Dropping one topic on top of another in the Binder, for example, makes the dropped topic a ‘child’ of the other. You can keep splitting your documents wherever you want and as much as you want, and then reorganise them by dragging them into the preferred position in the Binder. In a Scrivener project, you can write in a single document in the main editor window, and then split the content into new documents with their own topic names using a simple hotkey call (you can also invoke the split command through the menu). Regardless of what software you use to put together your final content, the benefits of drafting in Scrivener come from its powerful outlining and organisational features, which centre around ‘the Binder’, the navigational panel on the left hand-side of the interface. Although it is not a single-sourcing program, Scrivener encourages you to write in small topic-based chunks and it could be ideal for drafting content that you might later move over to something like Madcap Flare or Adobe RoboHelp. Scrivener will run on either Power PC or Intel machines with anything from OS X 10.4 to the latest version of Snow Leopard ( Update: Scrivener is now also available for both OS X Lion and Windows).ĭrafting is what Scrivener is all about. On top of that, you can download the 30-day trial and give it a run before you decide to pay for the licence key, so it is not only within the budget of even the most cash-strapped freelancer but also risk-free to boot.Īs far as hardware requirements are concerned, it is worth noting that Scrivener was made for Mac OS X, and while a Windows version is in development (tentatively scheduled for later this year), this review applies only to the Mac version. It’s fast, clean and doesn’t stop you using the program while you’re using the tutorial or searching the Help.Īnd the financial investment? A mere £35. However, if you want to take quick and full advantage of the special things Scrivener has to offer then the interactive tutorial is the best place to start. Both a locally stored interactive tutorial and web-based video tutorials are available from the application Help menu, as well as a traditional PDF user manual. These are not after-thoughts but have been carefully thought through from the beginning. The gentle learning curve is due in part to its familiarity – its basic functions will be familiar to anyone who has ever used a word processor – but more so to its exemplary Help and tutorials. Getting to grips with Scrivener is a cinch. In both respects, this program is a writer’s dream. Precisely how Scrivener is different we’ll get to shortly, but there’s always a few important things I want to know before hearing about how some piece of software is magically going to change my life, for example: how much time am I going to have to spend learning this new wonder tool before it starts adding to, rather than subtracting from, my productivity? And what about the costs? Few of us want to hear that it takes the resources of a medium-sized IT department to purchase and maintain it. Ten years later, Microsoft researchers found that while technology had become faster and slicker, little had changed: computers and software applications still failed to support an iterative, process-writing workflow (Morris, Brush and Meyers, 2007). In 1997, researchers at Rank Xerox (O’Hara and Sellen, 1997) pointed out that the standard desktop computer offered little support for the process writing approach. Since almost every writing task involves some kind of research, that also means we jump back and forth between reading, note-taking, highlighting, and drafting. Rather, we visit and revisit each of these stages multiple times throughout the creative process, jumping backwards and forwards at the whim of the text and our own cognitive processes. As we move through the stages of brainstorming, researching, drafting, editing and proofing, we do not do so in a neat, orderly fashion. But back in the early 80s, when most people had never even heard the term ‘word processor’, Flower & Hayes (1981) made an influential case for thinking of composition as an iterative process that is far from linear. Ever since their inception, word processors have forced us to write text by starting at the beginning and ending at the end.
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