Hi guys,
This is my first post in these forums and a big hello to all of you. Also, thanks a huge bunch to all those wonderful people over at Literature and Latte, for coming up with this magical software—a boon for writers!
I have just started using Scrivener. I used it on my Windows 7 laptop, now I am using it on my 10 inch Windows 8.1 tablet. As one would expect, there are some differences in using Scrivener on a laptop and on a touchscreen tablet.
I ‘found’ (most people must already know them) some helpful ideas and I thought they would be useful to those who don’t know them—noobies like myself.
Since I am not from a tech/software background, there may be easier ways to do what I have suggested below. I welcome any suggestions for the same.
I found mainly two problems that I had to work around.
For one, I am using a 10 inch tablet with a 1920 x 1200 resolution. With this high resolution, a major problem is that everything looks very tiny on the GUI. It becomes near impossible to tap the icons or even read what is written in the binder etc. I could increase the size of the display fonts in Options > Appearance > Fonts. But that didn’t help increase the size of the icons and scroll bar. I found a workaround for the same. Decreasing the screen resolution did the job.
Press & Hold on the desktop > Resolution > Change to 1440 x 900. This causes everything to look comfortably bigger (at least the icons). If you want bigger sized fonts, you can always use the Options > Appearance > Fonts. The only hitch is that every time you want to use the computer for any other work, you will have to switch back to the maximum resolution.
The second problem was with a keyboard. The regular Windows 8.1 stock keyboard is nice, but it fills up about half of the screen, so you can’t see anything underneath it. This does not hamper the writing part so much, but it is very inconvenient while organizing the Work In Progress in Scrivener. So instead of the stock keyboard, I use the On-Screen Keyboard available in the Ease of Access section. This keyboard is also provided by Windows 8.1 (probably the earlier versions as well), but you have to enable it and make it, well, ‘easy to access’.
To do this, in the Start Page, tap on the Search (top right corner). Type ‘On-Screen Keyboard’. As you type the above, suggestions will appear below that. When the On-Screen icon appears—the blue monitor with the keyboard—Press and Hold on it. Tap on the Pin to Taskbar and Pin to Start. That way, you will be able to access it immediately whenever required.
What makes this keyboard better than the stock keyboard?
A number of things. In fact, it’s like this keyboard was designed for use with Scrivener on a Windows 8.1 tablet.
In addition to being able to move it anywhere, you can resize it like any window by tapping and dragging the edges.
The keys in right-most column (Nav to Fade) make life really easy. If you can’t see it, enable it by pressing Options > Show keys to make it easier…
Nav condenses the keyboard into a narrow band. This is useful if you’re not writing, and want to just navigate up and down the binder, the index cards on the corkboard or outline.
Mv Up and Mv Dn makes the keyboard snap to the upper or lower half of the screen, if you want to instantly see what lies beneath it.
The Fade option also of great help when you want to just read through your text file/ chapter. It makes the keyboard partially invisible so you can read what is underneath it.
It has a neat ‘Right Click’ key that one can use to bring up the right-click menu.
Finally, it has text suggestions with learning that helps save a lot of keystrokes. The stock keyboard also offers this, but at the time of writing this, it seemed to work only while typing in Microsoft apps.
Well, that’s my two cents worth. Hope it helps someone. Happy writing!
Warm regards,
Pranav