Checkpoints and History
A checkpoint records the whole project as it was at one moment. Compare any checkpoint with today's draft or with a later checkpoint, and restore text from it.
Create a checkpoint
Choose Project > Create Checkpoint… (⇧⌘K) and name it, for example "Sent to agent". Or choose Make a checkpoint in Revise ▸ History. On iPad and iPhone, it's also in the + menu.
Five Rooms also records checkpoints for you:
| When | Named |
|---|---|
| Your first change on each day | The date |
| Every compile, and every post you share | The format and time, or "Shared “post”" |
| Before anything is changed in bulk: a Scrivener re-import, Replace, fixing quotes, cleaning up text, setting story times, a restore, accepting a reviewer's suggestions, edits merged from the mirror, an assistant reorganising items | "Before …" |
| A revision starts or ends | "Start of revision", "Accepted revisions" |
| A round of reading copies | The round's name |
Compare versions
Open the Revise room and choose History, then a checkpoint in the column. The page shows what's changed since, up to today's draft; to stop at a later checkpoint instead, choose it from the to today's draft menu.
- Words written and cut, and the net change, with who wrote them in a shared project
- Each scene that changed. Choose one to read its changes: new words are green, cut words struck through in red.
- Scenes added, cut, moved, split and merged
- Words written and cut by status and point of view
A scene edited on another device that hasn't synced yet is reported and left out, never guessed.
Restore text from a checkpoint
In History, choose the checkpoint, then choose from Restore:
- Restore All Text… returns every document's text and title to the checkpoint.
- Restore “name”… restores only the document selected in the contents. For a folder, everything in it.
Restoring changes text only. Documents added since are kept; nothing is moved, added or removed, and locked documents are left alone. A checkpoint named "Before restoring checkpoint" is recorded first, so you can restore today's draft again. Comments on passages that haven't changed stay in place.
Open a checkpoint from Storyteller Workbench
Each submission in Storyteller Workbench links to the checkpoint made when you compiled it. The link opens History, comparing that checkpoint with your current draft.