inspector comments overview Part Two
Now we will take a deeper dive on how to use Comments to help you write your novel.
Using Comments As Bookmarks[ xxx]
Note if you select multiple documents at once or in the Scrivenings view and then open the Inspector to the comment and footnote section, then you will SEE ALL THE COMMENTS and footnotes in the selected documents. Clicking one will take you directly to the specific text in the associated document.
Clicking inside the comment will scroll the editor to the position they appear within in the text. Thus, comments become a make for a handy form of “text bookmark” (within the open document) to quickly jump through your text point-by-point to areas that need addressing.
Usually, Comments are used for feedback about your writing. But if it’s just to navigate through your Research yourself, try creating one word Comments tied to keywords in your Research documents. Use the items in the Inspector's tab Footnotes and Comments to jump to a specific Comment in your Research document. ** Clicking on the specific comment will take you to that word(s) in the document.
If you choose All as your Search In option, then this includes searching comments (or footnotes), though the results in the comments will not be highlighted.
If you use the Menu command Edit > Find > Find by formatting then you can search comments for specific text or letter groups (ex xxx), but you cannot search by Comment color.
Error Codes and Searches
Using Project Search: With a list of Error Codes you can go to the exact spot in a novel where an issue is. Then you can then move from issue to issue. If you put these codes in your comments or footnotes, then a Project Search using the All option will include results in both the editor and your comments and footnotes. You could even save your results as a Dynamic search collection. So as you solve these issues and delete the comments, the search results will shrink every time you open this dynamic search and the search criteria are used again.
How to Search Comments?
Using Find by Formatting:
1. Use the Menu command Edit > Find > Find by Formatting to open the Find by Formatting panel (see below) where you can choose to search either comments or footnotes or both.
2. Choose the text you are searching for.
3. Decide if you are searching All Documents or just the Current Editor. If choose All the search starts FROM the current document and moves down the Binder. If choose the Current Editor option, then only the current file or group of files you are viewing in the editor will be searched.
4. Your Comment or Footnote will not have the search term highlighted. Click the next button to go to the next instance.
You can make the searches more fruitful by using special codes. (See an example of one example of how to do this is below.) One advantage with this method is your searches will show the highlighted text inside the comment or footnote in the editor, but not in the Inspector. However, you will click the next or previous buttons to move from one search result to another, rather than the list of documents as in a Project Search.
Note: Project Find and Replace works whether the Inspector or a file is open.
If you tag comments and footnotes with issue or error codes, then clicking the appropriate comment will highlight your document EXACTLY where this issue is. You could combine this with colors keyed to the codes to allow even quicker searches when a document has multiple comments or footnotes.
You could also insert these codes inside of the text and searching will highlight them inside of the text. The best codes are letter combinations that would not appear normally. If they are in the text, you can delete as you fix the issue, and dynamic searches would show fewer files to correct. Or if done, you can replace a code or delete the comment if the issue is resolved.
An example of a coding system would use three X’s together (xxx) attached to another word or abreviationing to indicate the problem. Here is one possible system:
Mxxx -map needs development
WBxxx -for world building issues
Fxxx -foreshadowing occurring
FFxxx -foreshadowing failing/needs work
Sxxx -set/location needs work
Pxxx -plot needs development
Cxxx -conflict needs work
Dxxx -dialog needs work
Wxxx -word choice needs work
Xxx-this means there is an area that needs additional work or more thought to develop. The first letter further clues you in to specific issues. Also, this combination of letters would not show up anywhere else. Note this is an example, but you could create any key that makes sense to you.
When searching text, the search term will be highlighted in your text, but you also can search in the synopsis section, notes, comments, and footnotes. (Note: In all these areas, the result is NOT highlighted and you must look in each section for this code.) If you add error codes in the synopsis section, then these will show up when look at your draft in the Corkboard view.
Converting Annotations to Comments or Footnotes and vice versa.
1. Highlight the Inline Annotation, Comment, Footnote, or the whole document(s) with them.
2. Use the Menu command Edit > Transformations > and select what you want to do.
3. If you are unhappy with the results, then click the Edit > Undo.
4. If you transform an Inline Annotation to a Comment, the current comment color will be attached to the closest word to the Inline Annotation. (The linked note (comment) will retain its Metadata in the background.)
Find and Replace and Comments
Find and replace will function on any comments or footnotes in the Inspector pane, even if the focus is in the main editor. Replace will always work, even if the inspector is closed, but for Find to highlight matches, the inspector must already be open
Moving a Comment Link to another phrase
When a Comment link is not connected the right phrase, don’t delete and recreate the Comment.
1. Just select the phrase you want the Comment linked to
2. Right click on the Comment you want to move
3. Choose the bottom option in the context menu of the Comment in the Inspector (right click inside the comment you want to move).
4. This can be helpful if you need to edit the text phrase linked to the comment, as this is problematic doing inside the highlighted text associated with the comment and is easier if the comment is temporarily moved.
Copying Comments or Comments and text and pasting elsewhere.
So yes, when copying text normally, it will indeed include all of the content you are copying, including inline annotations and comments. You can for example paste text with comments into a word processor. In keeping with that principle, the plain-text variant that is created into the pasteboard also includes comments, annotations and footnotes.
Edit > Copy Special Command gives options on what is copied.
You can select text and copy with all comments and footnotes stripped out. This can pasted over original document or anywhere you want.
Copy without Comments and Footnotes
You can use the Menu Command Edit > Copy Special > Copy without Comments and Footnotes. This will strip out all inline (Annotations) and linked (Comments) notations while retaining the other Formatting.
Compiling and Comments
You have the option when compiling a Project to remove comments, footnotes, and hyperlinks (In the Green box below). This occurs in the third part of the Compile panel under the settings icon. Retain what you want by not checking the boxes in red.
There are many options that control how these appear available to you. Options change based on Scrivener’s output format.
Options are available in the third panel of compile under settings AND
In the Compile Format Designer under Footnotes and Comments
If you check remove Footnotes, Comments, Annotations then each of these will be stripped out when you compile. This will NOT affect the original project.
Export Comments and Annotations ( Only available in word processor types of output) as:
Margin Comments (Default option)
Exports your notes into a format that most word processors will display as a margin comment or “speech balloon” style comment. Usually the best option.
Inline Comments
If the first method does not show your comments, then this method displays them as inline text using the Enclosing markers for annotations. (see above)
Footnotes (option)
All Comments/Annotations will be displayed as Footnotes along with any existing footnotes for the output.
Endnotes (option)
As with footnotes, but everything is displayed as Endnotes.
Note you can change the Enclosing markers to align with the normal conventions for your output format.
Additional format options for comments are available in the Compile Format Designer for Plain Text and Markdown based formats.
The screenplay interface has different, more streamlined compile options.
The Final Draft interface has two additional options options.
Compatibility For RTF/ODT/Microsoft Outputs-
This gives various options in the Compile Format Designer under Compatibility to make sure comments, footnotes, lists, and hyperlinks display the way you want.
Sharing Comments/Footnotes
Importing, Exporting, Sync, and Conversion
Use the Compile Panel options to determine how to import Comments and footnotes. (see below)
See above on options about compile/exporting options.
Importing Comments:
When using the RTF Sync format some Scrivener features are not supported in programs like WordPad, etc. (A good word processor should lose little formatting) Footnotes, Comments, Lists, Images, and Tables are the items most often which have little to no support in simple RTF editors BUT Inline Annotations usually do.
Plain text limitations can be overcome using Transformations:
Use the Menu command Edit > Transformations (see below)
To avoid having inline notation become confused with standard text, Scrivener will export inline annotations by wrapping them in double parentheses “((” and ”))”.
Transformations allows you to convert Inspector Comments into Inline Annotations (( Comment))
Inline footnotes will be similarly wrapped in curly braces “{{” and ”}}”. These work in both directions. If you type them into a paragraph using your text editor, they will be converted to their respective type of notation upon syncing.
Transformations allows you to convert Inspector Footnotes into Inline Footnotes {{ Footnote }}.
Compatibility options for RTF/Docx/Doc/ODT outputs of comments and footnotes if you have issues exporting comments and footnotes:
Look at the Compile Format Designer:
1. Flatten footnotes and comments into regular text:
Use this feature when the target word processor fails to properly display footnotes and/or comments. When enabled, all footnotes and comments will be converted to formatted text instead of proper numbered notes. The end result is that all footnotes will be exported as endnotes. Reference markers will be inserted into the text using standard punctuation to do so. This feature modifies the existing behavior of your compile settings if you export comments and footnotes. (If you have opted to strip out all comments, checking this box will not override that, they will remain excluded).
2. Ensure hyperlinks are colored and underlined:
Most word processors will do this for you, but Microsoft Word will not, resulting in links that cannot be seen. Check this box to make hyperlinks visible in Word.
Exporting Annotations and Comments
You can export all inline Annotations and Comments for your project in a single RTF file via the Menu command File > Export > Comments and Annotations
You will see a popup panel.
1. You choose an export location on the computer for your file.
2. Assign the file a name.
3. Selected documents only- If this is checked, then the exported Annotations and Comments will only come from the currently selected files. If this is unchecked, then Annotations and Comments will be pulled from the ENTIRE Binder.
4. Include Titles-If this is NOT checked then all notes exported will be written one after the other in a flat list. (see below, in this example is not clear what document the included Comment came from.(For clarity include Titles)
In both situations only documents with Annotation or Comments will appear in this list.
This example below shows the Include Titles option is NOT checked-
This example below shows the same settings but the titles are included.
The appearance of Inline Annotations, Comments and Footnotes when cut and paste into another word processor.
1. For most word processors, footnotes will appear at the bottom of the page with numbers linked to them from within the text.
2. For most word processors Inline annotations and Comments will use color coded brackets. Microsoft will put a small shadow box around Comments with a dotted line to the comment text on the right. For Inline Annotations then see insert point for Comment and what it says.
If you wish to copy and paste text without any notation at all, use Edit ▸ Copy Special ▸ Copy without Comments and Footnotes.
Statistics and Word Counts
In the options pane of the Statistics Panel are options on whether to include footnotes and comments in your statistics.
Footnotes are excluded by default.
Comments and Annotations are included by default. Check the box to not include these in your word count for your project.
