Using Calibre and Scrivener...?

[MarjaE]

I'm looking for an accessible word processor for os x.

I'm writing game rules, some game maps, and historical notes, along with my own reference notes.

I'm organizing more and more of my sources in Calibre, and tagging them by project, so one file can support many projects.

Unfortunately, I have neurological problems that give me trouble with LibreOffice on the Mac, OpenOffice on the Mac, Pages, etc. And I need to do things, such as sort lists and fix certain broken formatting, which I can't do in Bean or Textedit. I also prefer less formatting, and detest styles, since I've had trouble working on Word docs where special formatting can freeze or crash other word processors, and can go haywire when I try to edit a numbered list, or add another section, etc.

Scrivener looks like one possibility, even if it's designed for fancy formatting, because it hasn't hit me with flashing, and it's supposed to enable sortable lists, but it's built around a different working style where it brings related files into each project folder. Obviously that's at odds with organizing most of my sources in Calibre, and tagging them by project, so one file can support many projects, and removing or replacing some files from time to time.

Are there any tricks to make Scrivener and Calibre work together?

I've looked around online for "Scrivener" "Calibre" "research" but it's mostly about the use of Scrivener and Calibre to create epub books, not about the use of the different organizing styles.

Are there good ways to use Scrivener without fancy formatting?

Previously asked in the Calibre forum: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=278902

[BetterRed]

@MarjaE- have you considered using Evernote or Onenote, in my opinion they are far more suited to organising resources, notes etc than calibre is, or will ever be.

I use both of them for similar purposes, for which you're using calibre - to organise information. To me calibre is a fancy file manager, albeit a very good one, but its not an information organiser.

I use Evernote as a 'bottom drawer/garden shed' in which to put stuff. If I want to use a 'thing' in one or more projects I normally move it to Onenote. I find it easier to impose structure (hierarchical and/or network) on information using Onenote. Both of them 'publish' links to their Notes, which enables me to link to an Evernote Note from within a Onenote Note and vice-versa. Example: Evernote embeds PDF's better than OneNote, so I keep the PDF's in Evernote Notes and paste a link thereto into the relevant Onenote Note(s)

They both run on Mac and they're both free, unless you want a lot of on line storage. FWIW the Mac version of Evernote tends to be 'ahead' of the Windows version, and not unsurprisingly it's the reverse for Onenote.

I guess what I'm suggesting is that you might want to consider taking calibre out of the loop.

BR

[MarjaE]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@MarjaE- have you considered using Evernote or Onenote, in my opinion they are far more suited to organising resources, notes etc than calibre is, or will ever be.

No, I haven't.

I tried Apple's Notes. I lost work that way. I have avoided note-taking software ever since.

I can't find anything about how to use EverNote or OneNote to convert files, correct metadata, and so on.

I can't find much about whether either app is accessible with my strobe sensitivity; most apps aren't accessible on os x. Apparently there's a bug in Apple's text-handling apis.

LibreOffice isn't accessible, which is why I'm looking for a word processer which is accessible. Firefox can be relatively accessible with about:config fixes, script-blockers, and other animation blockers.

[BetterRed]

Evernote (EN) and Onenote (ON) are not calibre alternatives, so metadata as such and conversion don't exist, they don't have any equivalent to format files - everything is in their databases. And they're not word processing alternatives.

They are information organisers based around notebooks. A note can be something you write, or you copy from elsewhere - e.g. a newspaper article, a wikipedia entry. Within a note there can be links to other notes, webpages, files etc and you can embed pictures, pdfs, etc.

There's lots of material on the web about using EN and ON in creative writing projects. Search for 'using evernote for creative writing' and 'using onenote for creative writing'. Here's one that might interest you - Creative Writing With OneNote & MineCraft

And there are lots of blog posts from writer's who use EN and/or ON for research and Scrivener for the writing:

Using Scrivener and Evernote to Write Your Book
Why One Note is One-Derful for Writers

What formats do you use in calibre?

BR

[MarjaE]

I am asking about organizing when using Calibre and Scrivener because the Finder [and its analogues in Linux and Windows] has one way of organizing things [in directories, which appear as folders and windows on the desktop], which tools like Blik add to, and Calibre has a second way of organizing things, and Scrivener has a third, and unless someone can suggest another accessible word processor, I'm trying to figure out how to get the second and third to work with each other. Unless I'm misreading you, you seem to be suggesting adding a fourth way of organizing things.

I use Calibre because I need something to convert azw and mobi files, and correct metadata, to read them on the Iriver Story Hd, and I need something to convert epub files, and correct metadata, and organize collections, to read them on the Kindle Dx.

I also use Calibre to keep track of files, because I already use Calibre, so I may as well use it to do this too.

I need an accessible word processor, such as Scrivener, to write up my own work. I had been using Bean and Textedit, but they can't sort tables and can't repair certain formatting errors. I had been using LibreOffice before that, but can't disable blinking cursors, objects, and cells, in it. I can't see around flashing and blinking, and get disoriented, and sometimes get migraines.

[BetterRed]

I think you should first determine if Scrivener meets your specific needs for a 'word processor'. If it doesn't there is little point worrying about how it might integrate with calibre or anything else. There's a Windows wp program called Atlantis that's quite popular amongst writers - perhaps you could run it under Parallels or one of the other 'Windows on OSX' gadgets.

That said: Scrivener uses a folder structure for projects. Whilst the user can control where a project folder is located, what's inside is determined by the Scrivener software. As you know a calibre uses a folder structure for libraries. Again the user can control where a library folder is located, but what's inside is determined by the Calibre software. The content of a Scrivener project and a Calibre library are chalk and cheese.

As I see it, tools like Evernote and Onenote are good for marshalling raw materials, Scrivener, Storyist etc are the factories that transform the raw materials into a product, and Calibre is the finished goods store. As in all such things there are under and overlaps.

BR

[gmw]

Interesting thread, I don't think I'd ever have thought of using Calibre in this way. ... Doubt I'd try to, even how you've brought it up, but interesting nonetheless.

[Dr. Drib]

I think you can try Scrivener free for a very generous amount of time before (if) you decide to buy it.

Why not try that?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I think you can try Scrivener free for a very generous amount of time before (if) you decide to buy it.

Why not try that?

Yep. You get a full 30 days. You don't have to use them in one 30 day period either. So you could open it up every Monday for 30 weeks for example before the trial runs out.

[skb]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

That said: Scrivener uses a folder structure for projects. Whilst the user can control where a project folder is located, what's inside is determined by the Scrivener software. As you know a calibre uses a folder structure for libraries. Again the user can control where a library folder is located, but what's inside is determined by the Calibre software. The content of a Scrivener project and a Calibre library are chalk and cheese.

BR

Long time Scrivener user here - it kind of uses a folder structure for projects. All files within a project are within a 'file package' (which is not the same as say, a zip file and causes all sorts of angst when backing up to the cloud etc).

The best thing to do about asking about directories and Scrivener would be to ask over at Literature and Latte forums. There are some extraordinary people over there and someone will have either done or has tried to do what you want.

But, as far as Scrivener being a word processor - it depends on what you want to do. If you want all your research in one place and easily accessible with excellent distraction free writing facilities (notes, text, keyword search) then it's brilliant. It's not really a Word Processor (like Word or Pages) where you can make your page look like a book etc - it's more for writing your book (and if you want, you can compile your book into something more "Wordy" or import the text into Word and prettify it).

I may have just sold Scrivener short. But I've been using it since the first free version (10 years+) and I would never want to return to have to write (especially long) documents in Word. Scrivener is the best friend anyone who wants to write will ever have. </end fannish gushing>

[dickloraine]

Have you considered writing in markdown? There are no styles, just text. You could use any simple writing app. Or use an editor intended for coding, which would give you many more editing options. Visual Studio Code or Atom for example. These editors are highly customizable. With calibre or pandoc it is easy to make all kind of other formats out of it (epub, pdf, docx etc.).

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by skb

Long time Scrivener user here - it kind of uses a folder structure for projects. All files within a project are within a 'file package' (which is not the same as say, a zip file and causes all sorts of angst when backing up to the cloud etc).

Ah-ha, I used Scrivener on Windows, where it uses standard issue directories (folders). I wonder if an OS/X 'file package' could be imported into a calibre library.

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by dickloraine

Have you considered writing in markdown? There are no styles, just text. You could use any simple writing app. Or use an editor intended for coding, which would give you many more editing options. Visual Studio Code or Atom for example. These editors are highly customizable. With calibre or pandoc it is easy to make all kind of other formats out of it (epub, pdf, docx etc.).

@marjaE - iA Writer is a very clean Markdown Editor for OSX and iOS.

[Dr. Drib]

I don't use Ulysses, but it's highly regarded.

It apparently does NOT sort tables, but used with Marked, it can be accomplished.

https://ulyssesapp.com/blog/2014/07/...es-and-marked/

However, even with that limitation, the program is very much admired, so you may wish to check it out.

Here's their site:

https://ulyssesapp.com/#top

[crich70]

Originally Posted by skb

Long time Scrivener user here - it kind of uses a folder structure for projects. All files within a project are within a 'file package' (which is not the same as say, a zip file and causes all sorts of angst when backing up to the cloud etc).

The best thing to do about asking about directories and Scrivener would be to ask over at Literature and Latte forums. There are some extraordinary people over there and someone will have either done or has tried to do what you want.

But, as far as Scrivener being a word processor - it depends on what you want to do. If you want all your research in one place and easily accessible with excellent distraction free writing facilities (notes, text, keyword search) then it's brilliant. It's not really a Word Processor (like Word or Pages) where you can make your page look like a book etc - it's more for writing your book (and if you want, you can compile your book into something more "Wordy" or import the text into Word and prettify it).

I may have just sold Scrivener short. But I've been using it since the first free version (10 years+) and I would never want to return to have to write (especially long) documents in Word. Scrivener is the best friend anyone who wants to write will ever have. </end fannish gushing>

You can import and export documents though too. So if you have an old document you can set it up to be broken into pieces for chapters etc. or export it as a doc file too.