Today, Literature and Latte released Scrivener 3.0 for Mac. Although there are many new features, the one that caught my eye has long been on my wish list: true paragraph styling. Previously, the RTF formatting was difficult to manage, and whenever I compiled a Scrivener project as a Word document, fixing the formatting so that I could use styles the way I’m accustomed to was tedious and cumbersome.
I created a document with each of the predefined paragraph styles, then compiled it as a Word .docx file. I was happy to see that each style came through as a true Word paragraph style, with Scrivener’s default “No Style” mapped to Word’s “Normal.” In a second test, I created a brand new style with a unique name; it showed up as expected in Word’s Style gallery when I compiled the document. Creating, modifying, and deleting styles are all simple tasks, and switching between paragraph styles is simple.
The new style system comes at a cost, though: Scrivener 3.0 files are not backwards-compatible with previous versions of Scrivener. Round-tripping a file between a Mac and a Windows PC now requires exporting the Scrivener 3 project as a Scrivener 2 project. That’s frustrating, but I imagine that the number of people using both Mac and PC to round-trip projects is very small. The website says that version 3.0 for Windows will be here next year, I’ll believe that when I see it. Literature and Latte’s track record in that regard isn’t promising. The original Windows version took forever to be released, as did the iOS version.
The new interface has a lighter, more modern look to it, but the overall layout is much the same as Scrivener 2.0. I’m disappointed that I still can’t customize the formatting buttons—I almost never user Underline, so that button is wasted real estate for me. Meanwhile, I use strikethrough frequently, and I’d like to add that button to the formatting bar.
That’s a small matter, though, since I can always use the shortcut key for strikethrough. The paragraph style system was the big selling point for me, and it does what I’d hoped it would. It’s a bummer that I can’t round-trip projects, but I will learn to live without that. The primary use case for that scenario is my writer’s notebook, and I can use my iPad in a pinch.
Whether Scrivener 3.0 is worth the upgrade price ($25 if you bought before August 20, 2017—newer users get it gratis) for users who don’t care about paragraph styles, I can’t say. But for me, it solves my biggest frustration with the product, so I’ll gladly shell out the money come next payday.
Sam Falco 