Scrivener

The desktop version is great, the app is useless, do not buy, it’s a waste of money.

I have Scriv for my Mac, and have loved this software. But, I got tired of having to constantly import it into Word, emailing it to me or putting it through Dropbox to access the file on my iPad, then having to email or Dropbox the changed file and copy and pasting it all back into Scriv. I got this software on iPad cos I was lead to believe I could move from Mac to iPad and back again without a problem - a seamless handoff between devices that would sync up with changes and without having to email or Dropbox it. I've had this more months, and my Scriv files from my Mac are never recognised - it says I'm not authorised. So to access the files, I have to import it into Word, email it to me or put it through Dropbox to access the file on my iPad, then having to email or Dropbox the changed file and copy and pasting it all back into Scriv. Sooooooooo why did I waste £20 on this app? I've tried creating files on the iPad Scriv as well, and it's worse that Word for Mac. End of the day, this very issue is making me consider switching back to Final Draft. I've always preferred Scriv for Mac, but at least FD has a handover system that works. All in all, really disappointed with this app, cannot recommend it at all - and I'd demand a refund if I thought I'd get one. Scrivener, get compatible with iCloud. Saving, sharing and storing this IDs way too difficult.

It is excellent. It's primarily a writing app but it's also a great notes app. One thing stopping it from being the best notes app is that it doesn't have an Apple Watch app for quickly capturing notes. That would suit it very well. Needs to include voice input of course.

It crashes every second word, despite restarting and having loads of space on the hard drive and having a new iPad. Nothing else is crashing. Gone back to pages as it’s taking SO LONG.

There’s no writing app in the eco-system to beat this IMO. It has literally everything you can ever need in a writing app & much more. If you are choosing apps for writing, this really is what you should spend your money on. There are far less capable apps out there wanting you to pay more for them than what this one costs. I’ve waited for so many years now on the promise of the developer bringing the ‘sister-app’ of this (Scapple) to iOS. I’ve given up, now which is a real shame because it’s an absolute winner of apps.

I’ve used a few different writing apps and this one does everything I need very well. The Dropbox integration with the desktop app seems to work well and I haven’t had any issues with losing work because of sync conflicts. Having iCloud support would be so much better though.

I don’t use Dropbox and iTunes no longer exists, so I’m finding it extremely difficult to load and save the projects I created on the Mac version. Scrivener need to implement drag and drop of projects from the iPadOS Files app, and file sharing. Once I can share my projects with my Mac via my preferred cloud providers iCloud and pCloud, this app is deserving of 5 stars. But iTunes? Seriously? This is 2024 not 2014.

I absolutely love the Scrivener desktop app and, having switch to an iPad to do all my writing on, I thought it would be straightforward to use Scrivener on the iPad too. Unfortunately, not only did I have to pay again (the licenses are not transferable) but the iPad app is missing a lot of the features that made Scrivener so useful to me. Some, like individual chapter length targets, are ‘nice-to-haves’ that I can live without, but others are more fundamental. The most crucial missing/incomplete feature is compiling. Unlike the desktop app, the iPad app doesn’t properly handle front and back matter, can’t populate variables like book title or author name, and has only a fraction of the customisability needed to get your book looking the way you want it when you export it. Bluntly, I don’t think the iPad app is sufficient for the majority of authors wanting to compile and export their novel in a format ready for self-publishing via, for example, KDP. That’s a huge let-down given this is one of the key benefits of using a tool like Scrivener. For me, I’m now stuck doing all my writing on my iPad and then borrowing a laptop with the desktop app installed to do the final compile and export. That’s a pretty poor solution, and even worse for people who didn’t already have a desktop license so would have to buy one specially just so they have the necessary features to prepare their book for publishing.

I feel like I’ve wasted my money. I use one drive to sync my files. My projects are on my iPad from that so why can’t scrivener access them? If I use Dropbox I have to manually sync that to one drive. The UI is pretty poor too to be honest. Looks very basic and too dissimilar to the desktop app. Edit: after using iTunes to manual copy a project, I have discovered that because the font I use isn’t available on my iPad it has changed it in the project with no warning. There is also an issue with bullet point indentation, where from a second level item I press return, it shows a first level bullet on iPad but when I copy it back to windows it shows as a second level bullet. This is not the quality software I expect as a long-time user on windows. If these issues are resolved, I will update this review accordingly. As it stands I’m considering requesting a refund.

Brilliant stuff , makes writing a book a breeze !