![]() ![]() Best of all, I’ll be able to make notes and continue working when I’m not at my laptop. It will be the font of all knowledge.īut I will also use other text editors when it comes to the writing itself, which means I will hopefully avoid the temptation to tinker with Scrivener’s many settings and lose myself in research when I should be writing. ![]() I’ll keep everything in there and I’ll never have to spend hours trawling through Word documents again. Using the methods described above, I intend to use Scrivener as the place where I organise my novel. It works seamlessly and allows me to open, edit and save my Scrivener documents without any trouble at all. My particular favourite is PlainText, which I use on both my iPhone and iPad. All you need to do now is find a text editor on whatever mobile device or tablet that you happen to own that allows you to sync files with Dropbox. This time you ‘draft’ folder’s contents will be synced to the cloud via Dropbox and the files will be in Plain Text format. Choose the Plain Text (TXT) option and again, hit ‘Sync’. It’s at the bottom under the ‘Format’ heading and ‘Format for external Draft files’. rtf to plain text (.txt), as it’s the simplest, most universal format and what most mobile apps use. ![]() Second, you should change the format of your synced files from. However, there are two very important differences.įirst, instead of choosing to create your ‘draft’ folder in any old place on your hard drive, you need to put it somewhere within your Dropbox directory. And that’s exactly how you can use it to go mobile with Scrivener.Įssentially, you need to follow the same process as before. Because it’s so good, many other apps have implemented a ‘sync with Dropbox’ function to allow users to sync data between their desktop and mobile devices. It’s a brilliant tool for any writer who wants to have their work available wherever they are across different computers and devices.ĭropbox works by creating a folder on your computer that syncs with the cloud. If not you should rectify that situation immediately. You know all about Dropbox by now, right? To make sure that you’re working on the latest versions of your documents, you’ll need to repeat the process described above. However, note that when you next open Scrivener, your work will not sync automatically. You should now be able to open and edit those files in any text editor on your computer, from Microsoft Word to Notepad on a Windows PC, Pages to Byword on a Mac. Once you’ve chosen your folder, hit ‘Sync’ and you should end up with a ‘draft’ folder full of text files in Rich Text Format (.rtf). Do exactly that, making sure that you’ve got the option to ‘Sync the contents of the Draft folder’ selected. To set that up, your first task is to choose where on your hard drive you’d like that folder to go.įrom there, you’ll see a dialog box and the option to choose a ‘Shared folder’. scriv file and separating all your Scrivener documents into separate files in a folder called ‘draft’. Scrivener has a fantastic sync feature, which I discovered via Dave Caolo’s excellent instructions on how to set up Scrivener to work with the iPad app, PlainText. I wanted a way to organise my novel, make notes and store research in Scrivener, but be able to use another writing app to do the actual writing. That’s why I wanted to find a way to separate the two elements of my work. But it has many other features too, which although very handy for some writers and might see them use Scrivener for every element of their writing, for me they can occasionally get in the way. Using Scrivener with any text editorĪt its heart, Scrivener is a word processor. I now know that I was wrong, and that with a little setting up, Scrivener can be used alongside any text editor and in any location. Scrivener seemed fantastic for those who write in the same place and on the same computer, but not for someone who likes to move around a bit more. ![]() I also like the simplicity of using plain text files in apps like TextEdit or iA Writer, again with documents synced to all of my devices via Dropbox. I like to make notes on the go with Simplenote and have it sync to all of my devices (laptop, iPad and iPhone). In the end, I felt that using one app to do all of my writing didn’t quite fit with how I work. After hearing lots of great things, I first gave it a try early last year. This is not my first time using Scrivener. I’ve just spent the last hour or so transferring all the bits and pieces of my second novel into Scrivener, the popular writing app for Mac and Windows. ![]()
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