#Cloud outliner vs omnioutliner manual
#Cloud outliner vs omnioutliner series
#Cloud outliner vs omnioutliner free

It's an invaluable resource, but one I tend to use reference for specific features, rather than reading it cover-to-cover. To say this is daunting is an understatement.

#Cloud outliner vs omnioutliner manual

Scrivener's User Manual is notoriously epic, weighing in at over 800 pages. Or, you can access some terrific sources of help using the Getting Started tab. Alternatively, you can use it to open an existing project once you've already started. It allows you to create a new project using one of the many built-in templates.

The first time you open Scrivener or create a new project, you'll see the Project Templates window. Then when I revise a story, I'm deep in Collections, and typically have multiple documents open at the same time. While drafting, I dial everything back to just the full-screen composition view.

For planning, I love Scrivener's outliner. I often use the product differently as I move through the stages of my manuscript's life. For example, I don't use its famed corkboard view, while other writers swear by it.

#Cloud outliner vs omnioutliner free

You are free to use as little or as much as it as you need or want. Scrivener does not impose upon you a particular workflow or structure. Scrivener has more features than you will ever need because it caters not only to novelists but also non-fiction writers and academics. Scrivener, unlike Word or Google Docs, is a highly malleable app. But it doesn't need to be you can make Scrivener work your way. If I hear one criticism about Scrivener, it's that people find it too complicated. Moreover, Scrivener provides you with the tools to effortlessly plan, structure, visualise, publish and backup your manuscript in whatever way that works for you. The advantage of this approach - and it's a big one - is that your entire project is available in a single interface. This concept is time-honoured, and it was first taught to me by my Honours supervisor nearly 20 years ago, long before Scrivener existed. Instead of the single-document metaphor, Scrivener uses the concept of storing individual pages in a ring-bound folder. Taking cues from the tools used by computer programmers, Scrivener understands that long-form prose projects are made of up hundreds or even thousands of files. You needn't worry about page or chapter numbers that's relegated to a process called compiling, which I'll cover in-depth in a later post. There's no futzing around with the look of the drafted text. Scrivener does without the conventions of the word processor. Drafting text is only one aspect of its capability. Management becomes exponentially more difficult if you are writing a series, or you are a world-builder with a meticulously crafted world chronicled in what amounts to a small encyclopaedia.īy contract, Scrivener is a potent project management tool for writers. Writing a novel necessitates working with hundreds of files, containing not only the segments of your manuscript but also your notes, research material, and so on. Word has an inherent weakness - it is bound to a single-document metaphor, where what you see is what you get. This because Word shows what you see, not what you mean. Word can show you the structure of a single document, but unless you write your novel in a single file (and please, never do that), it cannot show you the structure of your entire manuscript. Managing a complex narrative structure in Word, while not impossible - lots of writers do it - is undoubtedly harder from a logistical and visual standpoint. Where a non-fiction writer can pin their structure on hierarchical headings and sections, novelists weave their structure into the fabric of the text. Novels appear simple, with minimal formatting for text and chapters, but that belies their structural complexity of beats, scenes, chapters, acts, plot points, subplots and character arcs. However, novels are not simple documents. For simple documents, this approach works fine. Word encourages you to write your document from beginning to end, and as you write, you see exactly how your document appears in its final form. Microsoft has created a powerful document preparation system for office workers who need to produce short and medium form letters, reports, and so on. I'd argue it's not a word processor at all - at least not in the classic sense of Microsoft Word. Scrivener is much more than a word processor.

Where differences occur, I will try to point them out. The features shown in this tutorial should be applicable to the forthcoming Scrivener 3 for Windows.

#Cloud outliner vs omnioutliner series

NOTE: This tutorial series covers Scrivener 3.