This is the Outliner Basic Tour to get you up and running. The Outliner is like an Excel Spreadsheet of the Binder. The Outliner ONLY provides useful information if the file or folder you click on has subdocuments. The Outliner can show more than one level of depth (ie folders and subfolders) at the same time. This is an advantage over the Corkboard view. If you only select a single document, then you will get the Outliner view with no information.

You can reach the Outliner View 3 ways:

Click the Group View Icon in the Toolbar and click on the far right Outliner option.

2. Use the Menu command View > Outline (check its box)

3. Use the Keyboard shortcut Ctrl + 3

The Outliner mode shows all of the descendants of the selected document(s), along with any associated metadata you’ve chosen to reveal, in a tabular format like a spreadsheet. You can customize the data shown and move and resize each column visible in the Outliner View.

Below is an overview of the Outliner. Shifting the positions of columns and adjusting their width functions the same as in the Windows File Explorer when you show the folder detail view or as in Microsoft Excel.

You can drag and drop documents as with the Corkboard and this affects the file order in the binder. (Holding down the Alt key forces the file to stay on its current document level when moving the document. For example, if your document was at the folder level, then you could not place it inside of a document at any level below the folder level.)

You can change the appearance of the Outliner by adding or removing columns two ways.

1. Choose the columns to add by clicking the caret (>) at the far right. This will bring up the view below, where you can click the check boxes of information you want to display. (Note the numbering option will apply numbers to each item in the outline.) Each custom metadata entry can be a column in your Outliner. (Note: Custom Metadata entries are at the bottom of the column options for the Outliner.) Unchecking the box will remove the column from the Outliner view.

The Outliner Header Bar is the same as the Editor Header except for the option at the far right to click on a small bar or caret (depending on the Scrivener theme) just below the header bar which when clicked shows all the possible Outliner Columns where you decide which ones to display in the Outliner View by clicking or unclicking the checkboxes. Note: Based on the size of the Editor window and your Monitor not all checked columns may be visible, but you can move and resize the Columns to display what you currently want to see. You can save a particular arrangement of Columns in by saving the current setup with the Layout Manager. This is discussed later in detail in the Outliner overview part two near the end. Note: Column settings can be set individually for each Editor window in a split view, if you choose to display the Outliner view in both windows.

Bonus Windows Tip: The Layout Manager can display the Outliner with a specific set of columns in “Outliner Layout 1” and you can rearrange or change which columns are displayed and save this as “Outliner Layout 2”. Thus, for the same set of documents you can choose different Outliner column displays by simply changing the current Layout in Scrivener.

2. Using the Menu command View > Outliner Options. This will show all the options with checkboxes to include or not as displayed above and both methods get to the same place.

Below are brief descriptions of each column you can add to the Outliner.

— Title: Options here include adding the Synopsis under the title, with or without icons and numbering of objects in the Outline by checking or unchecking the boxes.

The three choices which impact the main Title column are indented beneath the Title option in the column menu. Edit text by double clicking in the Outliner Cell. These options may also apply

— and Synopsis: Checking this embeds the text in the Index Card Synopsis beneath the title. With this option enabled, the title will be emboldened and you can edit both Title and Synopsis together right in the outliner. The Show /Hide Synopsis button in the footer bar provides a shortcut to turning this special column on or off. (see below)

The Outliner will NOT display any Images in the Outliner Synopsis for a document. The Outliner will display ONLY TEXT even if the Inspector Synopsis displays an image.

Edit both the Title and Synopsis by double clicking on the text or pressing F2. At the far right of the footer is a button to show or hide the synopses.

— with Icons: When disabled, item icons will be removed from the outliner display, producing a cleaner, more “text like” appearance.

— with Numbers: Each item in the outliner will be numbered in relation to the other currently displayed items, using hierarchical numbering (1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1). They are not meant to correlate with any form of numbering produced by the compiler, though universal use of the hierarchical numbering placeholder (the “Enumerated Outline” compile format for example) may produce similar enough results for these numbers to be useful as a reference.

The numbering of Outliner files and folders is order based. If you change the order of documents, then the numbering will change as well.

Note the title and synopsis can be edited by clicking the window they are in.

— Label, Status and Section Type fields (one value only)- are limited to one value per field.

If you select multiple items, you can right click on the contextual menu to change the Label, Status and Section Types on multiple files at once.(see figure #1 below) These columns and Custom Metadata will have dropdown lists which become available when you click on the current value. You can choose a new value for an individual document or click the Edit option to add a new entry value. (see figure #2 below)

Keywords (multiple values are allowed) are all grouped in one column no matter how many you have. If a file/folder has multiple keywords, then the ALL the Keywords will be listed ) OR represented as color coded squares if you check the Keywords as color chips option.

Created and Modified Date are self explanatory.

Character and Word Count will show the character or word counts for each individual item in the Outliner.

Total Character Count and Total Word Count will show the character or word count for an item in an Outliner row AND all of its nested children. (For Example, it would show the total word count for the Chapter folder itself, BUT also all the nested Scenes within to give the total word count for the Chapter.)

Include in Compile-This can show you at a glance whether files are included in compile or not. Unchecking the Checkbox will remove the document from the Include in Compile list.

(You can change the value of many Checkboxes at once by holding down the CTRL key to highlight multiple documents and then clicking any checkbox to change the Checkbox value of all the selected items at once.)

Target and Total Target will show the Target of an individual file if the Target is set and Total Target will show the sum of all Targets for the files inside the folder IF you have set a target for the folder. To show a number, you must have set a Target for a file.

Target Type defines whether the Target you set is the number of words or characters in a file or folder.

Progress and Total Progress will show a color bar graph of your progress in a file where a target has been set (Progress) or a folder where files within it have targets set (Total Progress). The colors of the Progress bars can be changed in the Options panel see figure 2 below.

Custom Metadata

The bottom columns are always custom metadata fields. Each field is treated by the outliner as a separate data point and if checked will be a single column in the outliner. Custom metadata entries are always below the Total Progress Category in the Outline.

Time as Custom Metadata can be changed to any value.

The Menu command View > Outliner Options will show all the same columns as in the Outliner window and you can choose these here as well. However, at the bottom of the list are two additional options:

Center Content: If you only have a few Outliner columns this will center the information in the Editor window.

Used Fixed Row Height: This will make each row the same height, but you may not see all of a longer synopsis with this option. You can also set this by the Menu command View > Outliner Options > Use Fixed Row Height at bottom of those options.

Sorting by Columns

This does not impact the Binder Order. The first click will sort the documents in an ascending order, the second click by a descending order, and finally a third click will turn off sorting and restore the original Binder order of the documents.

When you start sorting a list of documents with both folders and subdocuments using columns of Metadata, then the Outliner will immediately present you with a flat list of all the documents currently in the Outliner. This flat view will not change till you leave the Outliner view.

Outliner Column settings are saved per editor split. So you can set up an outliner to perform a particular function on the left side of your screen, and display different extended information on the right side. See below-

You can permanently sort the selected Outliner items using the Menu command Edit > Sort > (and choose one of the three options available)

The Outliner Footer Bar [this is identical to the Corkboard footer on the LEFT side but differs on the far right. Since there are no Index cards in this view, those options are gone replaced by the icon on the far right of the Footer (#4) which when clicked will hide or show a document’s Synopsis.]

1. Has all the same functions as the Binder Footer including (Add Text, Add Folder and the Contextual/Right Click menu … (The Contextual Menu is less extensive than that of the Binder.)

2.a The Auto-load button. This is found in the Corkboard view as well and when clicked and active (in light themes will be light blue) will automatically open any selection you click in the other Editor window or a Copyholder view (second click). You MUST be in a split editor view for this to function. This loads from the Outliner (or Corkboard) be in the left half of the split to right side split in the Editor either into the Editor window or the Copyholder if present on the LEFT (or same side of the Outliner (or Corkboard). With a split view of the Editor and a Copyholder on the left side you can choose either one to use the Autoload button with.

2.b The Menu command Navigate > Outline Selection Affects > can achieve autoloading as well, but ONLY the options that will work in a given situation can be selected.

3. Displays the total number of files/folders currently in the Outliner window.

4. Clicking this will show or remove the Synopsis from the Outliner View.

How can you use customized metadata in the Outline to help you see your project?

Displaying Status columns can show you the status of each file in the editing process and where you need to do more work depending on the values you assign to Status values. These values can be customized to first draft, Beta edit, Line Edit, Final Draft/Done or any other value. These are set or deleted in the Project Settings Panel.

Displaying Label Colors can be used to show values for POV characters or locations to show at a quick glance the distribution of key elements. These values can be changed as the novel progresses and your needs change.

Displaying Custom Metadata Values- You could set custom metadata to display location, time of day, or have a timeline for the novel by adding custom metadata for the date. You can display your POV characters, Story errors, how you use this is only limited by your imagination. Try at the beginning of the novel to decide what is important. By doing this, you can create the custom metadata and add as you write each scene rather than coming back at a later phase of the process. This way you can show different aspects of the story in the outliner as you write. If you think of something later, you can add this at any time during the first draft or subsequent edits to help you improve your writing.

Tip:

You can hide the Binder and Inspector to show a larger view of the outliner when you need to by View > and Unchecking the Binder (view option), and the Inspector (Note can click the Inspector Toolbar Icon to make the Inspector disappear as well.).

The view options will affect how colors in the Outliner are displayed.

the outliner overview Part one