I want to love Scrivener. I really do. I love the concept, the tutorial, the potential…
But I can’t get it to do what I thought would be easy to do.
I have my Scrivener installed on my home Desktop [Windows 7, Word XP, if that matters]
and on my carry-around-to-write-in-cafes Netbook. I can open and use Scrivener on both computers.
But how do I get what I’ve done on my Netbook copied over onto my Desktop?
I spent hours on my Netbook the other day getting my WIP into Scrivener, setting up files and folders and chapters and scenes and notes and all that fun stuff. But now I want to get all that onto my Desktop.
My ‘understanding’ is that the Compile function puts everything into one long piece of work, so that’s not what I wanted (having just carefully divvied up the long piece of work into Scrivening bits, lol!]
I read the tutorial PDF and followed the instructions to Export – everything was saved as a Word doc, and I exported each file, scene, notes, etc. onto my flash drive.
Then I tried to get the stuff from the flash drive onto/into my desktop Scrivener.
I had again go piece by piece. And only one of the files transferred.
The others – saved as Word docs – kept prompting message that conversion impossible.
WTF? I’m obviously doing something wrong. Where do I go to find the answer? I thought there was a way to sync what’s on one device to the other…? Please help! Many thanks…DMac
Just copy the project (it is the whole folder) from machine to machine (flash drive will work). Then open the .scrivx file on the desktop.
You don’t need to repeat anything.
Keep in mind, you need to make sure only one project is edited at a time and then copied to the other system. There is not a merge function available in any version of scrivener.
The way the scrivener products are designed to work together it should be just that simple. If you have any problem just post them here. Someone will help you figure it out.
Sigh. OK I am having a problem. It sounds like a simple process, so I must (still) be doing something wrong.
I got the Project X file copied from the Laptop onto the flash drive. Opened Project X from the flash drive (while still on the Laptop) to make sure all the new files and text were there, and they were.
Opened the flash drive on the Desktop. But when I click on the Project X file, it opens Scrivener to a New Project. All that shows up is the Draft-Tutorial.
I’ve tried this entire copy and transfer and open process 3 x now, and the same thing keeps happening each time. So I"m doing something wrong, clearly. But what?
DMac
I apologize in advance for asking some VERY basic questions – b/c I’m wondering if I’m mis-identifying “folders” and “files” etc.
When you say to import-export, do you mean actually click on “Export” (or “Import”) while in Scrivener? Say I’m finished with writing for the day, on my Laptop. I save the Project X.
Do I then Click on File–>Export to my flash drive?
That’s what I thought I did the first time, but when I open the Flash Drive on my Desktop, I can’t get it to simply copy over as The Project – I had to copy each piece, each text file or notes file, etc.
So that wasn’t the right thing.
Then I tried what was suggested – copy the Project Folder [listed under DOCUMENTS-- Scrivener - Project] onto the flash drive.
I did that, but when I open Scrivener on my Desktop, and click on the NAME Project Folder, it opens the next level, listing Folders for Files, Settings, Snapshots, and then one that says project [Title X] – if I click on that,Scrivener opens to a New Project.
and the project [Title X] file doesn’t have any contents.
Should I be dropping and dragging or something?
I got the Folder icon from the flash drive onto the Desktop computer’s ‘desktop’ – but when I click on that it opens up the same thing I just described above.
CLOUD – which do y ou use? Dropbox or…?
I’ve always avoided but if it’s easier than the flash drive process (i.e. if it works) maybe I’ll try.
Thanks for your help…
I’m not understanding what you mean by all the uppercase words, double dashes and brackets.
Anyway, import-export is for bringing information into or taking information out of the currently open project. It’s not for moving projects around between machines.
When you open a project directory in Windows Explorer you will see, at least, the following:
Files (a directory)
Settings (a directory)
Snapshots (a directory)
project.scrivx (a file, should be 15KB for a fresh project)
The last one, project.scrivx, is the file to double click to open Scrivener on that project.
If you have Scrivener already open on some project you can use its menu system and do File/Open and that will bring up a file browser window titled “Open Project”. Use that to find your project directory; perhaps on a flash drive. Open the project directory and select the project.scrivx file and then click the Open button. Your project will open in a new Scrivener window.
Note that “folder” is another name for “directory”.
Now, are you actually seeing a file in your project directory with the literal name “project [Title X]”?
You should be seeing a file called literally “project.scrivx”. If you are seeing the Title X and not seeing .scrivx then maybe the problem is with your flash drive. Maybe its formatting and file system is not able to show long file names and extents like .scrivx. This would only be likely with small old flash drives. Try a new one of 4GB or larger.
Thank you for your careful and patient explanation
Sorry the caps and brackets were confusing; they were intended to make things more clear ;-p
The caps are how things are listed in Word, e.g.
C:/ DOCUMENTS/SCRIVENER/Title
I used brackets to indicate the title of the project, which is not actually Title X, just a placeholder title that’s shorter than the actual title. I’ll use the title “Fake Title” for this discussion.
Dashes to separate words
The flash drive is 8 GB and only one third full.
Good to know that Import/Export is only for getting info into/out of the open project (for example from a Word document or other file?) and not for transferring the project between machines. I can stop messing around with that for now. No wonder following the instructions in the manual for Import/Export didn’t work! ;-p I should change the title of this help post. (Is there a term of art phrase for “transferring the project between machines”? )
Didn’t remember (if I ever knew) that folder is another word for directory.
Yes, when I open the directory the list is as you describe
Files (a directory)
Settings (a directory)
Snapshots (a directory)
project.scrivx (a file, should be 15KB for a fresh project)
except that it did say, literally
project Fake Title
It is a .scriv file but nothing is in it 0 bytes
So I’ve deleted that b/c it was clearly a mistake. I changed the name when I copied it over into the flashdrive, so I could locate it easily; maybe that deleted its contents.
Tried the whole procedure again, and got the project from Laptop onto the flashdrive. Opened directory from flash drive to check and then clicked on project.scrivx, and it opened up Scrivener and there was my work. Great!
Then inserted flashdrive into Desktop computer. Opened Scrivener from desktop shortcut. Did File-Open and browsed to get project.scrivx from the flashdrive directory.
Yay! it opened the project on my Desktop computer!
BUT…it only opens from the flashdrive. I can’t get it to copy onto the Desktop computer. When I open the directories on the Desktop, it does not list project.scrivx. WHen I remove the flashdrive, and open Scrivener on the Desktop, it says the project doesn’t exist.
Tried click and drag from flashdrive directory to copy into the desktop directory – and it copies the icon but not the contents – so it shows, project.scrivx but 0 bytes.
So close…one more step…
are you copying with Windows Explorer? It kind of sounds like you’re trying to copy with Scrivener.
I just tried all this, copied from my hard drive to a flash drive, opened that copy with Scrivener, copied from the flash drive to a different place on my hard drive and opened that copy by double clicking the project.scrivx file. All Ok. I used the ctrl-c ctrl-v method in Windows Explorer for all the copies.
By “ctrl-c ctrl-v method” I mean I selected the source directory with the mouse and then typed ctrl-c to setup the copy and then selected the destination directory with the mouse and typed ctrl-v to complete the copy.
Did you copy from one computer to a different computer?
I’m copying from laptop to desktop.
The program on the laptop (a netbook) is Star Office 8.
I closed Scrivener. Then inserted the flashdrive in the laptop. Then opened My Documents, then the Scrivener folder, then the project folder, and did click-drag on the project.scrivx to copy from that directory into the flashdrive directory.
I didn’t do CNTRL-C / CNTRL-V for this; not sure why that would be better or easier than clicking on the file in the directory, but I’ll give it a try!
Thanks!
The project.scrivx file is inside your Scrivener project folder/directory. It contains information about your project. It is not the project. It is an xml file hence the file extent “.scrivx”, note the x. The only thing you will need to do with the project.scrivx file is double click it to start Scrivener.
The entire Scrivener project folder/directory and everything in it is your project. The Scrivener project folder/directory always has the file extent “.scriv” which is short for Scrivener.
I think I see from earlier posts that you have been able to copy your project. So simply repeat that, machine to flash, flash to machine, this machine to that machine or that machine to this machine, as needed.
Some other points you may not have considered:
As your project grows your copies will take longer and longer.
Copying from machine to flash to machine and later back again means you must manage your project copies carefully on both machines. I recommend that after you successfully make a copy to the other machine you change the project name, perhaps by adding a number, perhaps by adding a datetime. That will make it essentially a backup copy. Later, when you copy back, you won’t have to overwrite your project on that machine. This will also allow Scrivener to open your project automatically; there are settings for that. Eventually, the hard disk will fill up and you’ll have to purge copies.
If you have wifi in your home you may find folder sharing an alternative to all this copying. Or, depending on your eventual project size, zipped backup and emailing may be an alternative.
I think some people use Dropbox because of all this copy management. You should look into it. Search the forums here for information. You can always fall back on the flash method when required.
Thank you, Almansur – I’ll go back and try again, noting the difference between “scriv” and “scrivx”
The problem seems to be in getting the project from the flashdrive copied into the desktop – I copy the project, it says 30 KB, I get it into the desktop directory, it still shows 30 KB – but when I double-click to open, Scrivener opens with the older version of the project – and THEN the desktop directory shows -0- KB.
I’ve tried this different ways, and it keeps happening.
Then I got a message that said “incompatible with this version of Scrivener” – I originally had the NaNO version, but then bought the full version after NaNo. Maybe when I installed that it didn’t stick.
So I guess I’ll do a reinstall.
P.S. I do have wi-fi, although I’ve never used folder sharing.
I thought maybe that was the problem so I clicked on it to “allow sharing of this folder”
How are you copying the project from the flash drive to the desktop? The exact procedure that you used on the laptop should work in reverse for the desktop.
One potential issue might come up if there is already a version of the project on the desktop. Rather than overwriting that version, Windows might create a new copy, which would probably be called something like FakeTitle-1.scriv. And then if you opened FakeTitle.scriv you would get the old version.
There are also some circumstances in which only the new or changed files would get copied over, overlaying the new project onto the old one. I don’t think that’s likely, but it would be very very bad if it did happen.
If you have a known good copy of the project on the flash drive, it might not be a bad idea to clear off any copies on the desktop before proceeding further. Your various unsuccessful attempts to move things around might have caused one of those copies to get corrupted, leading to some of the problems you’re seeing.
Katherine, thanks for your suggestions!
There is indeed an existing version of the project on my desktop – because I work on the project on the desktop, and then work on it on my laptop when I’m out traveling or whatever. My hope-expectation was that I’d be able to switch back and forth as necessary, just replacing one version with another, or adding the new elements to the old version.
But, maybe that’s not possible with Scrivener
I copied from the laptop into the flashdrive,and I’ve follosed the same procedure in reverse to copy from the flashdrive into the desktop.
As it stands, the desktop Scrivener will only open an old version of the project.
If the flashdrive is inserted, I can click on the project name and open the current, newer version of the project – but only from the flashdrive. If I remove the flashdrive, only the old version opens; when I click on the directory, the copy I’d placed there now shows -0- bytes.
I thought that copying the latest project version from my laptop to the desktop would replace the earlier version automatically; or at least ask me “do you want to replace this or save with a different name?”
I copy stuff between laptop and desktop routinely, using the flashdrive. I’ve never encountered anything like this.
I’ll try your suggestion and delete the earlier version from the desktop computer.
Then I’ll do a re-install of the Scrivener program, because it’s showing the limited NaNo version. So there’s probably a conflict going on there.
Thanks for your help
UPDATE: SUCCESS! Kinda.
I finally got the copy from the flashdrive onto the desktop.
Had to go through a long series of “Do you want to replace this X with Y?” questions for (apparently) every single component of the project file, which took a while, but it did copy over.
Tested by removing flashdrive, then opening Scrivener and the project file and there it was, halleluliah! (this is the task I thought would take 5 minutes, two days ago…;-p)
It also allowed me to rename it (added number) so I can locate the latest version.
I’d thought it would be a simpler process, sounds like it IS simpler for other folks; but at least I got it to copy over.
Don’t want to have to go through that “do you want to replace file X with Y?” every single time, so guess I’d better investigate the cloud.
Thank you for all your helpful suggestions and for clarifying some very basic things! (like, a folder is another name for a directory; and the diff between scriv and scrivx…)
Phew.
p.s. I also came across something called a user.lock which I’d never seen and don’t know how or why it was in the sub-directory, but I deleted it. Maybe that had something to do with it.
As I said in my previous post you have some copy management to deal with. All those Y/N questions come from the fact that you copied over an existing project. It’s what I referred to previously as overwrite. There was probably and All choice there with the Y and N questions; use it next time. You can avoid the questions by renaming the older project with each transfer, as I said before.
It looks to me that a simpler process for you is to leave your project on the flash drive and use Scrivener’s backup features to maintain copies on each machine. Once the project is on the flash drive Scrivener will only be writing changes there so they won’t be incredibly slow like it will be when you’re copying everything out there every time. The Tools/Options/General/Saving/…inactivity setting may help with perceived slowness.
Manual and automatic backups are available; I prefer manual as the naming scheme and file control better suits me. The downside of using flash in this way is that it may be a little slower than using a hard disk and maybe you don’t want a dongle sticking out (Maybe you have an SD card slot?). If you go this way be sure to Eject the flash drive rather and yanking it out.
There’s another thread here somewhere on using a flash drive.
Also, when working on 2 or more machines this way you may want to synchronize some of Scrivener’s global settings. On Win XP this directory path (where xxxxx is your user name) is Scrivener’s global settings place.
C:\Documents and Settings\xxxxx\Local Settings\Application Data\Scrivener\Scrivener
By global I mean the setting applies to all projects. On other Win OSes the path may be similar, or not, I don’t know.
There are 5 directories in there. Some are only needed / wanted on the current machine while some may be useful to be identical on all machines. I think CompileSettings is one for all machines; it contains customized compiler settings. If you find yourself customizing the compile yet again you probably need to copy over one of the files under CompileSettings.
