Grow your ideas in style
Scrivener is a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to
concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents. While it
gives you complete control of the formatting, its focus is on helping you get to
the end of that awkward first draft.
Your complete writing studio
Writing a novel, research paper, script or any long-form text involves more than
hammering away at the keys until you’re done. Collecting research, ordering
fragmented ideas, shuffling index cards in search of that elusive structure—most
writing software is fired up only after much of the hard work is over. Enter
Scrivener: a word processor and project management tool that stays with you from
that first, unformed idea all the way through to the final draft. Outline and
structure your ideas, take notes, view research alongside your writing and
compose the constituent pieces of your text in isolation or in context.
Scrivener won't tell you how to write—it just makes all the tools you have
scattered around your desk available in one application.
Write, structure, revise
Scrivener puts everything you need for structuring, writing and editing long
documents at your fingertips. On the left of the window, the “binder” allows you
to navigate between the different parts of your manuscript, your notes, and
research materials, with ease. Break your text into pieces as small or large as
you want—so you can forget wrestling with one long document. Restructuring your
draft is as simple as drag and drop. Select a single document to edit a section
of your manuscript in isolation, or use “Scrivenings” mode to work on multiple
sections as though they were one: Scrivener makes it easy to switch between
focussing on the details and stepping back to get a wider view of your
composition.
With access to a powerful underlying text engine, you can add tables, bullet
points, images and mark up your text with comments and footnotes. Format as you
go using the format bar at the top of the page, or use any font you want for the
writing and let Scrivener reformat your manuscript after you're done—allowing
you to concentrate on the words rather than their presentation.
Create order from chaos
Most word processors approach composing a long-form text the same as typing a
letter or flyer—they expect you to start on page one and keep typing until you
reach the end. Scrivener lets you work in any order you want and gives you tools
for planning and restructuring your writing. In Scrivener, you can enter a
synopsis for each document on a virtual index card and then stack and shuffle
the cards in the corkboard until you find the most effective sequence. Plan out
your work in Scrivener’s outliner and use the synopses you create as prompts
while you write. Or just get everything down into a first draft and break it
apart later for rearrangement on the outliner or corkboard. Create collections
of documents to read and edit related text without affecting its place in the
overall draft; label and track connected documents or mark what still needs to
be done. Whether you like to plan everything in advance, write first and
structure later—or do a bit of both—Scrivener supports the way you work.
Your research—always within reach
No more switching between multiple applications to refer to research files: keep
all of your background material—images, PDF files, movies, web pages, sound
files—right inside Scrivener. And unlike other programs that only let you view
one document at a time, in Scrivener you can split the editor to view research
in one pane while composing your text right alongside it in another. Transcribe
an interview or conversation, make notes on an image or article, or just refer
back to another chapter, all without leaving the document you’re working on.
Getting it out there
Compile your draft into a single document for printing or exporting
Scrivener provides all the tools you need to prepare your manuscript for
submission or self-publishing. Once you’re ready to go, control everything from
how footnotes, headers and footers appear to fine-tuning the formatting of each
level of your draft—or keep it simple by choosing from one of Scrivener’s
convenient presets. Print a novel using standard manuscript formatting. Export
your finished document to a wide variety of file formats, including Microsoft
Word, RTF, PDF and HTML—making it easy to share your work with others. Or
self-publish by exporting to ePub or Kindle* formats to share your work via
iBooks or Amazon, or for reading on any e-reader.
Who Uses Scrivener?
Scrivener is used by all sorts of professional and amateur writers, from
best-selling and aspiring novelists to Hollywood scriptwriters, from students
and academics to lawyers and journalists: anyone who works on long and difficult
writing projects. While many other writing project management tools impose their
own workflows or limit themselves to fiction-writing, Scrivener recognises that
all writers of long-form texts often face similar problems, and provides an
array of flexible tools that allow you to do things your way, no matter what
kind of writing you do. Those currently using Scrivener include: