Marta, I wanted to add my best wishes for a happy time as you finish your novel. How wonderful that you have persevered!
Hi Anne,
I can appreciate your frustration, although I also think you might be forming some opinions without giving Scrivener a truly ‘fair’ shake. I’ve been writing for several years and have recently (over the last 4 to 5 years) conducted an extensive analysis of available writing software. While Scrivener can seem daunting at times, it provides (in my opinion, and the opinion of many happy users) one of the best combinations of functionality and usability you will find in any offering of writing software. It is consistently ranked in the very highest tier of writing software by the writing community. As Dave noted above there is an introductory video available that may be of help. There are also several other instructional videos available, covering a variety of subjects and functions, that you can locate with a quick search on YouTube.
David Hewson has also written an eBook, “Writing a Novel with Scrivener” that is well worth the modest investment.
In any event, I hope you stick with it. In the long term, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Good luck.
Dick
Same to you, Anne
Yeah, it’s exciting to picking up something you felt it was dead and have it come back to life–and I’m not even writing a zombie movie ;}
Hope the tutorials help you
Marta
I’d also say that David Hewsons book - ‘Writing a Novel With Scrivener’ might help as well (its been updated a little to reflect the windows version as well… and of course you can read the kindle book on your mac, pc, ipad, iphone etc etc
I apologize. Sometimes the hype here reminds me of certain car owners who will get out of their way to convince you of their brand. I understand that. After driving a few lemons it is tempting to stick loyally with the first decent car that comes along. And Scrivener is a decent software, indeed. I will not argue that point. Only your miracle-statement.
That may be, but here’s the Windows section, and even a basic file manager shows you a tree on the left, and allows to edit/view the corresponding content in the right pane.
Word and yWriter will not show MP3 etc, you are right about that. The writing environment made me think of text files mainly. Again, apologies for coming across too sarcastic.
Thanks, and no worries. I haven’t worked in Windows since the pre-Vista days, so I’m way behind there.
Hope you will stick around to give help and advice to PC users.
In time, I hope that Scriv on the PC is just as awesome as on the Mac.
And also iOS and Android and Linux…tomorrow, the world! 
You’re going to get far more out of the tutorial from within Scrivener. It’s designed for you to alter the view of the contents as you go, so that you can get comfortable with the features available. You can always close it (the tutorial is just a Project), and when you open it again, you’ll be where you left off.
It’s also helpful to keep a few things in mind about Scrivener. First of all, it’s mostly intended as a first-draft tool. While you can set things up for the final output to look very nice, and even go straight to Kindle or other final output formats, if you need true styles or other layout features like text wrapping around images, you’ll have to do that when you’re done editing your words.
Secondly, Scrivener is not a Novelist’s writing program, so much as a writing program with tools that are useful to novelists, short-story anthology editors, PHD students writing their theses, technical writers, biographers, translators, TV Script writers, etc… In other words, it’s a toolkit, where a very few features will be useful to all writers using the software, and then a large number of optional features that you may find useful at various stages of your writing. Only a very small subset of features are written specifically with one kind of writing in mind, which is why you don’t have dedicated character tracking features, though you can employ various tools to keep up with them.
Finally, Scrivener isn’t for everybody. I’ve fiddled a little bit with Photoshop and similar image manipulation tools, and they are far too much for my meager needs. I’ve got a small collection of tools that allow me to do a few specific things with pictures, many of them with redundant features, because I wanted to just dive in an add text to my picture, not read a book on how to use the software first.
This is why the trial of Scrivener counts down from 30 days only when you are using it, and not from the first day that you started the software. You get a full month of interaction with Scrivener before you have to buy it, even if that month is stretched out over 30 weekly uses of it; at the end, you can export or compile your work and continue using that work in another piece of software if Scrivener isn’t to your liking. There’s an entire page devoted to the competition because Keith and the Lit & Lat team only want satisfied users for whom the software’s design resonates. That’s why you’ll find such enthusiasm for Scrivener here, and why you’ll sometimes encounter crankiness at overly harsh criticism of the software or the developers.
I’m getting quite a lot out of the printed tutorial. Thanks.
The Scrivener Binder is not a file manager, and is not intended as a file manager. It’s better to think of it as a compact version of the project outline.
Nonetheless, clicking on an item in the Binder does indeed, under normal circumstances, change what’s in the Editor pane. If it doesn’t, then it’s because you have locked the editor or otherwise told Scrivener that isn’t the behavior you want.
Katherine
Thanks Katherine,
I didn’t mean to indicate that the binder should do more than being a project outliner. The whole file manager thing developed out of a well-intended remark by druid, to which I responded with a sarcastic comment that was unjustified.
What ticks me off so easily is the heavy advertising tone that many postings seem to have (according to my perception). I don’t want to be constantly reassured that I bought the right thing, the very need for it makes me suspicious. I’d rather focus on regular forum stuff, wish- and bug lists etc.
Again: No need to expand the binder functionality to include other file types. I don’t intend to use it for anything but outlining purposes.
Hi Stefan
I got a wish list for ya.
I have 3 things on “My Most Desperately Want List” for Scrivener, which I hope they incorporate very soon. Hopefully, since they are already in the MAC version, they won’t be a long time coming. (I say that knowing how very different the programming is between MC & PC, but ever optimistic of Lee’s mad skillz.)
- Final Draft 8 Import/Export-- desperately needed as the RTF does not always give the ALL CAPS in HEADERS and CHARACTER, and most of my work is in screenplay form
2: Import and split feature. This would be a serious time-saver for novels and screenplays! I’m drooling for this feature…
- Ability to Assign Keystrokes by the User. (instead of having to do a FORMAT>CONVERT>TO UPPERCASE, for example )
If I could just get these three things I will build a Golden Idol to Scrivener and Worship it in the Town Square. Moses be darned…
In the meantime I will continue working with it, waiting, like Oliver Twist, for just a bit more… ;}
Even in the present form it is a great organizing tool
Marta
Not arguing that point, though I use other software for that, which lets me have multiple projects open, and apply any number of outlines across them all.
My desperate wishes concern basic things, related to the writing process per se, similar to your wish #3. BTW, I can help you out with that: tell me what shortcut you want assigned, and I’ll send you a tiny tool that will convert to uppercase, across applications, no matter where you type.
Hi Stefan
That would be fantastic, Stefan
I’d like a keystroke to be able to select text and make it ALL CAPS
I work in Final Draft 8, and to be able to import into Scrivener I make it into an RTF.
The RTF looks perfect in Word 2003/2007, but when I look at it in Scrivener some of the HEADER and CHARACTERS which-- as you know-- are supposed to be in ALL CAPS, lose their formatting
examples
EXT ORPHANAGE playground - DAY
or
dAniEL
MAriNa
While in Scriptwriting mode I tried FORMAT> SCRIPTWRITING>RE-CAPITALIZE SCRIPT but it doesn’t work
And I know I can select the text go to the menu FORMAT>CONVERT TO UPPERCASE, but if there’s a lot to change it just takes way too long.
so how can I get this tool?
Really appreciate your help
Marta
Hi Marta,
Just wanting to make sure… you do realise that Stefan doesn’t actually work for L&L?
Matt
Yeah, I didn’t think he was. No problem
In the PC world there’s a lot of freeware available from small developers, and we like to share the info
I do it all the time.
but appreciate your caution, and thank you
Marta
Marta,
check your private messages. I mailed it to you as an attachment.
No installation required. You can take it with you and run it from a stick. To make it load automatically when Windows boots up, drag the file into your startup-folder.
No nag screen, no ads, no spyware. In fact, it’s no program at all. I just typed a few lines of code with AutoHotKey (autohotkey.com). I included the source code (the .ahk file), you can look into it with every text editor. If you don’t trust my compiled .exe, download your own copy of Autohotkey.exe, then run the .ahk file.
It’s so tiny you won’t even notice it’s running, the memory load is close to zero. To close it, go to the system tray in the lower right of your screen: Right-click the green H, then click on Exit
You didn’t tell me what shortcut you want assigned. I chose “Ctrl u” to uppercase, and “Ctrl Shift u” to undo (i.e. lowercase). Please note that this will override the Underline shortcut in Scrivener. Let me know if this is a problem and what keystroke you’d prefer. It’s possible to assign different keystrokes for different programs, or make it work in certain programs only (like Scrivener and Word), so it doesn’t interfere with the same shortcut in other apps.
Stefan
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
It works beautifully. Tried it in Scrivener, Word 2007, Edit Pad, and in this very message.
Your hot key choice is easy to remember CTRL U for uppercase, CTRL SHIFT U for lowercase.
You have saved me tons of time.
Marta
Yeah, sorry, my fault. I didn’t read the thread properly. I thought you were addressing Scrivener Wish List items to him, rather than the utility you were talking about.
Carry on as if I’m not here!
Not a problem Matt
Stefan took care of one of my items on the Scrivener wish list–the ALL CAPS keystroke command
Hopefully Scrivener will come through on the other two soon…
If wishes were horses… etc.
Marta
Stefan, would you be willing to provide details of your script on the Scrivener Tips forum at the Please share your AutoHotKey macros for Scrivener post?