I’m working with an extremely long document (thesis chapter) that I need to cut to about a third of its size. Thus, I need to delete a lot of text. Here’s my problem: I want to delete the text, but still be able to see it in the document. Ie, I need something exactly like the Tracked Changes function in Word where I can turn on “Track changes while editing” and the text I delete will either remain in place but be struck through, or it will be removed, but shown in the comments pane as deleted text. In other words I need to delete stuff, but still see it in its original location. Do you know how do this with Scrivener?? I’ve tried using “Revisions mode” but that just highlights text i’ve added, and gets completely rid of any text I delete.
This is such a basic function it seems impossible that there’s no way to do it in Scrivener, but how?
I.e. you take a snapshot of the document (cmd-5 or shift-cmd-5 if you want to name them), then compare the two versions – deletions / additions will be highlighted and can be rolled back. The comparison can be by word, clause or paragraph. Snapshots are covered fully in the Manual (from the Help menu).
The second way of doing this is to use Inline Annotations (highlight the text and cmd-shift-A) – the selected text is drawn with a bubble around it.
This gives you way of seeing what you’ve deleted in situ – and by default annotations aren’t usually included in compilation so you don’t have to do anything to produce ‘clean’ copy (make sure you include space at one end of the annotation though, or you’ll have a double space in the clean text). You can also set project word count targets to ignore them too.
You can convert inline annotations to inspector comments with a single command (Documents > convert > Inline annotation to Inspector comments, I think).
Have a look in the manual for inline annotations / comments – there’s quite a lot you can do with them.
Hope either of these methods works for you – or you can mix and match, of course.
Strikethrough seems like the most natural strategy. I seem to recall a) a compile option which would show/hide all struck-through text from your compiled output, and b) a menu option to literally remove all struck-through text from a document or documents. Was I dreaming? If not, strikethrough is exactly what you are looking for.
(I myself find inline annotation way to useful for other things to ever consider coopting it for this purpose as some have suggested.)
–gr
P.S. Probably you have some special use case here (collaboration or reportage) that makes working the way you describe a must, but IF NOT, if you are looking for this only out of a felt impulse as a writer, I would strongly urge you not to work in a way that visually preserves old versions of your text within your text. Use snapshots whenever you are going on an edit spree and are worried about how it will turn out - this safely stows the current version of your text out of sight and out of mind where it belongs – giving you both security and a clear forward path. I know a writer who uses font coloration for the purpose you describe and with multiple color options they are able to float many felt distinctions between not-really-deleted text. It is like what you are asking for but in a multi-dimensionally flavored edition. The result? It is really hard for them to make progress in their writing, because this habit of holding on turns what should be linear text into a many tentacled beast – a monster of decisions never made! Drafts done this way tend to get thicker, rather than more done. Once you go down that road, it can be a really difficult habit to break!
This is helpful, @brookter. I think I’ll start with this method and see how it goes for me. I wanted a method that doesn’t display the deleted text in the inspector (since I already have a billion footnotes and comments there) AND removes the “deleted” text from the overall word count, which you say I can do, brookter (could you let me know how to do this?). Thanks!!
@GR (or anyone who cares to answer), when using Snapshots to “track changes” with a large, complex project, is it best practice to snapshot the entire project each time, or just the documents/folders/sections I am working on at that particular moment? I’m thinking probably the former (especially since the organization of my project is likely to change at some point), but maybe I’m wrong and it’s better to keep a series of smaller snapshots? Thanks!!!
Thanks again - looking into Snapshots now (was aware of this function before but hadn’t really used it). When using Snapshots to “track changes” with a large, complex project, is it best practice to snapshot the entire project each time, or just the documents/folders/sections I am working on at that particular moment? I’m thinking probably the former (especially since the organization of my project is likely to change at some point), but maybe I’m wrong and it’s better to keep a series of smaller snapshots? Thanks!!!
I use “named” snapshots of the whole project, with a kind of version number and some additional comment so I know what that version was. I find it easier than trying to remember which subdocuments changed when, and doing it piecemeal…
I just snapshot individual documents when I feel the need.
When you talk of snapshotting the project, I assume you are talking about this function:
I think it important to note that snapshots are always only snapshots of individual documents – the above is just a convenient way to snap multiple docs. So, in particular, the way documents are arranged in the project is not preserved by snapshotting. – if rearranging docs is what you meant by eventually rearranging things this is good to know!
The only thing which literally “snapshots” (preserves) your whole project is a backup/duplicate of it.
I have to say I’m pretty disappointed with what Scrivener provides in this regard. I tried the snapshotting feature – it is way, way behind where MS Word and Google Docs were like a decade ago.
I have to make a snapshot of each and every one of my documents. Sure this isn’t so bad, except for when I have to fiddle with the interface to see my differences… I have to set that up for each and every one of my documents… and I have many.
I have to make a new snapshot every time I want to see my redline changes. This means I can’t see them as I work… why oh why, when this is standard on everything else? I find myself fiddling with a million things to get something that happens automatically in way more basic tools.
There is a partial redline mode in Scrivener – Format / Revision Mode / 1st Revision – this shows in red text I added… but it doesn’t show the stuff I delete. Why oh why? Why not show my deletions? This is so common in everything else…
Why Scrivener – a tool that so beautifully supports writing… why can’t you support editing? I’m finishing my first book project with Scriv, it is great to write on but hell to edit. I’m either (1) copying/pasting the whole document back and forth from Google Docs or (2) keeping it in Scriv, but making comments to say what I changed, etc, etc… just so I can have the healthy relationship with my editor that I expect. My editor tried installing Scriv and we could find no good process. ugh. This is the kind of thing that makes me super-hesitant to use Scriv for my next writing project, as beautiful as it is to write… if you can’t also collaboratively revise what’s the point?
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