If you write books, manuals or lengthy manuscripts for a living, chances are you rely on Scrivener for Mac for your work. If so, you’ll be delighted to learn that the app’s creator, British developer Literature & Latte Ltd., has released Scrivener for iOS following a long period of thorough beta testing. The iPhone, iPad and iPod touch app costs $19.99 and provides the full range of features writers need to create, edit and update their work on the go with full-screen mode on the iPad and other perks.
“Whether you plan or plunge, Scrivener works your way: meticulously outline every last detail first, or hammer out a complete draft and restructure later,” reads the blurb.
“All text sections in Scrivener are fully integrated with its outlining tools, so working with an overview of your manuscript is only ever a tap away, and turning Chapter Four into Chapter One is as simple as drag and drop.”
Scrivener packs exceptional support for referencing background material, such as videos, PDF documents, webpages, images and so forth, which is always at hand within the app. On the iPad, you can open two documents side-by-side or flip between research and writing with just two taps on your iPhone.
Your document, along with any supporting notes and referenced material, can be compiled into a single file exportable to popular formats like Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, Final Draft or plain text.
“You can even share using different formatting, so that you can write in your favorite font and still keep your editor happy,” says the developer.
Scrivener highlights
Here are some of the key features of Scrivener for iOS:
Get started
- Interactive tutorial project
- Keep each manuscript and supporting materials in a self-contained project
- Import Word, RTF, Final Draft and plain text files
- Easily split imported text into separate sections
Get writing
- Write your manuscript in sections of any size
- View all sections as a single text using the “Draft Navigator” (iPad only)
- Quickly navigate sections using the “binder” sidebar
- Format with fonts and presets
- Comments, footnotes, links and highlights
- Simple bullets and lists
- Insert images
- Pinch-zoom to resize text
- Full-screen mode (iPad only)
- Typewriter scrolling mode keeps typed text center-screen (iPad only)
- Write a screenplay using scriptwriting mode
- Live word and character counts
- Set word and character count targets
- Find and replace
- Customizable keyboard row provides quick-access buttons for formatting, navigation and punctuation
- Comprehensive keyboard shortcuts for external keyboard users
Find your structure
- Write in any order and reorganize later
- Write a synopsis for any text section and see it in the outline
- Expand, collapse and drill down into sections of your project
- Rearrange sections as index cards on the corkboard (iPad only)
- Project-wide search
- Track ideas using labels and status
- Apply custom icons to your sections
Refer to research
- Import research material such as image, PDF and media flies
- View research files or other sections right alongside your writing (iPad only)
- Every section has its own notes area for jotting down ideas
- Supports multi-tasking split screen mode (supported devices only)
Share your work
- Compile to a single document for sharing or printing
- Use different formatting in your exported or printed document
- Export to Word, RTF, Final Draft, PDF or plain text
- Convert rich text to Markdown for sharing with Markdown apps
- Create and email zipped backups of your projects
Sadly, Scrivener is currently incompatible with iCloud so you’ll need to use Dropbox to seamlessly sync your writing across iOS devices and Mac and Windows PCs, or manually copy projects between Apple devices via the iTunes File Sharing feature.
Scrivener for iOS is $19.99 on the App Store.
Scrivener for Mac is $49.99 on the Mac App Store.
An iOS device running iOS 9 or later is required for Scrivener for iOS. A valid Dropbox account is required for live sync.