When importing a bunch of web pages, how do people manage the webpage URLs? Do you put the URL in a tag/comment?
Is there any difference between saving a webpage and doing a file->import as a file or doing a copy/paste straight from Safari?
Thanks.
I always convert the web archives to text, which automatically puts the URL for the original page into the document references.
Dragging a webpage from the browser to Scrivener’s binder is the same as using the File>Import>Web Page… command, and brings the page in as a .webarchive file; if you save the file first in your browser as a .webarchive and import it as a file, it ends up the same, but as far as I know only Safari will save as a webarchive. (Though it sounds like you’re using Safari anyway, so that may not be a problem. In other browsers, saving as HTML won’t bring in all the images, CSS, etc. so you’ll get the text but if the page had a lot of images and so on, it’ll look pretty ratty. “Complete” doesn’t work since it’s not a single file; you’ll end up with the HTML source and a folder of reference files. Saving as text only again will end up with a bunch of code for where images should be, etc. so it’s not terribly pretty.)
Using copy/paste to just grab the text off a webpage will work fine; you’ll be pasting into a pre-existing document in Scrivener, so it’s just a normal Scrivener document with some text you’ve pasted in. If you’re doing that, the Clippings Service can make it easier for you–just select the text (only text) and use the Services menu option to choose one of the Scrivener services: Append to Current Notes, Append to Current Text, or Make New Clipping. You can read up on all the details and options of the clippings service in §11.2 of the user manual.
I’d just like to come in here and thank MM for the tip. I didn’t know Scrivener did this and I was always pasting the URL at the top of the page.
If you copy the URL and then choose File>Import>Web Page… the URL will appear as the location in the dialogue box (which can save a bit of time).
The most tedious task after importing and converting web pages to text is dealing with all the tables that have often been used to structure the original page in HTML.
Worth knowing if you’re having layout issues after converting…