Hey, I’m trialing the software now and I have a question. There are times when I need to use the exact same paragraph in multiple places, like an introduction paragraph. I’d like to have this paragraph stored multiple places so that, when I update it once, it updates everywhere.
Simple answer: it should be when Scrivener 3 for Windows is finally published. Mac v. 3 has this, and v. 3 for Windows is aiming for parity, except where options provided at the system level—like Linguistic Focus on the Mac vs Dialogue Focus on Windows—are not available to the other system.
I use Acetext for this (and more). It is a Windows utility that copies everything from the clipboard and gives you access to it, able to merge edit find etc. Including save in tabs. I copy paragraphs I use in emails etc. to it and access whenever I want. Type once, copy, drag to a tab (say, scrivener or Emails, or …) and use whenever. Very powerful program. https://www.acetext.com/
I don’t know the limitation of compile-time replacements, but it’s possible that you could squeeze a paragraph’s worth of text into that part (File->Compile, then use the “Replacements” pane, “Project Replacements” tab to enter your text). In the “Replace” column, you’d put something like <$include:ParagraphA>, and in the “With” column, you paste in the text of your paragraph. Keep that paragraph in a document in your Research folder, or wherever you like outside the Draft, for easier reading and editing, and always use it a the ‘gold standard’ for that paragraph. Name it the same as the “ParagraphA” text used in the tag above.
Note:
I believe that the “<$include:ParagraphA>” syntax will work with the Scrivener 3, where “ParagraphA” is the name of a document in the binder containing the text you want to be substituted for wherever you insert <$include:ParagraphA>. Pasting the contents of the document “ParagraphA” from your project into your compile settings is a work-around–the Replacements compile pane would become irrelevant once you upgrade to V3, whenever that’s ready for real-world use.
Can’t say if you have a list of placeholders under the Help menu on Windows v. 3, but here’s the information from the Mac version. Again, I have no idea if it works yet on Windows v.3.