Hello Scrivener Users,
Nine months ago we decided to lay the groundwork for the biggest
free feature update for the Windows version of Scrivener to
date. We had an ambitious goal to bring as many of the features
you’ve been asking for over the years as we could, all the while
going through piles of existing code, refining and optimising
along the way. It has been a long haul, but we are finally
ready to make this available to all current Scrivener users on
Windows. We hope you find the new version to be as much of an
improvement to your writing projects as we have.
Special thanks go out to all of those beta testers that helped
make this release as solid as it could be. We really appreciate
the help!
Here are just a few of the things you can expect to see after you
update:
Formatting Presets
If your writing calls for a lot of formatting, then you know
that in the past it has been difficult to keep a consistent look
without using a lot of settings. You can now save formatting
into presets, making it easy to apply that same format over
and over to different parts of your text. Additionally, we’ve
added a feature that will make it easier to compile special
formatting while also taking advantage of the compiler’s unique
and powerful features for cleaning up your draft. Check out
Preserve Formatting and Formatting Presets.
Special note: if you’ve customised your Format Bar, you’ll need
to add the new preset button yourself, using the Tools menu.
Custom Meta-Data
Have you ever found yourself wishing you could track even more
details in your projects? We’ve got an answer for you. It is
now possible to add as many meta-data fields to your project as
you wish. These can be displayed as columns in the outliner, or
easily accessed in the Inspector sidebar. Keep track of dates,
characters, names of flowers, who dunnit in the drawing room with
the candlestick, and other matters of dire importance.
Custom Icons
Spruce up your binder with a broad selection of useful icons (or
add your own). Nothing says fix me now! like a big yellow caution
icon on the chapter you’ve been putting off. Or give yourself
a gold star when you finish a scene. Sometimes it’s the little
things.
Document Templates
They are kind of like project templates, but for documents in
your projects instead. Set up boilerplate texts or even whole
folder and file structures for easy duplication. It’s like adding
new types of items to your Add menus, such as character sheets,
references, to-do lists, or whatever else you can imagine.
Binder Favourites
There are some things we just keep coming back to. Now you can
add those things to all of the main navigation and selection
menus (such as the Move, Scrivener Link and Go To menus), giving
you top-shelf access to these, no matter how buried they may be
in your outline.
Multiple Project Notes
Open your project notes in a separate window, and create
new notepads as tabs in this window to better organise your
thoughts. You’ll still have access to all of them in the
Inspector sidebar as well. No more lumping everything in one
place!
PDF Display
This one has been a long time coming. We’ve completely replaced
the PDF engine in Scrivener with a much improved system for both
reading and exporting PDFs. Copy selections of text, or even
whole pages at once with a simple right-click. You can also
quickly navigate within larger PDFs that have a built-in table of
contents, or by clicking on internal links.
Better Web Import
By default, websites will now be converted to PDF using the
new engine. The result will faithfully preserve most websites
into a stable format that will stand the test of time. We’ve
also introduced support for Microsoft’s MHT website archive
format. Although Scrivener cannot view MHT files (yet, don’t
worry, it’s coming), you can easily open them in compliant
browsers with a click of a button. If all you want is a selected
piece of a page, you’ll find that copy and paste now works even
better with most modern browsers.
Compile Support for Scrivener Links
It might sound arcane, but the ability to link from one piece
of your draft to another has important implications: It means
you can now cross-reference in a format that will be more useful
for your readers, and it also means you can create a table of
contents directly in your RTF files. We’ve included a special
tool for easily creating a ToC. If you have MS Office installed,
links are also supported for the PDF, DOC and DOCX formats.
All Project Templates and Compile Presets Updated
We’ve gone through every project template and compile preset to
update them with the new capabilities in this release. You’ll
find many more options in the compiler’s Format As menu, and
project templates will come outfitted with convenient document
templates, among other improvements.
There’s a lot more! If you want to review the full list of
changes, please review the official change log.
Special Update Notice
We have identified an issue with the automatic updater that may
cause it to fail on some configurations. If this happens to you,
don’t panic, all is well! Just head on over to our main website
and download the regular installer.
Once that is downloaded, you can run it against your current
installation to upgrade it seamlessly. It is safe to run this
.exe file without uninstalling first. As with all software
updates, your work will not be disturbed.
This update is recommended for all users. You may use the Help
menu to check for updates, and let the automatic updater run.
However if you are running behind a proxy, would like to set
aside a copy of the installer for safekeeping or have problems
using the updater, you can always download a copy of the full
installer using the link above.
Best wishes,
Ioa Petra’ka
(Documentation; Support; Design)