Filed under: Software, Productivity
Scrivener - the word processor with a cork board
Scrivener is a new word processor made for the messy, non-linear and notecard-slinging writers out there. Merlin Mann has been raving about it, and I can understand why: Scrivener's entire UI and workflow is designed around managing the pieces of whatever you're working on, allowing you to organize things like thoughts, outlines, pictures and dialog snippets with folders and keywords. The most interesting organizational feature, however, is a unique cork board UI on which you rearrange virtual notecards that contain summaries of whatever is in the document they represent. Hopefully, this allows many a college student and screen writer to stop jamming real cork boards in their bags when meeting for group projects.
Scrivener doesn't stop there: multiple document editing, full-featured outlining, full-screen editing and format-friendly exporting all round up quite a v1.0 debut. A 30-day demo is available, and a license runs $34.99.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Martin Sketchley said 2:31AM on 2-05-2007
I started using Scrivener a couple of weeks ago as I'm a professional writer. It's a wonderful application. The cork board is a little bit of faff compared with the ability to separate long documents into separate text files in the binder and move them around, or work on a number of selected sections of text as if they were a single document.
The full-screen function and the notes pane are great, too.
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Nigel Hall said 1:16PM on 2-05-2007
Been using Scrivener for a week and I love it. Wrote a short 1000 word piece and it handled really nicely. Very flexible application. Doesn't force you into a workflow - which was one of my main concerns. Excellent place to corral all the bits and pieces of information you need when writing - use split screen to view PDFs and listen to or view Quicktime files as you write - ability to pause and play Quicktime recordings with keyboard commands while writing is invaluable for transcribing interviews!!
I wouldn't describe Scrivener as a word processor though. It doesn't offer functionality that you'd find in MSFT Word for layout and formating. The whole idea is to help you get to a first draft that you can then export to a word processor for formating.
For a 1.0 product Scrivener really is amazing. Te developers obviously put a lot of thought into it, and it shows.
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