I now that I placing a document in the research binder makes a copy of the document so I can delete the original file without affecting access within Scrivener. Right? My questions are 1) where are these files stored within Scrivener? 2) Are the accessible other than viewing in the binder, and 3) is it possible to export them from the binder back to recreate a copy in my computer’s file structure?
I just discovered the answer to exporting. Go to the EXPORT command. (Duh.) The first two questions are still in play.
1: Somewhere in the project bundle (in the Finder, you can choose to view the contents from a right-mouse click).
2: If the footer is visible, there should be an icon that allows you to “open in external editor”, or you can probably find that option in the menu. This is by far the better solution, rather than browsing around inside your project outside of Scrivener, if you want to view or edit a file that you imported into scrivener.
If you are curious about the particulars of the project format, it is documented in Appendix E of the user manual, starting on page 528.
There is indeed a menu command (and keyboard shortcut) for opening files in their original editor: Documents/Open/in External Editor. The button referred to in the footer bar also lets you choose the application to load the file in, though.
To emphasise one point, also made clear in the manual, but you shouldn’t ever mess with the internal pieces of a project package (or folder, on Windows). The format is transparent and easy to navigate so that if something awful happens you can at least have a last-ditch plain old file and folder recovery option. There are no proprietary lock-downs or anything here.
Thank you all for the replies. It all seems so obvious now. I guess I should have read past page 500 in the manual. I don’t plan to dig in and tweak anything, just wanted to make sure I could safely delete files I put in the binder and be able to get to them later in case of corruption or other problems.
Reading the manual from cover to cover is not for the faint at heart. I’ve been using Scrivener for about 4 years now, and have never ready more than 1 full chapter of the manual. I’m sure I’d learn even more about Scrivener by doing so, but a well-stated question in the forums will often lead to the info you’re looking for, or at least the right words to search for in the manual.
As for deleting things, the only safe way to delete a file from a scrivener project is to move it to Scrivener’s trash and then empty the trash.