Before I began writing the prospectus for my dissertation, I decided that my current software wasn’t going to cut it. Like most colleagues I’ve spoken to, I used a variety of different programs to write in the past. This wasn’t really a problem since I am a Mac user, and multitasking is something that all Macs do well. The problem is that I would have an entire folder stuffed with a variety of PDFs, notes, links, images (if the project required a visual aid), mathematical formulae formatted in LaTeX, and not to mention the multiple iterations of Pages files. Although, through practice, I had become somewhat efficient using this “method,” I knew the enormity of my dissertation would require some forward thinking.
Thankfully, by luck I suppose, I stumbled on a wonderful piece of writing software called Scrivener. The software was designed by a writer, who comments that he suffered from a similar writing “method.” That said, Scrivener has all the tools that you need to write. I am not writing a review of the software, so I will just tell you how I have been able to use Scrivener. First of all, I don’t have a messy folder anymore. Instead, the software keeps all of the files in a single location automatically. I have been able to import all of my research into the program, where I can add notes and summaries. In fact, Scrivener allows you to organize every bit of research into one location. I have even been able to import and use Multimarkdown files. The best part of Scrivener, which remedies my former patchwork style, is that after you have completed your work the program allows you to compile everything into an exportable file. I personally export an RTF file and do some last minute formatting in Pages to make the document exactly how I want. The beauty of the software is, however, that Scrivener does the dirty work of keeping everything organized and then putting that mess together in a logical, and readable way.
Scrivener software can be found at http://www.literatureandlatte.com.
Great post. I’m interested in learning more. In the process of writing my dissertation and planning to use Scrievener. I have some questions on creating index cards as part of my research/lit review process. I’d like to discuss these with you. Contact me.
I’m using Scrivener at the moment, but Ulysses looks prttey nifty as well.I have to do some writing that requires ToC and ToA, and I wish one of the indie Mac writing apps would support this in an intuitive and non-broken way. This might be doable with tags ( semantic markup), which would probably be a lot more reliable than Word and WordPerfect’s hidden control codes, which often get cross-threaded and then you can never figure our how to fix them.
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Thanks for this review. I am an avid user of Scrivener (it had a huge ipamct on my workflow an absolute revelation), but I’m always on the lookout for similar programs that might play more nicely with LaTeX. I do a lot of copying & pasting into TextMate nowadays. I’m intrigued by these tagging formats you mentioned, though I’m not sure I can live without that Edit Scrivenings button.By the way, this is my first comment on your blog. I found it only a few days ago, but already you have a solid place in my RSS reader. I’ve been trying to streamline my workflow lately, and your product mentions have been really helpful. So thanks!
I love Scrivener. I only use it to write 1-2 big things a year but it’s worth it. I haven’t tried it out yet but look fowrard to the WriteRoom.iPhone → Scrivener import. I’m this November, or possibly an official NaNoWriMo project. My illustrated books (so far unpublished) seem to start as all text before I even start drawing… so a lot of writing is involved. It1d’s sort of in–between a screenplay and novel.