As @Steerpike states above, Scrivener also does this with ease. I have .mobi (Kindle format) copies of all my MS's on my Kindle that I have created with Scrivener. It's a little silly to create such a thing out of an unfinished piece, but there's something about seeing it in that form that's motivating.
Why do people keep saying that Scrivener is a word processor? Just because you can put text into a program doesn't make it a word processor. A word processor is a program with one function: to compose documents. Scrivener, on the other hand, is an extensive working environment. Yes, it does provide a word processor, but it also has several other functions like organisational tools (e.g. the binder and the corkboard) and research tools (the scratch pad, support for opening websites, PDFs, etc.). Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.
But, and just to be fair, Jan, if the imposed organization of Scrivener doesn't work for you, I understand and can see why. It's not something Scrivener is going to let you get around because it's the main selling point of the application. Everything it does functions within that organizational paradigm. You can streamline it to nearly the simplicity of opening an MS Word or Pages document, but it will always be within the Project Binder dynamic that is the analogue to the folder you mentioned previous as preferring and manipulating as a simple system folder within your machine (such as placing it on you desktop or in Documents, etc.) Because "It's not a word processor" sounds like "less than a word processor", not "Awesome Word Processor + Organization All In One". Semantics, perhaps, but important semantics.
Re the text in the Scrivener tutorial, the way I understand it is that Scrivener is adequate for creating "simpler" documents, like novels and short stories, where only text with minor formatting (font, italic, line spacing, margins, etc.) is needed. But for more complex projects (essays, research papers, etc.) where more advanced formatting, as well as images and diagrams, is needed Scrivener is not enough. It provides tools for composing the text, but the general design and layout of the document has to be done in some third-party software.
To me "It's a word processor" sounds like "not more than a word processor", not "Awesome Word Processor + Organisation All in One". Semantics, perhaps, but important semantics.
That's why I said it is a word processor, but with lots of extra features. If it has a word processing function, then it's a word processor. If it has a lot of extra functionality besides word processing, then it is a word processor +++. If it has the other features but not a word processing function, then it's not a word processor.
BTW, for those of you continuing to follow this conversation who have preferences for other software platforms, please feel free to create Resources for those platforms, as others have done, so that conversation concerning the features, benefits, and drawbacks to those platforms can be discussed in a focused conversation and also to avoid platform wars. Please don't take this as remonstration. I ask it with the intent that the forum provide place and opportunity for discussion of all options available to the writer and everyone should be well aware that I, of all people, do not truck with the "Software X is the only State Approved Software for Righteous Comrades" thought process. Scrivener is the option that fits me like a custom-made glove, but I understand perfectly well why it's not a perfect fit for everyone. Truly. No irony, no sarcasm. It just becomes difficult to discuss the actual use of a writing software platform when the discussion has a strong tendency to turn to Platform vs. Everything Else, et al. rather than keeping on track with information and help for those making use of the given platform. When a Resource is created for Writing Software, it auto-populates a thread here in the Software subforum for discussion. I am going to go now and sticky all such threads so that they are easily accessed by members looking for different options.
Here's another endorsement for Scrivener. I can't believe I haven't thought of this before but it dawned on me what it means to use a database like Scrivener rather than a word processor. It means that everything can be sorted in ONE Scrivener document rather than having a folder full of different projects. Now there are several ways to do this based on your own preference: 1. I.e. I write articles for a website and up until now I have several folders on my computer where a ton of notes, first drafts and finished articles are thrown in together in a holy mess that I don't really want to sort out anytime soon. With Scrivener I can sort every article I'm working on into different folders within the same Scrivener document (or database). You can sort notes, drafts and finished articles within Scrivener and just keep one document for everything in stead of the 50+ I have in 10+ different folders. 2. When working on novels I can create one Scrivener document per novel, but no longer do I need one document for the first draft and a bunch of notes, research and so on within a folder. Everything is kept sorted in one Scrivener document which makes it easier to work with and to find all my notes. 3. When working on Short stories, I only need one Scrivener document that contains all my short stories, the ones that are almost finished and the ones I haven't started writing yet. In short, I'm not looking forward to the clean up, but I am looking forward to getting everything sorted in just a few Scrivener databases If you are a Scrivener user, how do you sort and manage everything? Maybe you have some better ideas than me
I'm not trying to discourage people from Scrivener, but the idea that you can't sort all your material for one project into a single folder on your wordprocessor just isn't true. I've been doing it for 20 years. (On a Mac, using ClarisWorks/AppleWorks/Pages.) I have two novels on the go, research, timelines, calendars, worksheets, beta questionnaires, various drafts, various formats, photos, etc—and I can zap immediately into whatever I need. (And yes, I can have several documents open side by side at the same time.) The trick it to organise your work well in the first place. Name and date each of your documents (chapters, stories, whatever), store them in appropriate folders which are also named and dated, and put each project's folders inside one single named folder. No problem. Just click on the named folder and it will show you everything you've got for that project, sorted so you can access it with another simple click.
I found it such a breeze to learn. And I hesitate to even use the word learn because that implies some detailed process of synthesizing and digesting information and that's not what really happened for me. I was using the application within half an hour of downloading it, importing my files, and getting the on-screen view the way I wanted it. Maybe it's because I cut my teeth on a similar app that was for Windows called Liquid Story Binder, so I already had an idea of what this thing was going to be. What I didn't like about L.S.B. was that it felt very scattered. It felt, frankly, very Windows-ie. Loose. I didn't feel like it was providing me with what I was looking for as regards regimentation. Yes, regimentation. When I found Scrivener, I was like, "Oh, it's like LSB only... tighter. It's got its shit together in a crisp, pressed uniform, and goodness knows I like a man in a uniform especially when he wears it well." If something is or isn't intuitive to a given person, there's nothing I can say to refute that because that's the very definition of a gut reaction, but to me Scrivener was completely intuitive. Sometimes I think the tutorial provided along with the application is its own worst enemy. It gives the impression that you'll have to learn all this stuff to use the application and that's not the case at all. Applications like Scrivener (and the aforementioned Liquid Story Binder) provide a set of tools that are intended to serve a broad array of writing processes. You pick the tools that make sense to you, the others you can ignore. You can even set the toolbar up top to that very dynamic, only having the icons that you use regularly and leaving the rest in the drop down menus in case you need or want them later. My toolbar, for example, is very trim compared to what it can be. I don't have a very complex writing process, but I am tremendously non-linear in my writing. Scenes come to me at their own bidding and very often they start in one location within the story, but quickly end up somewhere else, sometimes being reworked to serve another purpose entirely. Because of this I keep the arrow keys on my toolbar to quickly and easily move scenes around within the binder. You can do the same from the dropdown menu or by right-clicking and choosing the function, but the keys are the easiest and simplest way. I use them all the time so there they are. You can change the toolbar to fit whatever writing process serves you. Save for two or three that are permanently tacked down, they can all be removed, changed, and shuffled around to your convenience. On a Mac it's View> Customize Toolbar.
I started with LSB as well. Powerful program but the layout is a bit of a mess. I found Scrivener easy to use.
Why did I not know that you can customize the toolbar? I thought I was stuck with the limited 8 or so default buttons... Time to re-organise!
Oh I'm not saying you can't sort everything into one folder, but you still have multiple files and documents within that folder. With Scrivener you don't, you just have one document with everythin in it. So instead of opening the folder and a bunch of different files, you just open one document and you have everything there. Also makes it easier to save as you only have to save one file rather than multiple. In addition you don't have to work with multiple files open at any one time; I've been using multiple documents side by side as well and sometimes that's useful, but when I do it still feels 'messy'. I just prefer to have everything you listed within one single document that I can then work on in full screen if I like. That was my whole point. Different people have different preferences when they work so I respect that and I respect your decision to work differently than me
Oh yes, I know. Lots of people love Scrivener, and I'm glad. It's just that it's not the only way to organise work. I think I reacted to this, in particular: I thought ...no, it's not a holy mess that needs sorting if you just keep it sorted from the beginning. It's like a chest of drawers. You can just chuck everything willy-nilly into it, and clean it out when you have time, or you can decide what goes where and keep it neat. For me, even the look of the Scrivener page reproduced above makes me want to go take a pill. It's so incredibly complicated. Seven rows of tiny icons? Give me a simple system I can design myself, using folders and documents and a pull-down verbal menu. It's all I need.
But, Jan, that's exactly what I just described. Those seven rows are a toolbox. You pick the tools that make sense to you and place them on your workbench (toolbar). The rest remain in the toolbox that you are free to shove under the workbench and never look at again.
As I said, some people really like this method. I prefer to start simple, and add tools as I need them, not be presented with the whole toolbox at the start in the form of little icons that need explanation. What's wrong with a simple pull-down menu, under 'edit,' 'view', 'file,' etc. These are intuitive, and already organised into basic functions, at least for me. I'm not saying Scrivener isn't good ...just that it's not as immediately user-friendly as I'd hoped it would be. I have had years of experience working not only with Apple software at home, but also Word at work and very early WordPerfect at work as well. You'd think I'd just slide easily into Scrivener ...but I just didn't. I honestly don't see what it's going to do for me that I don't already do. I was not aware until one of the people posted it above, but Scrivener is a database, rather than a wordprocessor. That might explain some of the problem I've been having with it, and why a lot of it doesn't seem to work the way I expected it to. I admit, it's a problem with me.
All of this also exists, always, at the top of the screen. The icons are just shortcuts that allow me to ignore the drop-downs and just work on my work.
Fair enough! As I said, some folks really like Scrivener. And I certainly can't fault their team, who were not only helpful and prompt, but very friendly as well. It's just not for me. It will take WAY too much of my effort to bring my present projects into it ...and then I end up with more or less what I've already got, with a new and more complicated way of working to learn. I'm leaning towards the 'I'm getting too old for this' doorway. I think I'll take a different route out of Pages. And Damn. I wish they'd restore Pages to what it was. Maybe the screaming and gnashing of teeth from disappointed customers will jog them. Unless, of course, they're deliberately trying to kill it. Who knows?
I know people that can utilize all the Word functions. If I'd learned all that I can understand not wanting to tackle learning a whole new system. I never recovered from being forced to switch from Word Perfect, which was truly easy to use, to Word because all the companies I worked for had policies in Word format. So I never invested the time to learn Word formatting. I use Scrivener and for what I do with it, I never read or watched the tutorials. Those are never easy to follow in my opinion and sometimes I wish I could write my own. Help is not very useful in Scrivener. I've been trying to change the default font in my novel and I've yet to figure it out. Nothing in 'Help' helps. So I have to change it chapter by chapter. And you can't just change it at the beginning of chapter, you have to type at least one letter, select it and then change the font and it remains changed for the chapter, but not for the next chapter. Of course I could just use the default font them select all while in 'manuscript'. So intuitively I got around that problem. Funny thing though, default formatting is as confusing to me in Scrivener as it is in Word. Now Word Perfect, that was truly easy to use. In fact, Scrivener formatting looks to be very similar to Word. It also took me a while to find out how to use chapters vs scenes. And I couldn't find stuff in the trash for a while because I was looking in my computer's trash and the trash file for Scrivener is at the bottom of your manuscript passed all the templates for characters and settings. That was stressful because 'trash' was next to 'new folder' on the menu bar and I temporarily lost chapters until I figured out there was a trash file one could still open. I also moved the location of 'trash' to the other side of the menu bar. So it's been a learning process but not one that required more than a bit of trial and error and occasionally asking @Wreybies for his incredible knowledge of Scrivener. Speaking of which, I have a Mac and I couldn't find anything labeled 'tools', and the one menu option that led to 'options' didn't lead to 'editor'. How can I change the default font in my manuscript? Thanks.
There are a couple of ways. When you Compile, you go to File> Compile. Leave the window set to "All Options" (default) and you can use either the Quick Font Override (last option in the list to the left), or for a more detailed alteration you go to Formatting from the same list to the left. Choosing formatting will give you a window very similar to the one you get to change the on-screen appearance of text. I think you're asking for a permanent change, though, unless I miss my guess. I'll hunt that down.
(For anyone following along, this is how to change the appearance of the compiled manuscript. This is completely separate from the onscreen appearance) Ok, found it. Any changes you make can be saved as a custom Compile Format so you can use it later for other projects. The following is a one-time process for whatever Custom format you wish to make, so it may look a little intricate, but it's a one time deal. 1) Go to the Compile function as before and choose Formatting from the list to the left. Make your changes within the sample screen. You'll see that this is very similar to the screen given for changing the onscreen view. You will be creating a new custom Compile Format so you will need to apply your changes at each level, those levels corresponding to Part, Chapter, and Scenes in your manuscript. This allows you to have one font/font size for the Chapter Headings and another for the body of the work (just as an example). 2) Once you've made your changes, from the Format As: dropdown at the top of this screen choose Manage Compile Format Presets... 3) Click the + symbol to the bottom right of the new window that pops up. This is how you add a new Compile Format. 4) Name your new Compile format and then click Ok. I named this one Ginger Test. 5) When you open the Format As: dropdown again, you'll see that the new Compile Format is saved and ready for use.
That is so weird. In Preferences > Formatting under font, it shows the one I want to use. But in the manuscript, a different font and size shows up as the default font.
