Release Notes

A list of all the changes, bug fixes and improvements that have been made in previous versions of Scrivener.

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Scrivener 3.1.5.1
5th July 2023

 Download 64-bit

This update fixes a number of bugs that were found in the initial 3.1.5.0 update, including a flaw in Print/PDF output that could leave some text missing. It is recommended you upgrade at your next convenience, or before compiling anything important to PDF.

If you have attempted to update from an older system and find yourself with a copy that no longer runs, please uninstall and visit our legacy download page to fetch an older copy of the software.

Refinements and Changes

  • Adjusted the Dark Mode theme to use a darker text highlight for project search results, keeping the light-coloured text readable.

    Note: If the Dark Mode theme is in use when upgrading to 3.1.5.1, you will need to switch to another theme and then back to Dark Mode to see the changes.

  • Increased the adjustability of the text-to-speech rate and pitch sliders, allowing fine-tuned control of the settings.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug whereby arbitrary chunks of text could be missing from a compiled PDF.
  • Fixed an error related to text-to-speech services that occurred on some systems and prevented Scrivener from launching.
  • Fixed a bug whereby some imported webpages would not display in the editor and might prompt to select an alternative application to open the MHT file. This also fixes
    • A related issue of the Compile Format Designer window giving the same prompt.
    • An inability to complete the in-software purchasing of an upgrade or cross-platform discount.
  • Restored copying and pasting formatted text from Scrivener to other applications like Word and OpenOffice Writer, which broke in 3.1.5.0 so that formatting was lost on paste.
  • Fixed a bug whereby most paragraph settings were omitted when using Format ▸ Copy Formatting and ▸ Paste Formatting.
  • Fixed a bug whereby after-paragraph spacing did not correctly apply when creating new list items.
  • Fixed a bug introduced in 3.1.5.0 whereby the Notes Background colour in the Options:Appearance settings did not affect the interface.
  • Fixed a bug whereby a custom Comments & Footnotes Area Background colour was not preserved through closing and reopening Scrivener when applied in any but the Default theme.

Scrivener 3.1.5
20th June 2023

This is a major overhaul of the underlying code to modernise the infrastructure to Qt 6. As a result of this framework upgrade, the minimum supported operating system is now 64-bit Windows 10.

If you have attempted to update from an older system and find yourself with a copy that no longer runs, please uninstall and visit our legacy download page to fetch an older copy of the software.

Note to Beta Testers: Because of changes to the registry made during the beta period, 3.1.5.0 beta 3 will not update cleanly to the official release. Please uninstall the beta version before downloading and installing the release version.

Refinements and Changes

  • Scrivener has had a major framework upgrade to Qt version 6.4.3 and consequently is now a 64-bit application only. This upgrade also has changed the minimum required system version to Windows 10.
  • Documents using fonts unavailable on the current Windows machine (such as in a project created on a Mac device) will now display in Arial while on Windows but will use the original font when reopened on a device with that font installed.
  • Multiple items can now be loaded in the editor via drag and drop (previously only the topmost binder item in the selection would be loaded).
  • The floating Quick Search window (which is used if the toolbar is hidden or the search bar removed from it) now remembers its position when closed and reopened.
  • The spell check underline now appears much crisper on HiDPI displays.
  • View ▸ Editor Layout ▸ Swap Editors can now have a custom keyboard shortcut applied.
  • Menu commands and keyboard shortcuts have been added to Quick Reference windows for toggling and navigating the inspector, the Project Bookmarks sidebar, and the Format Bar.
  • PDFs and images loaded in the editor can now be zoomed via the mouse scroll wheel while holding Ctrl.
  • There is now an option to include beta releases as part of the automatic check for updates.
  • Several default shortcuts have been adjusted for better consistency with Windows standards. Alt+F4 is now assigned to Close Project, and Exit Scrivener (which can close multiple windows, such that they will all reopen on launch per preference settings) has been changed to Ctrl+Alt+F4. Default shortcuts for inserting comments and inline annotations and for scrolling in Page View have also been adjusted to avoid the Alt+F4 combo. (All can be customised in the Keyboard settings of File ▸ Options.)
  • Additionally, several default shortcuts using the Windows key have been updated for compatibility with Windows 11, which has made new use of them. These include the shortcuts for Navigate ▸ Inspect ▸ Notes and ▸ Comments and Footnotes, which have changed to Win+Alt+U and Win+Alt+O respectively; Navigate ▸ Outline Groups ▸ Previous Group and ▸ Next Group have changed to Ctrl+Shift+Up and Ctrl+Shift+Down. Format ▸ Paragraph ▸ Increase/Decrease Indents ▸ Increase Indents and ▸ Decrease Indents no longer have a default assigned, as these already use the same shortcuts as Edit ▸ Move ▸ Move Right and ▸ Move Left in text contexts (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Right/Left). If you did not do a fresh install (or if you afterward restored your preference settings), you will need to choose Reset All from the Keyboard tab of File ▸ Options… to fully update the shortcuts.
  • Scrivener now encodes the personal word list (“learned” or “ignored” spelling) in UTF-8 and saves to %LOCALAPPDATA%\LiteratureAndLatte\Scrivener\wordlists.txt to avoid conflicting with the ASCII-encoded wordlists.ini file from earlier versions. (The existing word list from Scrivener 3.1.4.1 or earlier will be copied to the new file when 3.1.5 first runs and preserved for previous versions of Scrivener to use, should you need to downgrade .)

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug that could crash Scrivener when deleting a justified line item from a list.
  • Fixed a bug whereby using Undo after adjusting list items restored the item’s indentation formatting but not the list level.
  • Adjusted the list behaviour whereby selecting all items in a list and changing the bullet style away from hierarchical numbering might not set the new style for deeper levels.
  • Fixed a bug whereby, after once editing text substitutions, further changes to the substitutions within the session did not take effect until Scrivener had been restarted or Enable Substitutions had been toggled off and back on.
  • Fixed a bug whereby toggling most Revision Mode settings from within a Quick Reference window changed the menu appearance but did not affect the editor.
  • Fixed a bug whereby dragging and dropping a document to a locked editor failed to break the lock and load the document.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Progress and Total Progress bars were not displaying in the outliner for script documents.
  • Removed the nonfunctional document target button from the script mode editor footer. (Document targets and word counts can be set and viewed for script documents in the outliner.)
  • Corrected a bug whereby snapshots used the editor background colour set in the Appearance Options rather than the snapshots background colour.
  • Fixed a bug whereby Print Current Document would print the full binder outline rather than the outliner contents when focus was in an outliner displaying a multiple selection.
  • Adjusted the accelerator key sequence for Edit ▸ Select ▸ Select Annotation | Select Footnote to the unique Alt E, S, O.
  • Removed the duplicated Reset Idents to Defaults command from the Edit ▸ Transformations submenu. (This command can be found under Format ▸ List ▸.)
  • Line height calculations for PDF printing have been improved with the newer Qt engine.
  • Fixed a bug in PDF and Print compile formats whereby grouping endnotes by section when using auto-numbering placeholders in titles resulted in the numbers continuing to increment in the endnote section headings rather than correctly referring to the chapter number.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the front and back matter controls in compile could be incorrectly enabled when compiling only a portion of the manuscript.
  • Learned spelling words (in the personal word list) are now recognised after switching dictionaries without requiring a restart.

Scrivener 3.1.4.1
22nd May 2023

Download 64-bit  Download 32-bit

Downgrading from 3.1.5 or higher?
If you are looking to download and install this version to downgrade from a more recent version of Scrivener (3.1.5 or higher), then we strongly recommend uninstalling and reinstalling the software. Instructions for doing so, and backing up your settings, can be found in this knowledge base page.

Refinements and Changes

  • Implemented support for new auto-update streams.
  • Added a new command Format ▸ List ▸ Reset Indents to Defaults to restore formatting of selected list text (or all lists in the editor if there is no selection) to the default indentation for each level.
  • Scrivener’s Qt framework has been updated to version 5.15.14.
  • Scrivener has upgraded to Unicode ICU 73.1, which may improve line wrapping for Japanese and Korean text.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug that could cause Scrivener to crash when searching for case-sensitive text across multiple snapshots.
  • Fixed a bug whereby list formatting was damaged after reloading a project such that adding or moving items within an existing list indented them incorrectly.Note: This correction will apply to new lists created in 3.1.4.1. Existing lists can be manually updated via Format ▸ List ▸ Reset Indents to Defaults.
  • Fixed a bug whereby editing the label of a custom metadata list item could change its internal ID number, causing documents in the project previously assigned that list item to instead display “None”.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Remove all styles setting in the options for Documents ▸ Convert ▸ Text to Default Formatting… changed styled text to the default formatting in the editor but failed to remove the assigned style.
  • Upgraded the internal tool for importing websites, fixing an issue whereby pages from some sites such as Wikipedia failed to import.
  • Fixed a UI bug that could cause an irremovable gap to precede the icons on the left of the main toolbar. You may need to reinsert custom gaps via View ▸ Customize Toolbars… after updating.
  • Fixed a bug whereby each line break and carriage return decreased the live character count in the footer when using the option to count Characters no spaces.
  • Cleaned up the Missing Dictionaries warning to appear only when Scrivener is first launched rather than each time a project is loaded.
  • Adjusted the behaviour and warning message shown if the currently-assigned spelling dictionary is missing from the Scrivener installation folder, prompting the user to re-download and temporarily disabling the spell check until the dictionary is available.
  • Fixed the Replace and Find Next shortcut behaviour to work with focus in the editor and reassigned its previous default shortcut Ctrl+H to instead open the document Find/Replace dialogue. You can customise the shortcuts from the Keyboard tab of File ▸ Options….

Scrivener 3.1.4
18th January 2023

Cursor Hotfixes

If you installed Scrivener or updated it on the 18th of January and are experiencing the following issues with the cursor, then download a fresh copy of the software, and run the installer over your current installation to apply a patch that fixes these bugs:

  • Cursor visibility, selection drawing in the corkboard, or areas of the inspector that edit plain text, such as the synopsis or custom metadata fields.
  • Scaling of the hairline cursor (if the block cursor option is disabled) when text editing areas are zoomed in or out.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a crash on File ▸ Print Preview or File ▸ Print Current Document when titles were selected for inclusion in the Print Settings.
  • Improved editor accessibility, providing better compatibility with tools like ProWritingAid and Grammarly.
  • Fixed a bug introduced in 3.1.2 that prevented document groups from loading as a Scrivenings session unless Treat all documents with subdocuments as folders was enabled in Options.
  • Fixed several cursor drawing bugs, including the cursor replicating when using the keyboard to move from the start of a new line and part of the cursor failing to blink at the start of a new line with a line height multiple greater than 1.0.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the block insertion point width failed to scale with the editor zoom level.
  • Improved the appearance of highlighting, linked comment and footnote markers, search highlighting, style backgrounds, and other text adornments in the editor that are affected by certain types of line spacing.
  • Adjusted the Documents ▸ Convert ▸ Text to Default Formatting… dialogue to remember the last used options.
  • Updated the built-in templates to restore the inspector footnotes text colour, which was inadvertently set to black for all themes by 3.1.3’s introduction of separate colour options for inspector and inline notes.
  • Adjusted Fountain export to always use UTF-8 encoding.

Scrivener 3.1.3
6th December 2022

Refinements and Changes

  • Scrivener’s framework has been updated to Qt 5.15.11, the most recent version compatible with 32-bit systems.
UI
  • Scrivener’s title bar now adapts to the Windows dark or light mode Color setting.
  • The Appearance tab in Options now has settings for both inspector and inline footnote text colours (under the Textual Marks tab). The “Inspector Footnotes Background” has also been renamed to simply “Footnotes Background” as it applies to both inline and inspector footnotes.
Compile
  • Implemented the Add “first-letter” span style to first letter option for ebooks, under the New Pages tab in the compile format dialogue’s Section Layouts. This allows styling such as drop caps on the initial letter of the first paragraph in a document.
  • The stylesheet CSS for ebook compile now includes a stock rule for the .separator class when any of the Section Layouts defined in the format contain a custom separator, though this can be easily overridden by creating a “separator” style.
  • When an image is used as the document title prefix during ebook compile and no additional title text is included, the option to Update titles in document links with prefix and suffix settings will use the image name as the title.
Document Mangement
  • Dragging and dropping text onto an existing text document in the binder now appends the text to that document rather than creating a new child document. (This applies also to dragging onto file groups when the optional behaviour to treat file groups as folders is disabled.)
  • The Documents ▸ Merge behaviour has been refined to use a single return between merged synopses, economising space, and an empty line between merged notes. The divider between merged document text can be controlled by the Separators settings in File ▸ Options… under the General tab.
  • New documents created at any level within a container that has set a default template for subdocuments will now use that template, including those created in the container via actions such as dragging and dropping text into the binder or using Edit ▸ Link to Document ▸ New Link. This is reflected in the Project menu, which shows the name of the template document in place of “New Text” when applicable. Standard new blank text documents can be created in these containers using Add ▸ New Text from the context menu or the Add button’s dropdown menu on the main toolbar.
Formatting
  • Find by Formatting can now be used in Quick Reference windows and will always treat the scope as “Current Editor” (which has replaced “Selected Document” in the dialogue’s settings). Find Next/Previous Formatting and the standard Find Next/Previous commands have also been added to the Quick Reference window menu, enabling use of their shortcuts.
  • You can now set a current project’s styles as the default styles for new projects from the Editing: Formatting tab in File ▸ Options… (and can reset to the original defaults here as well).
  • The formatting of the media time stamp used for media transcription can be customised under the Playback settings in the Options’ Behavior tab. This formatting will also be used by the <$mediaPlaybackTime> placeholder available for insertion as part of the Tab/Return behaviour in script settings if no formatting is given in the placeholder itself.
Project Targets
  • New projects from blank or the built-in project templates will now have Allow negatives enabled by default in the Project Targets.
  • New projects from blank or from project templates without the Deadline option enabled in Project Targets now use their creation date for the (disabled) deadline.

Bug Fixes

General
  • Fixed a crash that occurred when right-clicking within the formatting editor in the compile format designer’s Section Layouts tab.
  • Fixed a bug whereby certain image properties could be included when setting default formatting from a selection and subsequently cause embedded images not to display.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause custom metadata list values assigned to binder items to shift when a new list value was created and saved anywhere but the end of the list.
  • Fixed a bug that reverted some project target settings to the defaults after syncing with iOS.
Compile
  • If compile is unable to create the final file when using a secondary utility to produce the output (such as Pandoc or a custom script added in the compile Processing tab), Scrivener now displays an error message indicating the problem rather than failing silently.
  • The compile format setting to Update titles in document links with prefix and suffix settings has been fixed to work in ebook file formats.
  • Fixed MultiMarkdown to ODT compile for documents containing images, which was previously resulting in a malformed ODT and a separate folder of images.
  • Internal links are no longer stripped out when compiling using Pandoc → ePub.
  • For supported file formats, the HTML Elements, MultiMarkdown Options and Pandoc Options settings in the compile format designer now properly convert assigned styles to semantic HTML elements or Markdown syntax.
  • Fixed several bugs in the rich-text to MultiMarkdown conversion options in compile which were producing some incorrect syntax and, when only Convert tables and lists to MultiMarkdown was enabled, unintended additional conversions.
  • Adjacent inline annotations of different colours now properly compile as separate notes rather than combining.
Document Management
  • Separators for merged documents, appended text selections, and appended Scratchpad notes can now be properly set in the tidied-up General tab of File ▸ Options….
  • Fixed a bug that, when a file group with a default template for subdocuments was selected, caused newly-created documents to use the template even when Treat all documents with children as folders was disabled in Options, so that the documents were created as siblings rather than subdocuments.
Formatting
  • Fixed a bug whereby adding, modifying, or deleting inspector comments or footnotes to multiple paragraphs could mangle the formatting, for instance shifting a highlight or bold formatting to different or additional text. Also improved the Undo behaviour, which previously might treat comment manipulation as multiple steps instead of a single action.
  • Toggling Use different formatting for new documents in this project in Project Settings should no longer impact existing documents.
  • Fixed the Use Formatting in Current Editor option when setting default formatting to avoid picking up revision mode or inline notation formatting. This also fixes the bug whereby, after a revision level was set in the default formatting, all or most of the project’s text might appear in the revision mode colour after reopening the project.
  • Fixed the Documents ▸ Convert ▸ Text to Default Formatting… behaviour to retain text colour and highlighting. (Text with a character style applied will revert to the style’s defined formatting.) Also fixed the conversion of text with a paragraph-only style, which was losing all character formatting including bold and italic.
  • Applying the Convert Quotes transformation within a Scrivenings session now affects only selected text when there is a selection anywhere in the session; with no selection, the conversion applies to all text in the editor, including titles when Show Titles in Scrivenings is enabled.
  • Edit ▸ Transformations ▸ Convert Quotes to Smart Quotes will no longer alter existing smart quotes within the affected text.
Editor Navigation
  • Navigate ▸ Go To ▸ Selection now works on a multiple selection, loading the items in Scrivenings mode. (The menu name “Editor Selection” has also been changed to “Selection” to reflect that the command works from the binder as well.)
  • Fixed a bug whereby activity in one editor split could cause the inspector locked to the other editor to show the wrong item’s metadata.
  • Fixed a bug that, with a specific split-editor setup, caused clicking a document link in a snapshot to switch focus to the opposite editor and change the inspector view from snapshots to bookmarks.
  • The behaviour of clicked links when working with locked editors has been refined to better match workflow expectations and provide a sensible fallback rather than failing to open.
Quick Reference
  • Fixed the dropdown button for bookmarked groups in the Quick Reference sidebar failing to open.
  • Spell check in Quick Reference windows is again accessible via the Edit ▸ Spelling menu and shortcut (broken in 1.3.1).
  • Fixed the Open as Quick Reference context menu command failing from the Quick Reference bookmark sidebar.
  • Fixed a bug whereby invoking document Find in a Quick Reference window would instead open the filter panel in the main window when the active editor was showing the outliner.
UI
  • Removed Mac-specific text from the No changes found message on Sync ▸ with Mobile Devices.
  • Added line wrapping to the tool tip for the Insert links back to Scrivener in each section option in the compile settings.
  • Updated the in-app shopping cart.

Scrivener 3.1.2
18th October 2022

Download 64-bit   Download 32-bit

Refinements and Changes

  • New options allow for greater control over how Scrivener links open, including the ability to target copyholders and to set the default behaviour for newly created links and for document and project bookmarks.
  • Bookmarks in the inspector can be opened using Enter, the same as double-clicking.
  • You can now set list-type custom metadata values for multiple items selected in the binder, corkboard, or outliner using the context menu, just like status and labels.
  • The menu commands in Edit ▸ Transformations ▸ to convert straight quotes to smart quotes and the reverse now apply to all documents loaded in a Scrivenings session when no text is selected.
  • Pandoc Markdown compile formats no longer use closing hashes on heading lines, to better facilitate adding custom attributes (such as {#custom-id} .class-name}) without having to adjust settings.
  • When unable to save an automatic backup to the custom location specified in Options, Scrivener now displays a warning indicating that the backup has instead been saved to the default folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\LiteratureAndLatte\Scrivener\Backups).
  • It is now possible to create a new document by dragging and dropping a text selection into the binder not just from text documents in the editor but from imported webpages, other areas of the project window such as notes and snapshots, and even from other apps.
  • It is now possible to copy and paste multiple discrete text selections from within a document.
  • The Draft Target now uses the compile group name when the Project Targets options are set to Count current compile group only.
  • Multiple rows can now be selected and copied from the results in the name generator.

Bug Fixes

Upgrading
  • Fixed a bug whereby external project and document references might not upgrade properly when upgrading a version 1 project to version 3.Note: To restore missing bookmarks from a project that has already been upgraded, hold Ctrl and select File ▸ Import ▸ Missing Bookmarks from v1 Project, then choose the original version 1 project backup as the source.
  • Fixed a bug whereby linked comments and footnotes from older projects (last saved in a version of Scrivener earlier than 1.8.0) could be lost when upgrading to the 3.0 format.
Compile
  • Fixed a hang that could occur when compiling to MultiMarkdown with the format set to override text and notes formatting and to convert paragraph spacing to plain text.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the “Excluded Documents” and “All” filters in compile were ignored, so only documents marked for inclusion compiled regardless of the setting.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the <$rst_keyword> placeholder failed to restart numbering in ebook formats when it was placed in a separate document from the keyword token (such as might happen when restarting chapter numbering following a part heading section).
  • Fixed a bug in ebook compile formats that, when the option to remove the first-line indent from the first regular paragraph in each chapter was enabled, wrote invalid CSS into the stylesheet.
  • Fixed a compile bug that added CSS classes to individual list elements in ebook formats, causing broken lists with the default settings and preventing custom list styling.
  • Fixed a bug in HTML and ebook compile formats whereby paragraph elements and any style prefixes or suffixes were incorrectly applied to text marked with a style set to Treat as raw markup.
  • Fixed a bug whereby paragraph spacing added via Section Layouts to plain-text compile formats was not recognised until using the dropdown tool in the section layout editor’s format bar.
  • Fixed the <$pageGroupTitle> and <$pageGroupParentTitle> placeholders (and the older <$sectionTitle> and <$sectionParentTitle> placeholders) to respect capitalisation, so that entering the placeholder in all caps as, e.g., <$⁠PAGEGROUPTITLE>, will now output the replacement text in all caps. (Also fixed the <$sectionParentTitle> placeholder not being replaced.)
  • Fixed the <$drafttitle> placeholder in the compiled header of the poetry template failing to resolve. <$drafttitle> is now properly replaced with the name of the project’s Draft folder (identical to <$draftname>).
  • Fixed how a compile format’s Blank line separator value is saved to ensure cross-platform compatibility.
  • Fixed the behaviour of the Current Selection compile group to always use the binder selection if a corkboard or outliner selection does not have focus.
Snapshots
  • Fixed a bug whereby snapshots with identical timestamps could be lost when merging items. Such snapshots are now also merged.
  • Fixed a bug whereby merging documents with a parent container could cause snapshots other than the parent document’s to be lost if the parent did not have both text in the editor and a snapshot.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Take Snapshots of Selected Documents command failed if the selected items were not consecutive.
  • Fixed a bug whereby deleting a snapshot prevented new snapshots from being displayed in the inspector until the document was reloaded.
  • Fixed a bug whereby RegEx replacements made via Project Replace or Replace All from the document Find only replaced every other character per line.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Search Results collection failed to open when a search was run from the Project Keywords window while collections were visible in the binder.
  • Fixed a bug whereby searching for Documents with No Keywords from the Project Keywords dialogue returned inverted results.
  • Fixed a bug whereby opening the Project Search would immediately switch the binder to displaying the Search Results collection with the most recently run search if collection tabs were not already visible.
Project Targets & Word Count
  • Fixed a bug whereby the session target failed to automatically recalculate from the deadline after the previous day’s target was not met.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent the session target from resetting if the computer had been asleep for over 24 hours with Scrivener left open.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Project Targets window would not remember its position when closed and reopened or when entering or exiting composition mode.
  • Fixed the word-count calculation to count digits separated by a slash or comma as a single word.
Spell Check
  • Fixed a crash that could occur after running the spell check in a document without errors if another project was open with multiple documents loaded in Scrivenings mode.
  • Worked around a Hunspell limitation to properly display characters outside the Latin-1 set when offering spelling suggestions from the personal word list.
UI
  • Fixed a bug whereby the editor named in the Navigate ▸ Binder Affects ▸ Non-Group Items Open in Other menu setting incorrectly changed based on which editor had focus.
  • Corrected the Navigate ▸ Open ▸ Open in External Editor menu command to ▸ Open ▸ in External Editor and removed Navigate ▸ Open ▸ Original URL in browser (the original URL can be opened by clicking the link in the editor footer or using the command in the binder context menu).
  • Fixed several locations where placeholder titles for untitled documents were not appearing as expected.
  • Removed the outdated Copy as BBCode command, which had only limited functionality.
  • Removed the menu option to insert MathType equations, as MathType OLE integration on Windows has been unsupported. Existing equations can still be edited as before.
Translations
  • Fixed a number of translations that used incorrectly formatted pointers, resulting in placeholders like “%1” appearing in place of the project name or other custom text and preventing compiling to DOC, DOCX, and ODT file formats.
  • Corrected broken translations in file extensions that could prevent saving exported or compiled files if the extension was not manually entered. (As a result, some menu text in Save and Open dialogues may not be translated in 3.1.2.)
  • Removed the UI translations for the Look Up and Search options in the Edit ▸ Writing Tools ▸ submenu, as many of these mislabelled the site links.
  • Updated a number of translations in the Simplified Chinese preview.
Miscellaneous
  • Adjusted the binder behaviour to reduce the lag that occurred when dragging and dropping large items. The delay was caused by the undocumented ability to export binder items by dragging outside of the project; this has been removed, and items can be exported as usual via the File ▸ Export ▸ options.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Edit ▸ Sort functions could be applied in table cells, potentially damaging the table. These commands are now properly disabled within tables.
  • Fixed multiple instances where an editor’s group view mode was not respected, typically switching to the corkboard, when loading a container through various means (such as when Find by Formatting found a match within a container’s text or when using Navigate ▸ Go To ▸ Previous/Next Document).
  • Fixed a bug whereby Navigate ▸ Open ▸ in External Editor worked the same as Open ▸ Original URL in Browser for webpages, rather than loading the archived copy of the page contained within the project.
  • Fixed a bug that could, when importing a style with Next Style assigned, set a character style as the Next Style if its name matched that of the paragraph style originally assigned.
  • Fixed a bug preventing opening links from the bookmark preview in the composition mode inspector.
  • Updated links in the Comic Script template.

Scrivener 3.1.1
4th November 2021

Refinements and Changes

  • Removed unintentional advertisements that appeared several places in the machine translations for Simplified Chinese and also made several user-provided corrections to the translations. Thank you!
  • Restored the Russian ru-yo and ru-ie dictionaries that were accidentally removed in 3.1.
  • Removed several English variants from the interface translation options, as they did not differ from the default US English.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug that allowed saving an unzipped backup over the original project, causing Scrivener to crash and both the project and backup to be lost.
  • Fixed a bug that caused a crash when checking spelling in a Scrivenings session without any misspellings.
  • Fixed a bug whereby using Save As in a project set to sync with an external folder retained the external folder file path in the new copy. An external folder should sync with only one project to avoid conflicts.
  • Fixed a bug whereby moving paragraphs in the editor via Edit ▸ Move ▸ Move Up/Move Down caused them to lose their paragraph formatting (alignment, indentation, etc.) and paragraph style, if one was set, and could also impact the formatting of adjacent paragraphs.
  • Fixed a bug whereby reloading a linked image from disk via the context menu did not update its dimensions.
  • Fixed a bug introduced in 3.1 that broke File ▸ Export for a multiple selection.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the spelling dialogue did not appear when checking spelling in a Scrivenings session if the initially focussed document did not contain any spelling errors.
  • Fixed a bug whereby text containing links to inspector comments or footnotes retained those links when pasted into a comment or footnote.
  • Fixed a bug introduced in 3.1 whereby copying text from within an inline notation and using Paste and Match Style pasted only an asterisk rather than the copied text.
  • Fixed a bug introduced in 3.1 whereby document templates were disabled in the Add Item submenu of the corkboard and outliner.

Scrivener 3.1.0
25th October 2021

Refinements and Changes

  • Scrivener is ready for Windows 11.
  • Scrivener now alerts users running the trial on Windows 7 that we are unable to guarantee licensing support for that system, as both Microsoft and our activation provider no longer support it. You may be able to successfully activate Scrivener on Windows 7, but we do not recommend purchasing a license solely for use on that operating system.
  • Scrivener now offers the in-app option to purchase a Windows license at a discount if you own an eligible Mac license.
  • The majority of Scrivener’s Hunspell dictionaries have been updated and over forty new dictionaries have been added. If you have previously downloaded a spelling dictionary, you can update your copy by re-downloading from the Corrections tab in File ▸ Options. (Please note the Vietnamese dictionaries were replaced with a new, more extensive dictionary; the old ones will not be usable in 3.1.)
  • You can now update your NaNoWriMo project’s word count on nanowrimo.org directly from within Scrivener via a new Project ▸ Update NaNoWriMo Word Count command shown in projects created from the NaNoWriMo 2021 template available from our site or set with a 50,000-word target with a 30 November deadline. (See this article for details on making it available in other projects.) The outdated “NaNoWriMo (Obfuscated)” compile format has been removed.
  • The translations for Scrivener’s interface have been redone and extended using machine translations as a base. This should provide a better starting point for volunteers to refine the translations.
  • You can now easily exclude non-compiling documents when working with a group in the editor via Navigate ▸ Open ▸ with Compilable Subdocuments (also in the binder context menu).
  • Rich-text comments and footnotes now paste into Scrivener as inline or inspector notes according to the Options settings under the Sharing: Import tab.
  • You can now select and delete multiple snapshots from the inspector.
  • The context menu for internal and external links within the editor, notes, and bookmark previews has been reordered for convenience and now includes Edit Link and, for external links, Copy Link.
  • Document and text sorting options have been consolidated in the Edit ▸ Sort command, which now also can be used in the inspector bookmarks and keyword panels. The old “Shuffle” option for sorting has also been removed.
  • A new Edit ▸ Sort ▸ Collection into Binder Order command has been added for standard (non-search) collections.
  • Smart quote styles now include an optional thin or regular non-breaking space when using guillemets.
  • The built-in version of MultiMarkdown has been updated to MMD 6.6.
  • You can now create multi-line custom separators in compile using Ctrl+Enter to insert a carriage return. (Tabs can also be included, using Ctrl+Tab.)
  • You can now use Check Spelling within a Scrivenings session to check through multiple documents at once.
  • The Insert ▸ Custom Date and Time default format has been simplified and the custom format setting in the Editing tab of File ▸ Options has been refined to demonstrate including static text within single quotes.
  • The Edit ▸ Add Link shortcut is now available in the Scratchpad when using the rich-text format.
  • Navigation within a Scrivenings session has been improved so that the selected document now scrolls fully to the top of the editor.
  • The main toolbar’s Add button menu now lists document templates at the top level.
  • Buttons to toggle Binder and Collections visibility can now be added to the Main Toolbar from View ▸ Customize Toolbars.
  • Custom date metadata now support dates from the year 100 through 9999 when using a four-digit format for years. (Three-digit years must be preceded by a 0 when entered.)
  • Edit ▸ Speech ▸ Start Speaking now works in the synopsis.
  • Text-to-Speech shortcuts (found in Edit ▸ Speech ▸ ) now work in composition mode.
  • You can now set up a shared document templates folder in the General tab of File ▸ Options… to allow all Scrivener projects to use files in the selected external folder as a document template (in addition to project-specific document templates).
  • Imported name lists are now sorted alphabetically with the default lists, rather than appearing at the end of the list in the order added.
  • The last-created list of names is now remembered when reopening the Name Generator.
  • It is now possible to assign shortcuts to list formats for easy switching into and out of list formatting.
  • The Open in Copyholder and Open as Quick Reference commands can now be assigned keyboard shortcuts in Options.
  • You can now refine the double-click behaviour on the corkboard for freeform and label view modes via two new options added to the Behaviors tab of File ▸ Options….
  • A new checkbox in the navigation Behaviors in File ▸ Options… provides additional control over allowing JavaScript to open windows in web pages. JavaScript is enabled by default, matching previous behaviour.
  • Viewing the corkboard or outliner for an item without subdocuments now displays a message indicating such.
  • Compile window titles have been made more descriptive.

Bug Fixes

Major (Stability)
  • Worked around a Paddle bug that can cause the activation status to be forgotten, requiring a re-activation. (Paddle is working on a fix for this to be implemented in a future release.)
  • Worked around a Paddle limitation in the checkout process that required Internet Explorer; the purchase window and links within it should now load in the system’s default web browser.
  • Fixed a bug causing Documents ▸ Copy to Project to fail or crash when copying a document to another project’s empty Research folder.
  • Fixed a rare case wherein Scrivener might crash on launch after being registered with an upgrade license, uninstalled, and reinstalled.
Minor (Usability)
  • Fixed a bug preventing successful creation of new projects using custom template that had been saved from a project with non-ASCII characters in the filename.
  • Ensured personal data is excluded from the file when saving theme options.
  • Fixed a bug whereby a bookmarked webpage could load automatically if it was already selected when the inspector bookmark tab was opened even with the auto-load option disabled.
  • Fixed a bug whereby new plain-text notes in the Scratchpad copied the text of the most recently selected plain-text note.
  • Fixed the “Reveal in Binder” action from project bookmark context menu in Quick Reference windows.
  • Fixed a bug whereby it was not possible to remove the default template for subdocuments (by resetting it to a regular text item) once a template had been set.
  • Fixed the menu option to Append Selection to Document ▸ New… so it now properly opens a dialogue allowing you to select where to create the new document and then appends the text to that document.
  • Fixed a bug whereby a selected item’s default subdocument template could impact creating sibling-level items.
  • Fixed a bug whereby a new project created from a template could start with existing writing history.
  • Ensured templates do not save the user.lock file present in a project when it is open (to help prevent conflicts).
  • Fixed a bug whereby menu options were not toggled properly when selected via Help ▸ Search Menus.
  • Fixed several cases wherein the File ▸ Back Up ▸ Back Up Now command was incorrectly disabled. This action is now available even when automatic backups are disabled, using the backup location specified in Options (or in Project Settings, if the project has unique backup settings).
  • Fixed a bug whereby selecting multiple items from different levels in the hierarchy in the outliner failed to load the documents when the Navigation ▸ Outliner Selection Affects ▸ Other Editor setting was enabled.
  • Changed the modifier to create a new project from a template without replacing the template placeholder tags from Alt to Ctrl+Alt for improved compatibility.
Import
  • Fixed a bug whereby RTF comments anchored to multiple words imported attached only to the final word.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Next Style setting of the default Code Block and Verse styles was lost in new projects.
  • Fixed a bug that caused files with the MHTML extension to be converted to text on import.
  • Fixed a bug whereby web pages failed to import if the user TMP environment variable path included multibyte characters.
Editing
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Convert Text to Default Formatting command applied to the main editor rather than the copyholder when the copyholder had focus.
  • Fixed a bug whereby Text Tidying ▸ Remove Empty Lines Between Paragraphs could delete tables that had been created on a new line.
  • Fixed a bug in copying text between projects whereby paragraph styles were dropped from pasted text when the target project’s matching style was paragraph+character and vice versa.
  • Fixed a bug whereby setting default formatting from a text selection could introduce invalid formatting types such as links and styles.
  • Fixed a bug introduced in 3.0.1 whereby the inline footnote font and font size persisted after toggling off the footnote formatting when “Different inline footnotes font” was ticked in Options or Project Settings.
  • Fixed several bugs related to automatically detecting web addresses typed or pasted into the editor.
  • Fixed a bug with the Dialogue Focus tool whereby text within single quotes was not being recognised as direct speech.
  • Fixed a bug whereby text highlighting could not be removed from blank lines.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the “Add Selection to Auto-Complete” command did not work for multi-word selections.
Compile
  • Fixed a bug whereby the <$rst_…> placeholder tag used in title prefixes or suffixes might appear in the custom table of contents or other title links when compiled.
  • Fixed a bug that caused inline character formatting such as bold and italic to be lost during compile from text that had a paragraph+character style applied in the editor.
  • Fixed a bug in compile whereby ampersands, angle brackets, and smart single quotes used within inspector comments might not be properly encoded in ePub output.
  • Fixed a bug in the compile format designer whereby text formatting changes to Section Layouts were not saved for plain-text file types.
  • Fixed a bug whereby date custom metadata did not compile in the expected format within the general “Metadata” block.
  • Fixed a bug in the compile style settings whereby the “Match right indent to left” option did not always correctly calculate the right indent.
  • Fixed a bug causing the page group placeholders to fail to compile for various file formats (RTF, DOC, DOCX, and ODT).
  • Fixed a bug in the compile page settings whereby custom values for the header/footer margin were not properly calculated.
  • Fixed a bug causing duplicate items when compiling a current selection set to include subdocuments and both the parent and child items were part of the selection.
  • Fixed a bug whereby exporting a multiple selection with subdocuments created duplicates of items that were both explicitly selected and a child of another selected item.
  • Fixed a bug whereby altered page orientation and paper size were not both saved and applied correctly when printing or compiling. Also fixed a Qt bug causing a mismatch between the set page orientation and the page display in the Print Preview.
  • Fixed a bug whereby Small Caps were not rendering as expected when printing and compiling/exporting to PDF using the option “Print & PDF Resolution: High Resolution”.
Metadata
  • Fixed a bug with custom metadata whereby reordering list values in Project Settings would change values previously assigned to documents.
  • Fixed a bug whereby custom metadata columns might not retain their positions when using a theme.
  • Fixed a bug whereby adding or rearranging custom metadata fields in the Project Settings could cause custom metadata columns displayed in the outliner to shift position.
  • Fixed a bug whereby reordering custom metadata of the same type in the Project Settings could cause data entered after the reordering to be assigned to the wrong metadata fields.
  • Fixed several Project Search bugs causing some valid date terms not to return results when searching in Date custom metadata or when using the Created Date or Modified Date tokens. Searching on Created Date or Modified Date can also now be done by right-clicking the magnifying glass in the project search bar.
  • Fixed an issue whereby the syntax for entering a custom date format in the project custom metadata could get mislabeled when using Scrivener with a non-English interface.
  • Fixed a bug whereby custom date metadata was entered using the language set in Scrivener’s Options but did not then display in that language.
Composition Mode
  • Fixed a bug whereby snapped windows could lose their position on entering or exiting Composition mode under certain conditions.
  • Fixed a bug whereby selecting Open Document Link In ▸ Quick Reference Panel from the composition mode editor did nothing. Clicked links in composition mode will also now open in a QR window when the default behaviour for clicked links is to open in “Other Editor” (since there is no other editor in composition mode).
  • Fixed a bug in Composition mode whereby setting the background fade to fully transparent allowed interaction with the Desktop and other applications and preventing Composition mode’s control strip from appearing.
  • Fixed a bug whereby entering and exiting composition mode while Quick Reference windows were open shifted focus to the QR window.
Collections
  • Fixed a bug whereby selecting Save Search as Collection from the project search menu did not work when already viewing a search collection in the binder.
  • Fixed a bug whereby collections consisting only of containers (folders or document groups) would load in the editor with the container subdocuments visible rather than only displaying the collection items as expected.
  • Fixed a bug whereby loading a collection always targeted the active editor, ignoring the Navigate ▸ Binder Selection Affects setting.
  • Fixed a bug whereby collections always loaded in the editor using the corkboard view mode; they now correctly use the current group view mode
  • Fixed a bug whereby the editor display did not update when a standard collection was loaded and its contents were reordered in the binder via Move Up/Down.
  • Fixed a bug that added a “Multiple Selection” title to the editor header when displaying a loaded collection in Scrivenings mode and also resulted in the collection title persisting in the header when loading other documents.
UI
  • Fixed an issue when working cross-platform between Mac and Windows whereby the split editors might swap contents (e.g. the document loaded in the top editor when closed on Mac would be in the bottom editor when opened on Windows).
  • Removed some unnecessary and confusing error messages that could appear when text of imported PDFs was not able to be indexed for searching.
  • Fixed a bug whereby a copyholder positioned at the top of bottom of the main editor would instead load in a vertical split after the project was reopened.
  • Fixed a bug whereby a copyholder set to open on the left of the editor would reopen on the right after the project was reopened.
  • Fixed a bug that would reset the zoom percentage of a closed editor split to 100 after the project was closed and reopened.
  • Fixed a bug whereby items assigned a custom icon could appear with no icon at all if Scrivener was unable to load the custom image.
  • Fixed management of text-based icons to ensure they work cross-platform and are not lost when resetting the project view preferences. Text-based icons are also now removed from the icon menu when not in use to reduce clutter.
  • Fixed the Document Loader error message to wrap the text, ensuring the full name of long file paths remains visible.
  • Fixed a bug whereby using the Ctrl+6 shortcut to switch between Project and Document Bookmarks in the inspector caused the setting to revert when switching the editor view or reopening the project. Also fixed a bug whereby the Project Bookmarks view (set through any means) might switch to Document on project open if a different inspector tab was selected when the project was closed.
  • Fixed a typo in the trial expired message.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Fixed Row Height setting for the outliner would be lost on closing and reopening the project.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the outliner always displayed the no label and no status values as the default “No Label” and “No Status” text even when the values had been renamed by the user.
  • Fixed a bug whereby some toolbar buttons might not be available when using a non-English interface. To allow natural-language button titles, switching languages will reset toolbars to the defaults. After setting the GUI language, you can personalise the main and format toolbars via the View ▸ Customize Toolbars… menu.
  • Fixed a bug whereby loading a result from the Text list of a Quick Search did not scroll the editor to the first match in the document.
  • Fixed a bug with several default shortcuts using the Alt key (e.g. New Folder and New Folder from Selection) also splitting the editor when invoked.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the editor from scrolling to keep the selected word in view when using Check Spelling in a document within a Scrivenings session.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the editor would not update to display a document selected from the Quick Search results if the editor was locked.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the editor Lock in Place prevented intentional navigation by double-clicking items in the corkboard or outliner.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Navigate ▸ Open in ▸ Current Editor command did not appear in the menu and Open in ▸ Other Editor did not display its shortcut in the menu.
  • Fixed a bug whereby merging documents caused the editor left/right margin to disappear for the merged document.

Scrivener 3.0.1
28th April 2021

Download 64-bit    Download 32-bit

Refinements and Changes

  • The default “System Language” setting for Scrivener’s interface now falls back on English if the system language currently has only a “Preview” translation available. These “Preview” translations (and any others available) can be set manually in the General tab of File ▸ Options… under the Language section. Thank you to the many volunteers who are continuing to provide translations of Scrivener’s interface!
  • Preview interface translations for Asturian, Catalan, French, Korean, Portuguese, Slovenian, and Spanish (Spain and Mexico) have been updated. If you set Scrivener to use one of these languages, we would appreciate your feedback to help finalise the translations.
  • Upgrading Scrivener 1 projects now preserves additional compile settings and project metadata (now in Compile). Where relevant, these settings are also included when downgrading a Scrivener 3 project to the Scrivener 1 format.
  • “Linguistic Focus” (available from the Edit ▸ Writing Tools ▸ submenu) has been renamed to “Dialogue Focus” to better describe the feature.
  • The brightness of the locked editor and inspector header bars in Dark Mode has been reduced to improve icon visibility.
  • The Windows menu has been tidied for increased readability and now shows only the titles of open project windows, rather than the full file paths, and displays open Quick Reference panels in their own section.
  • The Whole Word project search operator now matches Mac behaviour, so that a multi-word search term is treated similarly to an Exact Phrase search but requires the opening and closing text to also be whole words.
  • Label tinting has been made consistent for default and custom document icons.
  • Spell check now uses the waves underline style by default for better visibility on high-resolution displays and when using the Dark Mode theme. (The underline stye can be set back to dots under Spelling in the Corrections tab of File ▸ Options….)
  • Dragging and dropping keywords from one project’s Project Keywords panel to another’s will now also preserve the colour.

Bug Fixes

Project Upgrading & Importing
  • Fixed a bug whereby snapshots were not included when importing a Scrivener project.
  • Fixed a bug that added all text in a Scrivener 1 project to the day’s writing history when upgrading the project, which also then impacted the word count averages. Upgraded projects now start fresh with no word-count history recorded.
  • Fixed a bug whereby script elements might not be recognised after upgrading a Scrivener 1 project that used certain line spacing.
Compile
  • Fixed a layout bug in PDF compile that could cause some lines of text not to appear in the compiled document.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the case setting for the Title element in a compile format’s layout was not saved correctly, causing the title to revert to normal case when the format was reloaded. This affected some of the built-in compile formats as well, so that they were previously using a normal case for titles that should have been (and now will be) uppercase or small caps.
  • Fixed a bug whereby footnotes in HTML and ebook file formats always exported as plain-text. Italic and bold formatting is now preserved through compile.
  • Fixed a bug in Compile whereby page padding would be incorrectly added before text not following a page break and would not be added to the initial page when expected.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the default Title and Author metadata keys for MMD formats would be recreated in the compile settings if both were deleted.
  • Corrected the missing title element in the Part Title Page layout for the two Paperback compile formats.
Editing
  • Fixed a compatibility bug whereby script elements might not be correctly identified when opening a Mac project on Windows.
  • Fixed a bug whereby rich-text comments and footnotes in imported documents would appear as regular inline text. These are now imported as inspector notes by default (and either can be set instead to import as formatted inline notation under the Sharing: Import tab of File ▸ Options…).
  • Fixed a bug that caused projects with custom formatting enabled in Project Settings to still use the global override font for inline footnotes if “Different inline footnotes font” was set in Options but not in the Project Settings. New inline footnotes in these projects will now properly maintain the font and font size of the preceding text.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the “Use inline footnotes font for inspector footnotes too” setting in the Editing options to have no effect on projects not using custom formatting.
  • Fixed a bug whereby closing a project without further edits after converting a PDF file or web page to text would fail to save the conversion, resulting in the PDF reverting to its original state and the imported webpage losing its content.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Edit ▸ Move ▸ Left/Right commands might be incorrectly enabled or disabled after the paragraph formatting changed.
  • Fixed a bug whereby replacing a word with a synonym via the context menu’s Related Words would insert the synonym into the existing text rather than replace it if the word was selected.
UI
  • Fixed a bug that prevented some dictionary languages such as Korean from displaying as an available option after download if the downloaded files did not have an extension.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the Quick Search did not open via the menu when not visible on the main toolbar.
  • Fixed a bug whereby using the Previous/Next Document icon buttons in the editor header changed the binder selection (and opened the binder if hidden).
  • Refined the Save As Template… behaviour so that setting the category to Custom but leaving the name field empty will cause Scrivener to save the template into the Miscellaneous category rather than create an untitled category in the New Project window.
  • Fixed a bug preventing dragging and dropping labels from one project’s Project Settings to another’s.
  • Fixed a bug causing horizontal stripes to appear when auto-hiding the control panel in Composition mode while using Dark Mode.
  • Fixed a bug whereby the button to display the emoji menu when creating a new icon from text was not shown.
  • Renamed the previous “To Do” and “To Do Unchecked” custom binder icons to “Ticked” and “Unticked” and grouped them into a new “To Do” category, providing compatibility with Scrivener on macOS.
  • Updated the menu description for Format ▸ Color… in the keyboard shortcut options to correctly reflect the menu name.
  • Adjusted the alphabetisation of languages in the spell check dictionary list.

Scrivener 3.0.0
23rd March 2021

Initial release.

Scrivener 1.9.16
14th November 2019

Download

The last version of Scrivener 1 for Windows. This requires Windows 7 SP1+ with .NET Framework 4.6.2+

View change logs for the 1.x line.

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