Oh, I hadn't heard of 'Bookmarks', except as an alternative word for 'Favourites' on my notebook computer that doesn't have Windows. Its system is called something like 'Firefox'. But thanks,I found Bookmarks in 'Word 2010 in Easy Steps.' It looks really useful for navigating round a long text.

I've finished pasting my chapters up into one continous file, preserving the original folder with separate chapter files just in case. Now I'm half way through tidying up the gap, etc

When I get one gap-free document I'll make another copy then cut the chapter headings and divide the text up into scenes. I've cut up the initial print-off to make 64 stapled 'scenes' and written long-hand descriptors on the tops, also made a separate list with numbers. I'll redivide the new text into scenes with the descriptors in red, I think, and bookmark them -that's where the Bookmark will be very useful to avoid trawling down the pages.

The book I'm using to structure the text says to decide on chapters at the end because the order of scenes might change. I can see the point of that. It just never occurred to me not to write in chapters from the start.

What a palaver. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Sheila

Alex, Bookmarks sound like just what I need! You're a star!

One of the things which drives me absolutely doolally, once I've got the beast in a single document (and at it's fattest the WIP was just over 150,000, though it's had major surgery since then), is that last stage, when you're tweaking and polishing. Work on one bit necessitates a tweak somewhere else, and to get back to where you were you have to have remembered to remember the page number, of all trivia. Or try to think of a sensible word to search on. And when you do get back have to run your eye down the page, only of course things might have shifted with the tweak...

Does it have Latin and Welsh spell-checking?

LoL!

Scrivener is the only novel-writing program which I know proper writers who swear by (WW's own Jess Ruston, for one). It was always only for Mac, but now, in that smug Mac-y way they have they're releasing a rather old version in a PC version, for us poor, benighted souls. I did think I might give it a try...

It just never occurred to me not to write in chapters from the start.

Me neither. I do think in scenes, but need a folder for several, as it were, as part of the larger archictecture.

Emma

Ooh, I've just remembered I've got a DVD about novel writing. Curses - I can't abandon the rather complicated method described by my book, which takes ages to understand but has lots of templates at the back. Maybe I could look at it, if I can find it.

Sheila

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Good thing I saw it a couple of days back, so it was easy to find. I must have bought it when I had money. It's called Newnovelist. I think I did give it a go one time but it was too complicated but now I'm more experienced maybe I could adapt it

There's a website for downloading new versions:

www.newnovelist.com

I haven't looked at it.

Maybe I could look at it, if I can find it.

Someone needs to invent a real-world equivalent of 'bookmarks'. A sort of cross between Word and the Star Trek 'transporter' - beams the item you're looking for onto your desk when you click 'go to memorised object'.

Alex

You can have bookmarks and jump to them automatically

In Word 2007, to enter a bookmark, click where you want the bookmark to be, click on the 'Insert' tab, then click on 'Bookmarks' in the 'Links' section. It will prompt you for a name for the bookmark, e.g. chapter1.

Then go to a section at the beginning or end of the document, whichever seems most convenient, and click where you want the link to be. then click on the 'insert' tab, click on 'Hyperlink' in the 'Links' section. Click the button marked 'Bookmark'. It will show you all the bookmarks that exist in the document. Highlight the one you want (in this case 'chapter1' ) and click OK. You've then got an internet-type link in your document which, if you Control+Click on it, will take you straight to the bookmark concerned. On the same screen where you select the bookmark for the hyperlink you can also select a different file and then select from its bookmarks. So you can jump to different documents as well.

Alternatively, and more simply, set up the bookmarks as above, then, when you want to go to one, click on the 'Insert' tab then on 'Bookmarks'. It will display all your bookmarks. Select the one you want, and click on GoTo. It will take you to it.

Chris


Chris

I've just thought of another way of doing the same thing. You could insert a table of contents at the start of the document (which can be removed later, when no longer required). If your chapter headings have been set up using styles, such that each one is a Level 1 heading, Word will automatically create the table of contents showing those headings (and can be made to update it to show the correct page numbers). To go from the table of contents to a chapter, you just hold down the Control key and click on its entry in the table of contents.

Alex

Alex, that's what I described above - it works brilliantly PLUS the document map window will give you a clickable document tree to navigate with.

Provided you use (for example) header 1 for chapters, header 2 for scenes, header 3 for bookmarks, it will maintain document map without needing the table of contents.

G

(Plus, you can quickly take them out at the end using style-based search and replace.)

This is all really interesting - thanks, guys. It was only about a week after I'd lumped it all in together that it occurred to me that I could search for "Chapter Two" in the text, which was something.

Though I am so furious with Styles for eating up most of my italics, that I'm thinking of going back to a quill pen and parchment.

I'll have to have a dig and see which works best without using a mouse, because it's so much quicker if you don't have to your hands off the keyboard.

Talking of keyboards, if ctrl + F gets you the 'find' dialogue box, can anyone tell me how to get the find-and-replace one? It says ctrl + PL , but if I do that I get Print - it doesn't seem to pick up on the L

Emma

can anyone tell me how to get the find-and-replace one?

Control-H.

If you want to 'go to' a bookmark (or a page, or a heading, or to various other key items), use Control-G. One of the options is Bookmark, which gives you a dropdown from which you can choose the bookmark you want to go to.

Alex

Ctrl+h find and replace
Ctrl+g go to page

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Ps: Ctrl+Alt+1 Header 1 (chapter)
Ctrl+Alt+2 Header 2 (scene)

Alex, you're a star, and for the Bookmark thing - thank you. I do use control-G for page numbers, but hadn't noticed the rest. Just have to practise the shortcuts now, (I'm a demon with marginal balloons for comments, now that I use them for marking OU stuff) and I'll be there...

Emma

This is great. Was on the move most of yesterday, so carried 'Word 2010 in Easy Steps' around with me, for ten-minute blasts of tech info ( about my limit). But I'm going to write out the tips here -really useful

Two minutes silence for T. Hardy, J. Joyce, H. James et al. who penned their weighty tomes without computers!

Sheila

Two minutes silence for T. Hardy, J. Joyce, H. James et al. who penned their weighty tomes without computers!

And for their editors, typesetters, etc., who also had to do their part of the process without computers. I wonder how many mistakes happened, during the preparations of their first editions, due to so much manual copying and editing? Far fewer than would be the case nowadays, if people had to work without the aid of electronic copying.

Alex

Just to say thanks so much slexhazeland chris2 for the tip about booksmarks.

After a pause for a trip up north, I've now got the whole ms divided up into 62 separate scenes with red headings all bookmarked and divided by page-breaks.

It'll be a great help for the next stage, adding some extra scenes and creating what Wiesner calls 'formatted outline capsules' to fit into a timeline

I like the way you can arrange the bookmarks either alphabetically or by the order in which they appear in the ms. It seems quite magical, the way it's possible to skip about in the text.

The process has been a great way, too, for me to get acquainted with a novel I hadn't looked at for a while.

Sheila

with red headings all bookmarked

I read this as "with red herrings all bookmarked" and wondered if you'd taken to writing classical detective fiction, Sheila!

Emma