I’ve been trying to get Scrivener more Android-friendly and recently learned about using Dropbox and the Sync to External Folder option to turn Scrivener files into .txt files and using your Android (and, in my case, Chromebook) to edit them, then save them to Dropbox, then sync them in the desktop version. Problem is, I also work on my iPad, and I can’t seem to find a way to get that to sync to an external Dropbox folder apart from the one it goes to automatically, in the .rtf files we normally find in Scrivener.
What I’m looking for is a way to edit my outline files on my phone when I’m out and about and don’t have my iPad with me (or it’s just inconvenient to get it out). That way, when I get that Great Idea for the next bit of plot, it’s there when I need it.
Of course, it would help knowing how the .rtf files are named so that I don’t have to open a bunch of them when looking for say, a particular character sketch, or one specific event.
But failing that, I do need to know how to get iOS to either sync to a specifc external drive folder with .txt files in them.
You have to sync it back to your PC first and let the PC Scrivener autosave to its Dropbox folder and let the Dropbox app sync, etc.
The “sync-with-external-folder” is a strict PC (and Mac) thing and has to be handled there. Before syncing with any iOS devices.
Setting aside Scrivener for iOS (which can’t link to a sync folder), you can of course approach this like you would on Android, by using something that can sync to a Dropbox folder and edit files in the folder. I believe Editorial does a good job of that. It’s been a while since I’ve checked as I don’t really use Dropbox that much.
I wouldn’t go about attempting to edit the RTF files inside of a project by hand. That’s just asking for a mess as most software isn’t programmed to work with Scrivener’s syntax. Plus you’re going to get your search index all out of date every time you do that—not a big deal, but manually resetting it is something you’ll have to remember to do every time.