Scrivener for Windows versus Writing outliner add-in for MS Word

Posted by Pavi
Nov 8, 2011 at 08:18 AM

Hi Mitchell,

It is really unfortunate that Scrivener doesn’t support citations well, especially since a lot of people praise it’s flexibility for both fiction and non-fiction (ie. academic papers). I read on their forum that since they are a small user base, they are not sure about incorporating Zotero integration. About your license fee, don’t they have a 30 day refund policy? Is license transfer allowed?

At this point, I need to point out that citation integration is supposed to be easy!!! Take Zotero or Mendeley using either Writing Outliner or Ultra Recall directly. In both of these solutions, you are using a word file embedded into an outline. Therefore, you simply click on the button for adding a citation in word’s “References/add-ins” menu. Then you either select the reference from a dialog (Zotero) or click on it in the program itself (Mendeley). There is another button to add the bibliography which you would do below your References heading, and another to refresh the bibliography. It’s so simply! When you export/merge, they should auto-refresh - otherwise, you can just click the button to do so. You can enter the same reference multiple times, in multiple documents, etc. as well as choose your style of formatting - all references are renumbered/reordered as needed.

Also, both of these offer direct import from Firefox from a source such as PubMed. So if you are browsing the abstract, you can just click to import to either. If you have the PDF downloaded into a directory, that will of course also be included in the library, and I usually use this method in Mendeley. All this entering of citations and formatting is really unnecessary, which was why I switched from EndNote (back then you had to search within EndNote for a reference, not sure about now).

The short version is that this should be easy, and it is with either Zotero or Mendeley using one of the Word based solutions. This is why I love Ultra Recall, as I am finding uses for it that make additional software (Writing Outliner, WebResearch, etc.) unnecessary and therefore the value is superb.

Best, /Pavi

Mitchell Kastner wrote:
>I continue to be exceeedling disappointed in Scrivener’s utility to handle
>citations and references.
> >Scrivener has a template to use for journal articles and
>one type of “document” is for References. I am writing a law-review type article on US
>Department of Labor workers’ compensation decisions on carpal-tunnel syndrome
>claims. I am beginning my article with a moderately detailed review of the syndrome
>itself. One source I am using for Etiology/Pathophysiology is DISEASEDEX; the cite
>in specific is DISDEX CR1711C. So I dutifully enter that cite as a document under
>References. Clearly I am going to cite that reference multiple times in separate
>documents. This is a snap is UR wherein you can link one document to many documents;
>alas not possible in Scrivener: for sure you can link the text “DISDEX CR1711C” ONCE to
>another time. But I need to cite it multiple times in different documents but there is
>no way to link that reference to mulpticle documents for which it is the source.
> >I threw away 36 bucks and unless someone knows how to link one
>document to multiple documents, I am going to have to get back some of my money since
>there is a 15% restocking fee.