Hi - I just downloaded the free trial version of scrivener for windows (running on Windows 7) and am having a problem with the editor creating typographical errors in the editing mode. I notice that it is substituting letters left and right - “d” becomes “l”,“i” becomes “e” - it’s so frustrating having to go back and correct every other word. the letter substitutions is not consistent and I have made sure that I’m not just striking incorrect keys - something about the software is causing many, many more errors than when I simply use Word as the text editor. Any insight into this problem? I am interested in purchasing Scrivener, but not if it actually makes my writing slower!
Thanks - angie
This is happening while you’re actually typing? The only thing that would cause this within Scrivener is substitutions or auto-correct–I suppose if Scrivener were using the wrong dictionary language, you might get odd auto-corrections. In Tools > Options, select the “Corrections” tab, then check that the correct dictionary is listed. If it’s not, use “Select” to change it or “Download” to get the proper language, or just turn off the spelling options entirely. You may want to try disabling “Correct spelling errors as you type” even with the proper dictionary, to see if that makes a difference.
If “Enable additional substitutions” is checked, click the “Edit Substitutions” button and look through that to make sure there’s nothing odd in there. These are exact substitutions, not “whole word” or such, so if you have “ir” set to change to “it”, as a random example, then “irrelevant” will become “itrelevant” and so on. Edit, disable or delete any substitutions in here that might be causing trouble, or deselect “Enable additional substitutions” to prevent any of them occurring.
If you’re still getting odd changes while you’re typing even after these adjustments, particularly with both the spelling corrections and the additional substitutions disabled, there’s probably a separate program running that’s interfering with the keystrokes being sent to Scrivener. I saw something like this with an antikeylogger a while ago. Try temporarily disabling any software you have that monitors keyboard input–security software or text expanders are most common–and see if that resolves the issue. You could try booting Windows into Safe Mode to disable all the programs that usually launch when you start Windows, but most likely anything running will show in your task tray and you can turn it off from there. If that resolves the typing issue, re-enable the programs one by one until you find the one causing the problem. Then check that program’s preferences for a way to whitelist Scrivener or otherwise prevent it activating while you’re working there.
After fiddling with the autocorrect and substitutions options, the problem is somewhat better, but not entirely. I’ll have to play around with my other programs (McAfee Security is the main one that runs in the background) to see if they are affecting this. Here is a sample of what I’m talking about. The faster I type, the worse it is…
After meessing eith bosh of the autocortect and other options, et oetms that the problam is somewhat resolved, but I still have to type hlower than I oould like ano soml of the ksymtootes are still coming oun ridiculous.
That’s supposed to say: “After messing with both of the autocorrect and other options, it seems that the problem is somewhat resolved, but I still have to type slower than I would like and some of the keystrokes are still coming out ridiculous.” In typing this sentence in the window to post my response, I made maybe 2 typos that I had to go back and change. In Scrivener, typing at the same speed is causing output like the above. I will report back if I can solve the issue, if not, perhaps Scrivener is not in the cards for me at this time. 
That really looks like something is affecting the keyboard buffer, especially since it’s worse the faster you type. If McAfee doesn’t seem to be doing it, you can use task manager to check what other programs you have running or msconfig to prevent specific items from starting up when you log into Windows so you can find the culprit. (Here’s an article on using msconfig in Win 7.)
Ah - thank you for the insight. After using msconfig, I discovered that a keylogger (GuardedID) was the culprit.
Off to enjoy unimpeded use of Scrivener!
~A
Ah great, glad you found it!