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)