Cross-referencing is more easily done in Word,and the tables are better done, and my advisors need it in Word format, so it’s just easier to work in Word – particularly as I already know Word well. I also find I like to have the tables visually in front of me when I am writing the discussion relating to them.

So I used Scrivener to write through to Chapter 5 but the lack of a usable table function killed me. Maybe Latex could be made to work – but frankly I have enough going on in my head without adding Latex to the mix. The good news though has been that Word on the Mac has been much more stable, and I’ve put in several long days and ‘only’ lost about 15 minutes of work all up. No longer having lots of comments, or track changes, in my Word document seems to have helped.

I miss a lot of the fantastic ‘proper’ writing project management capabilities of Scrivener and the ease of getting ‘back into your document’ straight away. If they were to fix the tables feature I would be back to Scrivener in a heartbeat, or if I had a project that did not require lots of tables. Most of the other graphics (I use Omnigraffle), formatting and cross-referencing capability I can make work pretty well with Scrivener.

It’s just the tables that really let an otherwise fantastic product down for academic writing.

I then gave the drafts to my supervisors (chapter by chapter), one of whom uses track changes and comments in word. I made the final changes to the thesis in separate chapter files, and inserted pictures and tables with autocaptions. I tried to combine using word for long docs function (master docs) but it didn’t work well. I ended up doing the cut and paste combine, and formatting in Word. I had very few problems, but then I have formatted several large docs in word in previous jobs and am familiar with most of the issues. I also compiled my endnote ref list then and only then, as well as the contents page and tables of figures etc. So supervisors never got ref lists with drafts. They never complained.

I now find it difficult finding a workable workflow with scrivener for academic articles. It’s great for first drafts. I compile and give people to read for feedback. Then I make changes in scrivener (or even write notes in the notes function while they give me verbal feedback). But after that I really need to put it in word (say draft 2 or 3) for formatting and references and edits, for the reasons mentioned arleady — need an exact wordcount, needs any figures and tables, and needs to be pretty enough to send out to people. I’ve come to accept this, mostly, although there are always a few days of procrastination until I realise its time to compile and work on it in word. I sometimes then save it as rtf and put it back in scrivener if I think i want to cannibalise it later for other work.

Also Scrivener compile can be complicated, this can be simplified by working on a latex export – which will provide the most robust solution.

I don’t have any solution for the bad tables in Scrivener, and at the moment I am keeping them separate in Word.

I have some trouble with images, too, because when I insert them into a document inline the app seems to get sluggish (at least on my system).

But I find Scrivener’s ability to have a document segmented into small chunks invaluable. That’s the main thing for me–the ability to easily select & see different groupings of text together.

Thanks: Micheal