmaker, ImageMagick, … Others are out there and may be mentioned in the past posts on this topic.
1 Like
OK, thanks a lot. I thought I scanned the whole forum without finding my answer (a lot of questions / answers about resizing images in the document itself, but not in the binder. That said, maybe I read too fast, or didn’t undertsand everything, English is not my native language). So to sum up : I can’t resize the images in Scrivener itself, right ? I’ll have to use a third party app for that.
You can change the size at which images are displayed in Scrivener, but you can’t change the amount of data in the file.
1 Like
OK, it’s very clear, thank you very much !
When viewing an image, the Navigate ▸ Open ▸ in External Editor keyboard shortcut will do what you think it will. However by default it might not be useful, if it loads in something simple like Preview. You might want to right-click on this button here, to set which software Scrivener should use to load images of this type:
Now when clicking that button normally, or using the shortcut, it will load in Photoshop, Affinity, or whatever you prefer.
By the way, I hardly ever put images into the project itself. Instead my preference is to link to them, so that the binder is showing the image from its original location. The File ▸ Import ▸ Research Files as Aliases|Shortcuts is the command for doing this. There is no downside in Scrivener. It will be a binder image in every sense you are used to—only you can easily edit it from anywhere else, and use software capable of batch resizing images, or whatever else you need to do. It also keeps your project size much trimmer.
I suppose the only downside is if you use multiple computers all of the time.
Wouldn’t having the file on a NAS or cloud address that issue?
Potentially, it depends on how you set things up. Aliases on their own do not communicate well across systems in most cases (particularly across the 'net). Scrivener for Mac does have some self-healing code, but it does require the resources to be in places nearby the project, such as in a subfolder at the same level as the project, or at the same level of the project. It won’t go hunting far an wide for broken links though.
Oh, importing by linking the images is a brilliant idea ! I didn’t know this feature existed (mainly because, in the menu, the french translation of “research files as aliases” is too literal and doesn’t really mean what it’s supposed to mean). This will be very helpful, I think that’s what I’m gonna do !
I’ve tried it using the NAS and iCloud and APPEARS to be solid. (a couple of attempts on the two systems isn’t exactly rigorous testing)
It’s not something I use, or think I have a use for, just gave it a whirl in response to the query.
Apples and Oranges? With Apple iCloud the files are “local” (unless set to be online then iCloud downloads on demand–I think). Files stored on a NAS are “remote” using a file networking protocol (SMB, AFP, NFS, FTP, etc.) on a file server and is not its performance highly affected by the quality/speed of the network connection?
Yes, my hunch is that NAS and iCloud would work “most” of the time, but rather than iCloud (reputation for unreliability, deserved or not) I’d use Dropbox which I find is reliable. I have a Synology NAS, and they provide Synology Sync which might work better than direct connection for the purpose described in this thread.
I just used iCloud because it was the first thing I clicked on. It could just as easily have been Dropbox, PCloud or Sync which I have. iCloud is generally reliable, but can be a lazy sync.
My NAS is a Synology, but for the purpose of this test I linked directly to a file on the NAS that is not synced. I use SMB as AFP is deprecated and I have both a Win box and Win ARM running under parallels on my MBP.
I do have an old (obsolete) DS-323 that I could try, but it’s ancient, slow and I don’t trust it for anything other than some non-essential archiving.
1 Like
Haha, you guys are so brilliant ! So many new ideas here, I might try iCloud… 
I think you are deviating from your original problem. the big image files will still be big when stored on the local iCloud sync folder. What problem are you fixing?
1 Like
I’d guess same size file, different dimensions in display.