My Scrivener 2.0 review

Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 13, 2010 at 04:58 PM

Mitchell Kastner wrote:
>Ditto.
> >I don’t know how you can do academic writing in the Windows beta; there is no
>tool for inserting citation references. Can’t editing html web page. Barely can cut
>and paste. Outlining very clumsy. Cannot insert child or sibling levels. Keyword UHD
>does not work. Cool feature about creating parent, child, and sibling key words but
>when I dropped group into keyword pane either nothing showed or only one showed and not
>group as advertised. Yes I know it is a beta and I know that I have scratched only
>surface, but you would figure that at a minimum a word processor that advertises
>itself as being useable for academic writing does not make citations easy although I
>think in the Mac version there is a bibliographic utility.

I also downloaded and took a quick look at the beta. The overall concept looks interesting but I also found the outlining process cumbersome. I needed to develop some quick notes and organise them hierarchically, and I found it difficult to move the topics around and up and down. Eventually I gave up and switched to Natara Bonsai, where outlining is a breeze. I’m also a Whizfolders Organizer user, and so I would be curious to know how the Mac version measures up to Whizfolders. I do like the various functions that enable you to have an easy overview of the overall project in Scrivener, however quick and easy hierarchical outlining is a must for me.

Oh, and I absolutely agree, some kind of an integration with EndNote or similar academic referencing software would be a must. That would be a huge market for this sort of software to tap into. I would venture to say that the vast majority of people writing out there on a daily basis are probably university students and academics.