Importing from Scrivener, Word and Substack

Choose File > Import on the Mac. On iPad, choose Import in the Library's ⋯ menu; on iPhone, the + menu above the project list. Each kind opens the file chooser for its files: a Scrivener project or folder, a Word document, a screenplay (see Screenplays), a Five Rooms package (see Backups and Project Files), a Substack publication (see Journals), or citations into the open project (see Research and Citations).

Scrivener

Choose Scrivener Project or Folder… (⇧⌘I) and a Scrivener 3 project. The binder, text, synopses, notes, metadata, snapshots and collections come across; keywords become tags. Links stay links, including links to other documents in the project; comments and highlights become margin comments, and a comment coloured in Scrivener goes into a comment category of that colour, named after it (Red, Blue…) for you to rename. Underlining, centred and right-aligned lines and lists are kept. The import report lists anything that couldn't be brought across exactly. A project written in Scrivener's script mode becomes a screenplay.

Scrivener 2 projects must be opened and saved in Scrivener 3 first.

Moving over gradually

Keep writing in Scrivener while you try Five Rooms. Import the same project again, and only what changed in Scrivener since the last import is merged:

  • Text changed only in Scrivener is updated.
  • Text changed only in Five Rooms is kept.
  • The same passage changed in both: your Five Rooms text is kept, and Scrivener's version is offered as a suggestion.
  • The order of the contents changed in both: Scrivener's order is added as a separate arrangement.
  • Keywords, labels, statuses and custom fields are merged the same way: Scrivener's changes are taken, yours kept.

A "Before import" checkpoint is recorded first, and the report lists everything that changed in both places.

An older copy of a project is never imported over a newer one. If the copy you choose was last edited before the one imported before, it's refused rather than taking your project back in time. (Scrivener gives a copied or backed-up project the same identity as the original, which is how the older copy is recognised.)

A whole folder of projects

Choose a folder instead of a project. Every Scrivener project in it and its subfolders is imported, one after another, with one report at the end:

  • Imported: each project's documents and words, and whether it matched Scrivener. Choose a project for its conversion notes, or Open to go to it.
  • Skipped: projects already in your library, and older copies of a project in the same folder. Only the most recently edited copy is imported.
  • Couldn't be imported: grouped by reason, for example projects made with Scrivener 2.

Projects appear in the Library as they arrive. Stop ends the import before the next project; nothing is left half-imported. Copy Report copies the whole report as text. To bring in changes to a project already in your library, import that project on its own.

Word

Choose Word Document… and a .docx file. Each Word document becomes a new project.

The contents are built from the document's heading styles:

  • Top-level headings become chapters, or parts if chapters sit beneath them.
  • Headings within a chapter become scenes. A chapter without them is divided into scenes at its scene breaks.
  • Text in the Title style names the project.
  • Headings such as "Dedication" or "Acknowledgements" fill the front and back matter. Text before the first heading becomes the title page.
  • Without headings, lines like "Chapter One" become chapters; without those, the whole text is one scene.

Tracked changes are accepted, links stay links, comments become margin comments, and footnotes and pictures are kept. Underlining, centred and right-aligned lines, lists and highlighting come across too (lists inside lists become one level). The report confirms that every word arrived.

Older .doc files must be saved as .docx in Word or Pages first.

To bring an editor's comments into an existing project, see Comments from Word.

Links in older imports

Projects imported before Five Rooms had links kept each link as a margin comment ("Link: …"). Choose Project > Turn Link Comments into Links (on iPad and iPhone, in the project's ⋯ menu) to put each on the words it marks; the comment is resolved and a checkpoint is made first. Five Rooms offers this once when you open such a project. A link comment someone replied to stays as it is. Importing the same Scrivener project or Substack publication again does it too, for documents you haven't changed since.

Substack

Choose Substack Publication… to bring a Substack blog in as a journal, from its address or from Substack's export. See Journals.