Tip of the Day Tweets

Tip of the Day: Remember that the text around footnotes should appear as you would want it once the footnote is removed (spaces etc).

Tip of the Day: Text > Show Invisibles shows hidden characters such as spaces and line breaks.

Easter Egg of the Day: Hold down the command key while clicking on “About Scrivener” to read some of our favourite quotes…

Tip of the Day: If italics turn into underlines when compiling, turn off “Convert italics to underlines” in Compile Draft > Text Options.

Tip of the Day: You can turn off cursor blinking and even have a retro block cursor - see Preferences > Text Editing.

Tip of the Day: When exporting to plain text, get rid of curly quotes and smart hyphens etc using the Text Options pane of Compile Draft.

Tip of the Day: You can save your Compile Draft settings for use with other projects using the “Save” and “Load” buttons in Compile Draft.

Tip of the Day: Folders open as a corkboard by default, but you can change this behaviour using the Navigation pane of the Preferences.

Tip of the Day: Remember - folders are no different to text items. Deselect the corkboard or outliner to see or edit their textual contents.

Tip of the Day: You can switch between inches and centimetres as the ruler unit via the Text Editing pane of the Preferences.

Tip of the Day: RTF is almost always the best format to use for exporting to Word or other word processors.

Tip of the Day: File > Export > Files… will export selected documents, reproducing the binder structure as files and folders in the Finder.

Tip of the Day: To easily add diacritics, type Option+[e, u, n, or i], and then type the letter that should go beneath the chosen mark.

Tip of the Day: Holding down the Option key while clicking on the split button in the header bar will change the split type.

Tip of the Day: You can switch between the Modified and Created date in the inspector by clicking on the up/down arrows next to the date.

Tip of the Day: You can insert Scrivener Links into the notes pane in the inspector, as well as the main text.

Tip of the Day: Using the search field menu, you can search by label & then save your search - useful for tracking characters, for instance.

Tip of the Day: Use the synopsis fields to write your own brief descriptions of associated documents for the best results…
…(as opposed to relying on the synopses that are automatically filled by Scrivener after import, which use the first few lines of text).

Tip of the Day: You can hide the index card and general pane of the inspector by clicking on their title bars.

Tip of the Day: Hold down the green “Add” button in the toolbar for more options - to add a folder or import a web page.

Tip of the Day: Select multiple docs in the binder then enter full screen. Use cmd-[ and cmd-] to navigate between the selected docs in full screen.

Tip of the Day: With the main window on one screen and full screen on another, Opt-click items in the binder to switch docs in full screen.

Tip of the Day: Move the cursor to the bottom of the screen in full screen to show the control panel, or the top of the screen for menus.

Tip of the Day: You can use ctrl-cmd-left/right/up/down arrow to move documents around in the binder, outliner or corkboard.

Tip of the Day: Cmd-D will duplicate the selected documents (sort of an all-in-one copy-and-paste in one).

Tip of the Day: Select some text and hit shift-opt-cmd-T to set the title of the document using the selection.

Tip of the Day: Set up a blank project with your preferred keywords, labels etc & use Save As Template to use it as a base for new projects.

Tip of the Day: Use File > Backup Project To every day (preferably as soon as you open a project and just before you close it).

Tip of the Day: A curled corner to a document icon indicates that it has a snapshot associated with it.

Tip of the Day: You can convert web pages and PDF files to text files using Documents > Convert.

Tip of the Day: Ctrl-clicking on a multiple selection of documents allows you to assign a label or status to all of them at once.

Tip of the Day: To assign keywords to multiple documents, select the documents and drag & drop the keywords from the Keywords HUD onto them.

Tip of the Day: Hovering the mouse over an item in the binder will bring up its synopsis in a tooltip.

Tip of the Day: You can drag items from the binder into the editor header bar as another way of opening them.

Tip of the Day: You can drag supported file types from the references pane of the inspector to the editor header bar to view them.

Tip of the Day: You can drag supported file types from the Finder to the editor header bar to view them in Scrivener without importing them.

Tip of the Day: You can use the zoom pop-up in the footer bar to increase text size instead of making the font bigger.

Tip of the Day: While typing, hit cmd-period or shift-Escape to bring up the auto-complete list.

Tip of the Day: Click on the image of the three dots at the right of the outliner title bar to see a list of columns that can be added to the outliner.

Tip of the Day: Folders can be set to open in outline mode instead of corkboard mode by default using the Navigation Preferences pane.

Tip of the Day: Select several documents and hit opt-cmd-G to place them all inside a new folder.

Tip of the Day: Resize images in text by double-clicking on them to bring up the scale panel.

Tip of the Day: Window > Zoom to Fit Screen (ctrl-cmd-=) stretches the window to fit the screen.

Tip of the Day: You can insert images directly into the text by dragging or by using Edit > Insert > Image From File.

Tip of the Day: You can drag from the references table in the inspector to the header bar of the editor pane.

Tip of the Day: Status stamps can be displayed across index cards by selecting View > Index Cards > Show Stamps.

Tip of the Day: Set up the status list in File > Label & Status Setup…

Tip of the Day: If you accidentally hit the delete key and delete a document - do not worry! It has just moved to the Trash folder.

Tip of the Day: You can place icons in the status stamp by using a wingdings-style font: semigreenpenny.com/img/forum … 083618.jpg

Tip of the Day: Select text and hit shift-cmd-hyphen to strike it out.

Tip of the Day: Take a snapshot of your document before you start editing for the day, hit cmd-5, and you can return to your earlier version any time you want.

Tip of the Day: You can add project-specific words to the auto-complete list via Edit > Edit Auto-Complete List…

Tip of the Day: You can drag supported files from the Finder to the editor header bar in Scrivener for just viewing images, PDF files etc in Scriv without importing.

Tip of the Day: Hit cmd-R in an editor to bring up the ruler.

Tip of the Day: Scrivener imports OPML, so you can export from OmniOutliner as OPML and import your outline into Scrivener.

Tip of the Day: You can use the Text > Scriptwriting > Script Settings even if you are not a scriptwriter, to set up your own custom formatting.

Tip of the Day: Text Editing preferences affect new documents. Use Documents > Convert > to Default Style to update the formatting of selected existing documents.

Tip of the Day: Enter or leave script mode by hitting cmd-3 or by going to Text > Scriptwriting > Script Mode.

Tip of the Day: Individual document remember whether they are in script or prose mode.

Tip of the Day: When viewing images, double-click on the image to bring up the image scaling and rotation panel.

Tip of the Day: Hold down the green “Add” button in the toolbar for more options - to add a folder or import a web page.

Tip of the Day: Using the full screen preferences, you can set up full screen to look like a retro computer (e.g green on black).

Tip of the Day: View > Index Cards > Cards Across lets you set how many index cards should be laid out across the corkboard view before wrapping.

Tip of the Day: If you are in scriptwriting mode, new documents are created in scriptwriting mode automatically.

Tip of the Day: To use one of Final Draft’s script formats, choose “Load from Final Draft FDX file…” in the Manage… button at the bottom of the Text > Script Writing > Script Settings panel, and select a FD8 file from which you want to read the formatting.

Tip of the Day: The “Pages (paperback)” stats inView > Statistics > Project Statistics count pages as 6 characters (5 characters + a space) = 1 word, and you set words-per-page in the options. This gives a good rule of thumb idea of how long the trade paperback may be.

Tip of the Day: View > Editor > Zoom In/Zoom Out (opt-cmd-up and opt-cmd-down) zooms in and out on text documents, PDF documents and web pages.

Tip of the Day: To check for overused words, select the documents you want to check, enter Edit Scrivenings mode, and go to View > Statistics > Text Statistics. Click on the disclosure triangle next to “Word Frequency” to reveal the word frequency.

Tip of the Day: The lock button at the bottom-right of the inspector allows you to lock the inspector to the current editor (i.e. if you click in the split view, the inspector won’t update and will carry on showing information for the editor to which it is locked).

Tip of the Day: Opt-click on the split icon in the header view of an editor to change the split type.

Is there a way to do a keyboard shortcut to insert a regularly used special character? Ideally in a larger font in than the surrounding copy?

I.e., I understand how to use Apple preferences to assign keyboard shortcuts to commands. Can the same be done with special characters?

Thanks.

Apple’s expansion code only works at the character level. You could probably set up something in System Preferences/Languages and Text/Text that will do this for you, but it will be in the same font as the current paragraph.

A tool like Typinator or TextExpander would be best for using special fonts, as they can do rich text replacements. They are useful for many other things as well though, so it might be worth the cost.

Also, depending on the character you might be in luck. Many of the most common special characters can be accessed by holding down the Option or Option-Shift keys and pressing a certain letter. Getting at these is more difficult than it used to be. You have to visit the language preferences and turn on “Keyboard and Character Viewer” at the top of the list. Make sure the input menu is turned on at the bottom. Now in the menu bar status area, click on the flag and choose character viewer. This will display a fake keyboard and if you hold down the option and shift keys you’ll see the alternate characters available.

Tip of the Day: When typing keywords in the keywords pane of the inspector, after you start typing hit opt-Escape to bring up the list of keywords for auto-completion.

Tip of the Day: You can create folders at the root level alongside the Draft and Research folders - so you can add folders for “Characters”, “Locations”, etc.

Tip of the Day: You can drag documents from the binder to the editor header bar as another way of opening them.

Tip of the Day: Click on the triangle next to the magnifying glass in the toolbar search field to narrow down the search criteria.

Tip of the Day: File > Export > Files… exports selected files in the binder recreating the folder structure in the Finder.

Tip of the Day: Hover the mouse over documents in the binder to see the synopsis in a tooltip.

Tip of the Day: Opt-clicking on one of the checkbox columns in the Outliner will apply to all visible items (e.g. If you opt-click on the “Page Break Before” checkbox of a document in the outliner, if it was off and clicking on it turns it on, the checkbox will be set to ON for all visible items in the Outliner too).

Tip of the Day: While working in another application, you can use Scrivener’s services to send text to the currently open Scrivener project. (You will need to enable Scrivener services in the System Preferences in Snow Leopard. To do so, you go to Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts in System Preferences, choose “Services”, and look for “Append to Current Text” and “Make New Clipping” under the “Text” section.)

Tip of the Day: To get a word and character count for selected text, ctrl-click on the selection; selection statistics appear at the bottom of the contextual menu.

Tip of the Day: To save your preferences to restore them later, use the “Manage…” pop-up button at the bottom of the Scrivener > Preferences… window.

Tip of the Day: To assign keywords to multiple documents at the same time, select the relevant documents and drag & drop the keywords onto one of them in the Binder from the Keywords HUD.

Tip of the Day: File > Backup Project To… allows you to create zipped-up backups of your project.

Tip of the Day: RTF is by far the best export format. To export with footnotes, images, headers and comments intact, choose RTF.

Tip of the Day: To split up text after importing, use Documents > Split at Selection (cmd-K) or Split with Selection as Title (opt-cmd-K).

Tip of the Day: Preferences only affect text formatting for new documents. For existing documents, use Documents > Convert > Formatting to Default Text Style.

Tip of the Day: To copy whole documents, use Documents > Duplicate (cmd-D). Or use Simple Duplicate (shift-cmd-D), which won’t copy subdocuments.

Tip of the Day: Remain calm. If you accidentally hit delete on a file, the file is not permanently deleted, just moved to Scrivener’s Trash folder. :wink:

Tip of the Day: To switch between project and document notes, click Document Notes in the Inspector. Project notes can be viewed by any document.

Tip of the Day: If you want to give text highlight colours meaningful names for your project, use the panel found here Edit > Find > Find Highlight…

Tip of the Day: To change the colour of an annotation (Text > Annotation), click into the annotation and use Text > Font > Show Colors.

Tip of the Day: Scrivener Links (Text > Scrivener Link, or drag documents into text) allow you to make links between documents in a project. See our video literatureandlatte.com/videos/index.html ‘References & Links’ for more information.

Tip of the Day: Holding the Option key down while dragging in the binder/outliner will disallow drop-ons, making dropping between documents easier.

Tip of the Day: View > Reveal in Binder (opt-cmd-R) will show where the current editor document is in the binder.

Tip of the Day: Documents > Convert allows you to convert PDF or web files into text files for editing (some formatting may be lost).

Tip of the Day: Opt-cmd-up/down arrow zooms in/out on text, PDF and web files.

Tip of the Day: If you do not want to include formatting when pasting text, just use Edit > Paste and Match Style (shift-opt-cmd-V).

Tip of the Day: Window > Zoom to Fit Screen (ctrl-cmd-=) stretches the window to fit the screen.

Tip of the Day: To highlight a PDF: View > Open in > External Editor to highlight the PDF in Preview/Acrobat/Skim. Switch from the PDF document and back to see the changes.

Tip of the Day: You can make Scrivener’s interface sparse by changing background colours to white, hiding the toolbar and header bars, closing the inspector, etc.

Tip of the Day: Scrivener supports MultiMarkdown (MMD). MMD is a simple mark-up syntax that can be converted into LaTeX and XHTML.

Tip of the Day: Control-clicking on the icon next to the project file name at the top centre of the header bar brings up the file path.

Tip of the Day: Take a snapshot of your document before you start editing for the day, hit cmd-5 or Documents > Snapshots > Take Snapshot, and you can return to your earlier version of the document at any time that you want.

Tip of the Day: Set up a blank project with your preferred keywords, labels, font, colours, etc and use File > Save As Template… to use it as a base for new projects.

Tip of the Day: To save your preferences in order to restore them later, use the “Manage…” pop-up button at the bottom of the Scrivener > Preferences… window.

Tip of the Day: Text > Ghost Notes Mode (shift-cmd-X) fades out unselected annotations and footnotes. Great for making them less obtrusive.

Tip of the Day: Preference settings only affect text formatting for new documents. For existing documents, use Documents > Convert > Formatting to Default Text Style.

Tip of the Day: To alter line height, inter-line spacing and paragraph spacing of selected text go to Text > Spacing…

Tip of the Day: Make sure files have extensions before importing them into Scrivener, e.g. RTF. Scrivener uses the extension to determine the file type.

Tip of the Day: When the editor is split either horizontally or vertically, the pane that is active displays an underline in the document title of the relevant header bar.

Tip of the Day: To print your entire draft, go to File > Compile Draft… and click on the “Print…” button instead of “Export…”.

Tip of the Day: Edit > Find > Find Annotation… allows you to cycle through all annotations in a project.

Tip of the Day: The little arrow next to the magnifying glass in the toolbar search field allows you to change the search parameters.

Tip of the Day: You can set up full screen mode to look like an old-fashioned computer by playing with Scrivener > Preferences… > Full Screen. ‘Setting Up Your Writing Environment’ tutorial video available here literatureandlatte.com/videos/index.html

Tip of the Day: Project Targets allow you to set a word/character count target for the entire draft, and for each writing session. The ‘Targets’ video gives more information literatureandlatte.com/videos/index.html

Tip of the Day: If you would like to change the organisation of your Scrivener toolbar, go to View > Customize Toolbar…

Tip of the Day: To see where a project is saved, ctrl-click on the .scriv icon next to the project name at the very top of the window, above the toolbar line.

Tip of the Day: New documents use the current mode. If in script mode, new documents will use script mode. Text > Scriptwriting > Script Mode or cmd-3 will switch between script and prose writing modes.

Tip of the Day: Folders and text files are much the same. To see the text of a folder, click on the corkboard icon. Please see ‘The Flexibility of Folders in Scrivener’ tutorial video literatureandlatte.com/videos/index.html for more details.

Tip of the Day: Command-r (cmd-r) will quickly show or hide the ruler.

Tip of the Day: You can customise the separators that appear between texts in Edit Scrivenings via Preferences… > General.

Tip of the Day: You can get rid of the lines from index cards using Scrivener > Preferences… > Fonts & Colors > Draw lines.

Tip of the Day: Entering <$p> in the header/footer field in File > Compile Draft… > Text Options will insert the page number in the compiled file.

Tip of the Day: You can insert images directly into the text by dragging or by using Edit > Insert > Image From File… Double-click on the image to resize.

Tip of the Day: To enter line breaks into synopses when editing in corkboard or outliner mode, use opt-return instead of just return.

Tip of the Day: Edit Scrivenings allows you to work on multiple text documents as though they were one, even inside the Research folder.

Tip of the Day: If you prefer the Outliner to the Corkboard, go to Scrivener > Preferences… > Navigation tab to choose which mode gets opened by default.