If an app knows that you are writing in parts and chapters, it can provide an export that formats the text accordingly. The problem we’ve always faced is that these two aims-complete flexibility of organisation and the ability to stitch everything together into formatted documents with specific requirements-are, to a certain extent, at loggerheads. These two core aims come together in the Compile feature, which takes all of those separate, structured sections and sews them together into a single manuscript, overriding the formatting depending on the output requirements. So you could write in your favourite font but still output to standard manuscript format. In the binder you can create folders and text sections and organise and nest them however you want.Īnother of my aims was to allow the user to write using any formatting he or she wanted, and then to allow all of that formatting to be changed (optionally) at the export or print stage. To this end, I built Scrivener around the core concept of a flexible outline-the binder. For nonfiction I might organise things differently again.
Maybe I’d work in parts, chapters and scenes maybe I’d only need chapters and scenes, or only chapters. What I wanted was to be able to define my own structure, which would be different depending on the project, and to be able to reshape that structure as and when needed. Copywrite and Ulysses came the closest to doing anything like what I wanted to do (in that they allowed you to break a larger manuscript down into smaller components without an imposed structure), but they didn’t provide any way of organising the sections of your manuscript into an indented, outline-like arrangement. Those that weren’t built around a popular narrative theory forced a particular structure on you: three acts, each containing several chapters, for instance. Some wanted you to follow a set story structure, such as Vogler’s 12-step hero’s journey. Back then, most specialised writing apps outside of word processors were built around a particular paradigm. I had tried all manner of apps aimed at writers. When I set out to create Scrivener-well over a decade ago now-one of the most important goals for me was that it had to be flexible. There’s a certain degree of necessity to Compile’s complexity (bear with me on this). Whenever someone describes Scrivener as “complicated” and we ask which areas they mean in particular, Compile is usually the first thing mentioned. Scrivener’s Compile feature is powerful and adaptable, but it also seems to be a stumbling block for many users.
#Front matter scrivener windows windows#
Note: This blog post pertains to upcoming features in Scrivener 3, which will be released on macOS later this year and will follow on Windows during early 2021.
0 kommentar(er)
