Wednesday
Mar022011
More Scrivener goodies for power editing
Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 11:09AM
I wrote on Monday of the discovery that Scrivener is marvellous when it comes to viewing and editing non-continuous documents when you select them with the command key in the Binder. Here's this morning's related discovery: the same trick works with Scrivener 2's QuickRef feature, a little tool that opens up another chapter in a small window for reference.
You know when you're writing one chapter but need to refer back to another for details? You don't have to have that chapter open in a long scrolling document. QuickRef lets you open it up in a small, resizable scrollable window to find the parts you want.
Let's start like this... by selecting three scenes I want as reference holding down the command key, then picking the QuickRef icon.
Next we see this... those three scenes as small windows to be positioned anywhere.
So I can use them to flick back to related detail very easily. And if I hit full screen I can still see them there, along with my notes...
This is very powerful stuff if you're the kind of writer who needs to keep different sections of a narrative in sync across extended sections of the book (which I am).
You know when you're writing one chapter but need to refer back to another for details? You don't have to have that chapter open in a long scrolling document. QuickRef lets you open it up in a small, resizable scrollable window to find the parts you want.
Let's start like this... by selecting three scenes I want as reference holding down the command key, then picking the QuickRef icon.
Next we see this... those three scenes as small windows to be positioned anywhere.
So I can use them to flick back to related detail very easily. And if I hit full screen I can still see them there, along with my notes...
This is very powerful stuff if you're the kind of writer who needs to keep different sections of a narrative in sync across extended sections of the book (which I am).
Reader Comments (6)
Ahh! Didn't know that worked with the Quick Reference panes too!
Found Scrivener to be immensely helpful in getting to grips with the structure of my novel.
Glad to hear it - there are a lot of toys under the bonnet. Still many more to be discovered I suspect....
Thanks, I hadn't found this. It's a great new feature. Better than just editing scrivenings were you could have disjoint sections, but in on single document view. Thanks.
I just discovered Scrivener for myself, and shortly after, this site. It's an absolute treasure of tips for the Scrivener rookie! Thank you, David.
You're welcome. Happy hunting - I only scratch the surface, and look for things that suit my own work.
Thanks for the tip! That makes it so easy to stay in full-screen and keep the details correct across scenes.