Scrivener for Mac requires OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or above. Scrivener 2 is fully compatible with OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion).
Universal: Universal application for both Intel and PowerPC Macs.
Scrivener for Mac App Store requires OS X 10.6.7 or above, owing to the fact that the Mac App Store itself cannot be installed on any older machines.
View the Windows version of this page.
If you have not upgraded yet and need to re-install Scrivener 1.x for any reason, you can download Scrivener 1.54 here. (Please note that 1.54 is legacy software and may not work properly on operating systems newer than Snow Leopard. If you need to use Scrivener on 10.7 or later, you should update to version 2.0.)
Scrivener comes with a generous "household" licence. This allows you to install Scrivener on multiple computers (of the same platform, so a Mac licence will not work on Windows, and vice versa) provided that you are the primary user or owner, and on any machines owned by members of your immediate family residing in your household. Businesses require separate licences for each user (site licences can be arranged).
* Not a spelling mistake—we’re British.
Scrivener has deliberately been priced low so that it should be affordable for most struggling writers. However, a further 15% discount is available to students and educators by selecting the educational licence from the store (proof may be requested). Volume discounts are also available, as well as support for purchase orders for amounts greater than $250.
You can pay for Scrivener using a variety of credit cards or a PayPal account:
E-Check (only available in the U.S.) and wire transfer also available. Bank fees may be applicable.
“I genuinely think this is the biggest software advance for writers since the word processor.”
—Michael Marshall Smith, best-selling author.
“As a writer's application, Scrivener is damn near perfect.”
—Neil Cross, Booker Prize nominee and screenwriter for acclaimed BBC1 show Spooks.
“My workflow is now complete. Scrivener has done something unforgiveable: removed my last excuse for idling.”
—Michael Bywater, journalist and author.
“The more I use it, the more I realise it can replace every other application I've adopted over the years for writing books.”
—David Hewson, best-selling author of the Nic Costa novels.
“If I had the brains and the patience, Scrivener is the program I would've written for myself. ”
—Mike Sussman, Writer-Producer of Star Trek: Voyager, Enterprise and Threshold.
While Scrivener has been designed to work with the Mac OS X ecosystem in a standard fashion, and is thus on friendly terms with pretty much any other piece of software you may be using, a few stand out, having gone the extra mile to work directly with the Scrivener format.
Marked is a general purpose previewer for (Multi)Markdown and Fountain files using aesthetically pleasing typography settings. Marked can open .scriv project files directly, displaying a preview version of the draft folder's contents, updating automatically while you work.
Tinderbox stores and organizes your notes, plans, and ideas. It can help you analyze and understand them. It supports a Scrivener export mode for bringing your outlines into Scrivener, using OPML, retaining the original outline structure, and has the ability to load .scriv project files directly, converting them extensively to a Tinderbox outline, complete with meta-data, freeform corkboard arrangements, notes, text links and more.
Aeon Timeline is a tool for tracking chronological events and mapping them to a familiar visual timeline. It offers synchronisation with Scrivener, allowing you to map individual portions of your draft into the timeline.
Story Skeleton is a brainstorming and organisational tool for the iPhone which works using an index card metaphor, as on Scrivener’s corkboard. It supports the ability to export your "skeleton" to the .scriv project format.
The cork notice-board is one of the writer's most familiar organisational tools. Before Scrivener, though, the index cards were not connected to anything; any alterations made to the sequence of cards on the corkboard would have to be replicated manually in the draft. In Scrivener, every document is attached to a virtual index card onto which you can jot a synopsis; moving the cards on Scrivener’s corkboard rearranges their associated text in your draft. Mark common themes or content using labels; stack cards, grouping related documents together; or place cards anywhere on the board using freeform mode. Scrivener’s corkboard gives you all the flexibility of a real notice-board while automatically reflecting any changes you make in your manuscript.
Prefer a more traditional planning environment? View and edit the synopses and meta-data of your documents in Scrivener’s powerful outliner. Organise your ideas using as many or few levels as you want and drag and drop to restructure your work. Check word counts, see what’s left to do using the Status column and create custom columns to store any information you need. Scrivener’s outliner is easy on the eyes, too, making it ideal for reading and revising an overview of a section, chapter or even the whole draft.
Scrivener’s innovative “Scrivenings” mode allows you to move smoothly between editing your document one piece at a time or together as a whole. It’s up to you how small—or large—you want to make the individual sections of your manuscript: novelists can write each scene in a separate document or whole chapters as one; scriptwriters can work scene-by-scene or act-by-act; academics can break down their ideas into individual arguments. However finely you break up your work, Scrivenings mode allows you to collect the constituent components into a single editor, so that you can edit them as though they were all part of one document: in Scrivener, you’re only ever a click away from seeing the forest or the trees.
Scrivener provides access to all the features of the OS X text system: add tables, bullet points and images and format your text however you want using the format bar at the top of the page. Add footnotes and comments in the inspector and choose how they should be laid out when you export or print. Enter page layout view to see your words on virtual pages, which can be set up to mimic your printer settings or the pages of a book. And because the font and style you find most comfortable for writing and editing may not be the same as those required in your final document, Scrivener’s advanced Compile settings optionally allow you to print or export your work in a completely different format.
Scrivener isn’t just for writing novels and other forms of fiction. You will find a number of useful academic templates for writing papers, essays, and dissertations in common style formats, including Chicago style essay format, APA & MLA papers, Undergraduate Humanities essay format, as well as general non-fiction, technical writing and research proposals. Integrate your preferred bibliography management software into Scrivener’s menu system for easy on-demand access to your library of references. Using MultiMarkdown, you can create LaTeX documents with a great degree of flexibility. As of version 2.1, you can include beautifully typeset editable MathType equations in your work. Those working with gigantic libraries of reference material in PDF and other formats will appreciate the ability to link to original files rather than importing them into the project, giving you the best of both worlds: Scrivener’s built-in split viewing and full Binder organisation, without the overhead of storing gigabytes of research data in your projects.
Watch the MathType video ●
While Scrivener is not intended to replace dedicated screenplay software, its familiar scriptwriting features make formatting a script straightforward. So you can draft your script inside Scrivener using the unique research and structural tools and then export it to industry-standard scriptwriting software such as Final Draft. And because you can mix up script formatting with regular text, it makes writing treatments easier than ever.
A live word and character count of the current section is always in view at the bottom of the screen, and you can set a word or character count target for each section. For a wider perspective, though, Scrivener’s Project Statistics panel allows you to check the word, character and page counts of your manuscript so far, and the Project Targets let you set the number of words, characters or pages you aim to achieve for the whole draft or just for the current session. Call up the targets panel to see your progress reflected in the coloured bars as you write.
Never be afraid to make mistakes. Scrivener's "snapshot" feature makes it easy to return to an earlier version of your text. Before embarking on a major edit, take a snapshot and you’ll be able to return to the current version any time you want. Not sure about the changes you’ve made? Just call up your snapshots in the inspector to compare previous edits or restore an older version of the text.
Watch the video ●
Because sometimes you want to blank out the rest of the world while you write—or at least the rest of the screen. One click in Scrivener’s toolbar and you can leave the rest of your desktop behind. Fade the background in and out, choose the width of the "paper" and get writing. Prefer an old-school green-text-on-black look or your favourite countryside scene as a backdrop? No problem. Flexible preferences mean you can set up the full-screen mode as you please. Change documents, refer to your notes, apply keywords—or most importantly, just write—in one of the most beautiful distraction-free modes available.
Watch the video ●
