Scrivener Quick Tip: Split Screen

A cool feature of Scrivener is the split screen.

FYI: I use my little MacBook Pro for all of these screen shots.

If, like me, you have a lot going on in your project, you might need to reference something else while writing a scene.  With Scrivener, you don’t have to keep multiple projects open, you can have it all in one project and just view things in a split screen:

Click for a larger view

To split your screen, look for the little Toggle button location above your editing window, just left of your Inspector (if you have it turned on as shown in the screen shot above):

It’s the Box with the line through the middle

Clicking the Toggle button splits the editor horizontally and will show you the scene you are currently working on in both areas.  Whichever section has the blue bar on it is the ‘active window’:

Note that the top bar is Blue-that’s the active area

To change one or both sections of the split screen, first click inside one to turn the bar blue, then go to your Binder and click the scene you want displayed there:

Scene 2 is selected in the Binder & is active in the lower half of the edit window

You can actually have other things active in your split screen.  Say you have a character sheet or some research in your project that you need to write your scene.  Just click the bottom, then click whatever it is in the Binder to make it visible in that area:

“If you don’t hear from me, you take the ship, and you come rescue me.”

Handy, right?

BUT WAIT, there’s more – say you’re a vertical split kinda person.  Well, you can do that to.  Click on View > Layout and you have the option to split Horizontally or Vertically:

Options for editor layout

Which will give you this:

Columns! Columns! COLUMNS!

So, there you have it.  Split screen goodness!

More Scrivener Tips coming (every Monday?)!

Don’t have Scrivener?  You can try it free here (no, I don’t get paid for pointing you at them!).

~P

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Tags: quick tips, scrivener, tips, writing tool