Hi all, been using Scrivener for years and just wondering if anyone has used it on the new Windows Surface Pro tablets and if it’s fine? Looking at getting myself one but I will be using Scrivener a lot on it and wanted to make sure its compatible before I push the big red button.
Cheers,
PeteG.
Hi there @RedRightHand, and welcome to the forums.
This is kinda vague. 
Do you have any specific concerns?
For instance, if you’re wondering how well Windows Scrivener v3.1.5.1 works with touch screens, the answer is that it doesn’t work well with them at all. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t designed with fingers or pens in mind. (The forum contains a number of posts on this.) I have a Lenovo X1 Yoga laptop, but would never use Scrivener without either a mouse or a touchpad.
Best,
Jim
My work machine is a Dell Latitude, probably 6 years old by now with an Intel 7th Gen Processor.
Same form factor. Yours is simply speced up here and down there, as upgrades tend to go over the years.
Mine runs Win 11, Scrivener and M365 Desktop like a Boeing, so you ought not have any hassles.
Hi @RedRightHand welcome to the forums.
I think the important question here is whether Scrivener can run on an ARM-based Windows 11 PC. From the reviews I’ve read I’m guessing it probably does through the emulator built into the Surface Pro 11 to run apps that are not coded for an ARM processor. And also based on reviews it sounds like the emulator works well. But that’s all speculation, the only way to really know will be to find someone who has tried, or who has a Surface Pro 11 and is willing to install Scrivener to test it, or to buy one then send it back if it doesn’t work.
I bought a Surface Go 4 which has a 10.4" display. It works but the screen is way too small to run Scrivener. I’m now using Scrivener only to keep the binder in shape, and then use in MS Word on a synched folder to edit the RTF files. The two seem fine together, although I’m hoping the new simplified product from L&L will be able to handle everything I want it to do in the new product.
Cheers Tom, this is what I was looking for. I have a surface pro 6 and I use Scrivener on it currently and works really well. I have already pressed the button and my new surface arrives on Monday (according to delivery company). I will update this thread when I try it out. Here’s hoping, and thanks to all for your responses.
Thanks @RedRightHand I have a Surface Pro 9 which I love, but am intrigued by the capabilities of the 11. I’d love to hear how you like the 11 in general, and particularly how Scrivener runs on it—if it didn’t run, or didn’t run well, that would be a show stopper. Looking forward to hearing how you like it!
Hi @RedRightHand—wondering if you’ve been able to test Scrivener on your new Surface Pro? And would love to hear what you think of the machine overall. Hopefully it’s a dream machine for you …
I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet unfortunately. It’s just sitting there but I had to go out of town. Next week back home with luck and I’ll give an update then.
OK, I have now played with it a bit and it works almost as good as my old surface. Sometimes a little laggy on startup with a large project but the functionality is the same. Can’t say the same for other things, various apps and drivers don’t work on the new ARM based win 11 platform as yet with is a little annoying. Happy to answer any questions people might have about the windows pro. I will say the OS is far more responsive than my old surface though.
After 6 months it looks like I’ve resolved the problem with the small screen. The issue appears to have been that while I was using the default screen size, which shrinks stuff ‘way down’, I had set the text and app enlargement to 200% which screwed with Windows ability to properly display web pages (like being unable to download and install certain apps because the check boxes were off the screen). I’ve reset the text enlargement to the default of 150% and everything works well now. I’m going to say that it was the result of a recent upgrade rather than me not seeing the ‘default’ suggestion in the first place.
In Scrivener, you can scale your Editor size. It doesn’t affect/is independent of other programmes and/or the internet experience.
I run my editor at 180%, font size Aptos 10, which is something akin to running Word at full width (a comfortable working size for me). It also allows for cramming in more info in Tables at 7pt font, which renders like a 10 pt font at 100%. This is all on a 13.6” (16x9) display.
Apologies if this come late. My own research into the Surface Pro 11 brought up that the x386 apps are not natively supported on ARM processors, so the Windows 11 ARM emulator (called Prism?) make x386 applications run somewhat sluggish, even though they reportedly do work.
My own speculation is this is not a deal killer, and I would hope this issue may resolve itself in a future updates to either Windows 11 (emulator performance improvements) or by Literature&Latte as they may learn to implement more and better native support for Windows implementation of ARM processor instructions. The work they already do with Apple suggests the developer talent for that next step may already be in house. Just takes time.
{Another vote for open standards anyone?)
In the case of Mac Scrivener, the developer toolkit that Apple provides did a lot of the work.
Just as a perhaps closing comment to this post, I’m 99.99% sure that Autohotkey will not run on the ARM processor, even through the emulator. For me that would be a deal killer as I use Autohotkey extensively to streamline Scrivener, especially in terms of things I do frequently that require multiple keystrokes without Autohotkey. However, from what I read on some forums, it sounds like Intel is working hard to get their next gen x86 chipset up to speed to be able to meet Microsoft’s requirements for the Surface Pro 11. So there may be a resolution to this that doesn’t require an emulator …