If you’re just beginning to use Scrivener, you’ve probably realized there is no instruction manual aside from the initial page of words when you start a project. Though somewhat helpful, there are way too many things they give you all at once and I’m here to simplify that. In addition, I’m partial to visual, straightforward lessons which is why I created a youtube channel with the exact same information. Here are 5 things that I wish I was told when I first started.

This post contains affiliate links which provide a small commission in my favor. This does not affect my opinions in these posts; I’m simply making the posts that I wish existed when I was first starting out.

1st Thing: Typewriter mode. I’ve done some of the longest stints of writing in typewriter mode. Click F11 on Windows, or the ‘fn’ key and ‘f11’ key on Mac to flip your currently-selected text file to this fullscreen mode and enjoy completely distraction-free writing. Hover your cursor over the bottom of the screen to check your wordcount, and once again, select text and check how many words you’ve written. To back out, hit F11 again or the escape key.

2nd Thing: Wordcounter and Word Goals. The wordcounter on the bottom of my screen is one of the things I tend to check on the most. When you highlight text, it even tells you how many words are highlighted to easily see how much you’ve written. The little target icon to the right of it will allow you to set a wordcount goal for your allotted writing time. Once you hit this goal

3rd Thing: Corkboard. This is integrated directly to your already-written document. When you create a folder with text documents and write in those text documents, you can click this 4-square icon in the top right of the program and it will give you a birds-eye view of that particular selected folder. You can change the appearance back to the text folders by clicking the icon just to the left of the 4-square. 

4th Thing: Binder. This left-hand side of your project is your binder. Wipe your binder clean so you aren’t going crazy by simply dragging their kroger-brand organization into the trash (unless you think you’ll actually use one of their presets). The binder is a great way to organize the many different parts of your work and Scrivener found a simple way to shuffle your stuff around and place files inside of files.There are 3 different types of files: A folder and a text doc. Text documents are different from folders because when you create an index card in the separate view, it will automatically create a TEXT document and not a new folder. When it creates this text doc, it doesn’t transfer any of the information on the index card to the text doc.

  • 5th Thing: Icons. These are just fun things to visually improve your project. Each text file and folder can have their icons changed to whatever you’d like. Right click on any folder or text doc and hover down to icon. Scrivener has plenty of icons to choose from, but if they aren’t cutting it for you, then you have the option to import your own.
  • On Mac, you can install the icons by right-clicking (or ctrl-click) an item in the Binder and selecting Change Icon, scroll to the top of the Icon List, where you will find the Manage Custom Icons option which will open the Icon Manager window. You can also select Documents and then Change Icon to bring up the Icon List to access the Icon Manager.
  • The Icon Manager allows you to add single or multiple icons. If you add them down here, they’ll be available to ALL scrivener projects. If you don’t do this, it won’t apply to all scrivener projects. Some issues are specified in the user manual, (shown in section 7.4 in the image), if you’d like an extra reference.
  • Scrivener was a frustrating process for me and tutorials were few and far-between. I hope these posts are helpful and if they are, awesome. I have the same info in video-format on my youtube channel, @nateiwinski. And I hope that watching this video helps you understand and enjoy Scrivener a little bit more.

Scrivener has many, MANY features, presets, knobs, levels, bells, and whistles, but their development team is not so concerned about user experience because of all of the currently-existing benefits, such as its ability to easily handle HUGE amounts of text (whereas word processors like google docs or Word, though robust, start choking on wordcounts that are over 30k and their exporting features, though competitive, don’t have a novelist in mind like Scrivener does.) Overall, once you learn about the good, you’ll see that it clearly outweighs the learning curve, which is why I use it for novels, short stories, and screenplays. If this is something you realize you need, check out their offers here.