Scrivener Mac Vs Pc
In searching the archive, I found on MacSparky in 2007. That's right. Scrivener was my original “White Whale” app for the iPad. Within an hour of using my first iPad, I remember thinking, “Now I need Scrivener.” How badly did I want Scrivener? So much so that I acted as errand-boy for the Scrivener developer and bought an iPad (with his money) and mailed it to him. (At the time, the iPad wasn’t available in the UK.) I was hoping he’d get addicted to the iPad and immediately put all effort into developing an iPad application.
So I guess you could say I’ve been looking forward to seeing Scrivener on iOS for awhile now.To be honest, that’s not entirely true. Initially, I had all sorts of bizarre workarounds where I could edit and work on my Scrivener files on iPad ranging from weird partial text syncing to VNC but none of them were really that good and as the years went by and Scrivener did not show up for iPad, I moved on.
I’ll call those my wild years.During the wild years, I started using several alternative apps that are iPad friendly. Most notably is Ulysses, which is similar to Scrivener but also different. While Scrivener is once again my weapon of choice for big writing projects (particularly those including research), there are still some projects for which Ulysses is the right choice.
I'm currently outlining an episode of Mac Power Users on big writing projects and we’ll be comparing and contrasting these two apps so stay tuned for more on that.The story behind getting Scrivner on iPad could probably be the subject of its own interesting novel but this week, after so many years, my beloved Scrivener found its way to the iPad and iPhone. I’ve been using it and syncing my book files between the two platforms and it sure is nice to be home again. So why do writers get so excited about Scrivener?
I’ve written about it before but Scrivener is the first application that I used as a writing tool, as opposed to word processor. With Scrivener, I can take on big writing projects in a way that I simply couldn’t before. It lets me organize blocks of text and it keeps track of my progress.
One of its killer features for me is the ability to hold my research data in the same file as my scrivenings.Scrivener can take just about any file type you throw at it (including PDFs, images, and Word documents) and make those available for review while working inside the application. So when you are working on a big project, using Scrivener you can have all of your research in the same file as your words. This is really handy as it saves you the trouble of digging in the Finder, Evernote, or wherever else you use to keep support documents for big projects.
This convenience is even more notable on iOS where getting documents out of cloud storage isn’t alway easy.Now that Scrivener is on the iPad, I can show up at a coffee shop and work on my latest legal brief or book and know confidently that I have access to all the resource documents I need for the project. That’s the magic of Scrivener.
It not only allows you to write and organize your words for your big writing project, it also holds your research as well. And now Scrivener is on the iPad and iPhone.You can get Scrivener in the iOS App Store for $20.
The application is universal and works on both iPad and iPhone. One of my big concerns about creating a version of Scrivener for iPad was striking the right feature balance. There are a lot of features in Scrivener for Mac. The question was how many of those features need to get over to the iPad to make the application useful while at the same time not making it overwhelming. Scrivener for iPad and iPhone does nicely in striking this balance. Indeed, I was a little surprised at how many features did make it over for the first version.Research, which is one of my most important features in Scrivener, syncs over just fine.
That, for me was going to be the make-it-or-break-it feature in bringing Scrivener back into my life. I will acknowledge, however, that's a relatively low bar but the developer got it right. You can put both research and text on the screen at once and I've been writing legal briefs and working on a new book in this new version of Scrivener with no problems.
Scrivener for iPad and iPhone isn't a simple port. A lot of effort went into determining what features work best on iOS and where accommodations need to be made. The iOS keyboard adds additional rows with Scrivener-specific features and the interface is much cleaner than Scrivener on the Mac. Indeed, I prefer the interface on the iPad over that of the Mac even though it doesn't have every bell and whistle you find on the Mac.While there were some features cut, Scrivener on iPad is fully functional for the hard work of moving the cursor on big writing projects. The text editor is absolutely up to the task and you can organize your buckets of text on Scrivener on the iPad and iPhone just as you would on the Mac.
Scrivener Mac Vs Pc
I was particularly impressed with the keyboard shortcut support, which makes sense because a lot of people will use this tool with an iPad and external keyboard. One feature that made it over from the Mac is color coding document sections.
This is easy to implement for a writer and super-useful. Color coding makes it easy for going back later and making edits or re-writes.When you're done, you can synchronize your data back to your Mac using Dropbox. Synchronization with Scrivener for iOS, however, deserves some further discussion.
Scrivener documents are, in essence, package files that hold the research and various bits of text that you're preparing. Scrivener does not use iCloud but instead Dropbox.
(I don’t know for certain but am guessing this has something to do with the synchronization of the research files.) Either way, you save your Scrivener file to the Dropbox destination of choice and then you can access it from Mac, iPad, or iPhone.When you first boot up Scrivener on your iPad or iPhone, you are asked to synchronize data with your Dropbox folder. Then digital wheels grind and synchronization takes place. When you're done editing your document on your iPad or iPhone, Scrivener again prompts you to synchronize back up to Dropbox. (You can also manually trigger synchronization.)This system works. The only time I was able to break it in testing was when I was deliberately trying to by opening files too soon (before Dropbox caught up with me). Nevertheless, the whole process feels a bit fragile.
I'm not sure if there is a better way given the different types of data Scrivener synchronizes but I will warn you to be deliberate about syncing when using Scrivener on iPad and Mac at (or around) the same time.After hacking my way into Scrivener from iOS for so long, it sure is nice to see the Scrivener icon on my iPad home screen. This is exactly what I was looking for so long ago when I started using my original iPad.
This is a supplementary post to the #26Tech post of today. In that post I profile Scrivener, one of the most popular all over writing and writing project management apps.This post provides nine alternatives to Scrivener. All are great overall writing apps.
Alternatives to ScrivenerSo, you’re saving up for Scrivener, or it’s not quite for you? Here are some good alternatives (price in approx. USD) – yWriter5By. Free.Multiple scenes, sections and structural organisation, character and location profiles, POV and Storyboard views. Wordcount and track progress functions. For Mac OS and iOS – iPad.
$59 / $10.Popular Mac and iPAD writing environment. Story development tools, storyboard with index cards, outliners; plot, character and setting sheets, manuscript and screenplay templates. Export to mobi or epub amongst other formats. WriteWay ProA.
30 Day Free Trial, $35.Book organisation, notecard and storyboards, and compile to ARCs, PDF and epub formats. Write it Now. Windows and Mac OS desktop. Free limited function trails. $60.Book and story elements organisation, index cards / corkboard, timeline feature, full screen editor, snapshot function, export as RTF.
And an interesting floating mindmap function for character relationships. Windows and Mac OS. $80.Story outliner, timeline, index cards, story development tools, and presentation (slideshow) modes. Print out a visualisation of the story in reports.
Export to Final Draft and other screenwriting software formats, or to MS Word. Writer’s CafeA. Windows, Linux or Mac OS. Trial downloads, purchase for $40.Story development guide tool, a notebook, corkboard, research organizer, inspirational quotations, writing exercises, journal, pin-board and daily writing tips.
StorybookFree opensource software, unsupported. Linux and Windows.Plotline structure, characters, locations, scenes, chart tools, task lists but no text editor / word processor functions. Note: older versions of Storybook are available to download from multiple sites if you search. The last commercial version – Storybook Pro, has been discontinued. PageFourB, for Windows. 45 day trial, $39.Outliner, tabbed word processor, organisation features. A structure around notebooks, with dictionary and snapshot backups of your work in progress.
Liquid Story Binder XE. For Windows and can work on portable USB key, free trial, $46.Before Scrivener for Windows came out, LSB was my go-to fully-featured writing project organiser. It contains basically everything that Scrivener did at the time and more – corkboards, writing editor, research folders, binders, character lists, collections, checklists, playlists, journals, timelines and mindmaps, and much more.Highly customisable (and sometimes complex) free-form rich-text based workspace. Since the arrival of Scrivener for Windows, Liquid Story Binder has ceased development, but is still available for sale, with Wikis and a user board still active in using the app. Ferreteria plus 5.95 serial. LSB is missing compile options, but can save to rich text.#26Tech: This was a supplemental post to the post for my A to Z challenge.You will find the other posts under tag: #26Tech or an index post will be provided on May 1st.A to Z: in April you will find other bloggers providing A to Z posts on many topics, through the.
Hello, I am currently using Scrivener, but I’m looking for something that has mind-mapping as well as timeline. I am currently considering Liquid Story Binder because it seems to have all the functions I need. It doesn’t bother me that it’s no longer in development or if there is no compile function. I’m mainly looking for something that is a good organisation tool that is reliable (no sudden crashes or errors). Could you tell me why you switched from Liquid Story Binder to Scrivener? Thanks in advance. Hello Sade.It’s funny that you commented recently, because I just read of somebody else who was recommending LSB as an alternative.
I used LSB for several years, and was reluctant at first to move over to Scrivener. And of course, at that time, LSB was the only Windows software which came close to what I had heard about Scrivener from Mac users. I am a Windows user, and on mobile, an IOS user, so this is one of my own main criteria for software selection.Scrivener offers hefty discounts through NaNoWriMo participants, and long trial periods on the full features of the product, which is how the Windows version was released at first, and when I first trialed using it. At that point, LSB stopped development, which was several years ago now. The User Interface stands as a bit of history.
From memory it is missing some later day features such as internal hyperlinking within documents or browsing, and tagging systems, but if you are looking for a writing environment that is user customisable, then LSB would certainly remain a pick of mine.Learning LSB for me was as complicated as learning Scrivener, because of it’s many workspaces, but if you do go down that route, the help files on the website are helpful.Since then, Literature and Latte have brought out a freehand mindmapping app called Scapple, which integrates with Scrivener. Scrivener is still lacking a rudimentary timeline that LSB has, but a compatible app called Aeon Timeline also integrates into Scrivener and offers many other features. Of course, all these different tools cost more money, which is a consideration for many people I know.Right now, Scrivener is hitting the headlines again, because of the much-anticipated release of Scrivener for IOS.
This app now takes me fully into mobile writing with sync back to my PC, and the Windows version is catching up with that of the Mac.I wish you all the best in your LSB usage also. WriteItNow5 does the trick for me. I tried Scrivener for two years. After pulling just about all my hair out several times I finally moved over to WriteItNow5. Being a writer of horror fiction I find WriteItNow5 serves me well; making me that much more productive.
WIN5 does everything I need it do and then some. Scrivener is filled with bloat that I will never use and it suffers somewhat when it comes to all I really need. WIN5 rocks, I am so grateful to have found this software, it’s a true life saver.