Hello everyone, Scrivener newbie here. I work across two screens so I was wondering if it’s possible to open a document in a new window so I can have it open on a separate screen?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Rachel
I don’t think that’s possible in the current version of the Windows program. It may be coming in v. 3, now in beta, but I don’t know that. It is possible to have two projects open at the same time, so theoretically it might be possible to open the project once on one screen and once on the other–but that would be a bad idea, since even if Scrivener let you do it, you could end up making conflicting changes.
Two possible workarounds: (1) Create a second project just for working versions of documents. You can drag documents between projects (they are copied rather than moved), and so in effect you could take a document from your main project window and edit it in the “working” project window on the other screen, then drag it back when it’s ready. You’d then have to delete the original document from the main project window. (2) Scrivener has a scratch pad feature (Tools > Scratch Pad) that is a separate popup editor. Its formatting capabilities are limited; in particular, you can’t create Scrivener links in it (I presume because the Scratch Pad is not connected to a specific Scrivener project, but is a “global” tool), and can’t create hyperlinks generally, though you can paste them in from elsewhere. You can’t drag Scrivener documents into it, but you could certainly copy and paste text there to work on; and then it does have the ability to send text into Scrivener.
Sorry that’s mostly negative!
EDIT: Here’s another thought. I’ve never worked with two monitors, so I don’t know whether this would work. But of course Scrivener does make it possible to have two editors open simultaneously, one side-by-side with the other. Could you maneuver the Scrivener window so that one editor (with the Binder) was on the left-hand screen and the other editor (with the Inspector) was on the right-hand one?
Thank you for your reply and for giving those work-arounds, David. I’m currently doing what you suggested in your edit - splitting the screen vertically and stretching it across two screens. It seems to be a pretty good solution so far, esepcially as I’ve found that you can actually work in full screen mode on one screen, and still have your notes open on the other. Of course it would be nice to have the pop-out window functionality in the next release, but this is working for me for now!
Thanks again,
Rachel
Yes this is definitely something I’d like to see in version 3. I also work with two monitors, but even if I didn’t alt-tabbing between two full windows would be really useful.
Also unfortunately the work around (stretching across two monitors), doesn’t work if the screens are different sizes, so for example I have a 4k monitor and a couple of full HD monitors.
Navigate>open>as quick reference
When highlight a file in the binder and click spacebar document opens as a Quick reference panel and drag to second monitor while work on another document in first project