Scrivener
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Tailored for extensive writing, this tool offers flexible structure and organization, integrates project outlines, supports various formats, and allows reorganization through drag and drop, ensuring research materials are within reach for efficient work.
License model
- Paid • Proprietary
Application types
Country of Origin
United Kingdom
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- iPhone
- iPad
- PlayOnLinux - PlayOnMac
- Wine
Features
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POX added Scrivener as alternative to Scriptorium
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Scrivener information
Developed by
Literature & Latte Ltd Licensing
Proprietary and Commercial product.Pricing
One time purchase (perpetual license) ranging between $51 and $52.Rating
Average rating of 3.3Alternatives
108 alternatives listedSupported Languages
AlternativeTo Categories
Office & Productivity, News & Books, Audio & Music, Video & Movies, Business & CommerceApple AppStore
- Updated Sep 29, 2023
- 4.21 avg rating
Comments and Reviews
Scrivener is a specialized word processing and file management system for writers. It allows you to develop a new work, or import an existing work, and break it up into manageable parts. While designed primarily for fiction writing, I have also used it on a manual that required little advanced formatting.
I could not find a comparable product on Windows, however it should be said that the Mac OS X version is far more advanced than the Windows version - with features unimplemented on Windows. The Windows version is being actively developed but L&L hasn't really made much of an attempt to 'catch up' the Windows version. Despite this negative, I haven't found a better platform for writing fiction on Windows.
Scrivener does not have sophisticated formatting tools - but it does have some. It has everything you'd expect from a word processor, plus a whole lot more. However a major omission is two column formatting, which is necessary for a lot of publishing.
Windows users are third class citizens and never get updates within two years of Mac users. Any criticism of this policy on their forums results in locked threads, never admitting any wrong or responsibility to their customers. It's some of the most anti-consumer practices I've seen, especially for such a dedicated, niche customer base.
This. We're in January of 2020, and they have missed yet another deadline. They don't give one single, solitary firetruck about Windows users.
Agreed. I'm starting to think Version 3 for Windows will get here around the same time as Version 4 for Mac. The Windows version is already sliding behind features for the Mac version with excuses like "Well, the Mac OS lets us easily hook into this feature, so the Windows version just won't have it at all." Here we are in September and a simple "Find & Replace" operation in the Windows version absolutely explodes ("whole word" replaces even partial words). If you want to spend money on something and be disrespected, choose Scrivener for Windows.
If Windows users are 3rd class then what are Linux users?
Things started out well, but over time as MacOS got more inaccessible, so too did Scrivener. Do not get me wrong, as a tool to write actual novels and make things that are meant to be read for pleasure, it is a great tool.
The trouble starts when you try to put together a draft that you can send to an editor, an agent, or Odin forbid, a publisher. For starters, the text in such boxes as the indicators for fonts and sizes is far too small. Scrivener keeps telling us that they can only use what Apple lets them, but if browsers like Brave can make successful efforts to boost font sizes, it behoves everyone to try.
And Scrivener's text editor can zoom in to increase the size of the text you are working on just fine.
Which brings us to the compile feature. Because you cannot see the indicator for the font face clearly, and because the interface of the compile feature is like a 1999 era Windows networking box, it is like pulling teeth to even get the document to have page breaks in the right places. Then, partly because you can never tell what font the editor thinks you want in the document, the compile has inconsistent formatting.
Reading back the document whilst prepping it for an agent, you find the compile and Scrivener have decided to make some parts a different colour, randomly, without any clue as to why.
Scrivener has always had problems, including an interface that makes finding functions very difficult. But version three makes life far more difficult for authors than it already is. Literature And Latte are also incredibly unresponsive to cries for help, and as already hinted, deflective of complaints about serious issues with the program. They need to go back to the drawing board and rebuild version four from the ground up.
Expensive as hell for what it is, a glorified text editor that once you pay for it, locks you in by making it extremely tedious to migrate.
I'd recommend either Manuskript or Obsidian with a few plugins.
Note: it's still possible to find the scrivener.appimage for Linux as of August 2022
If you are writer it's a good piece of software, it has some sortfalls but - who doesn't.
It certainly focuses on Mac vs Windows.
When the hell is this going to update for Windows?! It's starting to look its age