More Project Tracking in Scrivener with Meta-Data

Scrivener is a powerful writing tool. I write about it weekly with tips and usage ideas. To read more of my posts click the Scrivener tag or category at the end of the page.

I’ve written about the Inspector a number of times over the last few months. Just to re-cap, the Inspector is the bar on the right side of the editor. Once turned on, the Inspector allows you to work with various forms of meta-date in your project. What’s meta-data? It’s a way of making comments about your work for tracking purposes. Examples are the synopsis, document notes, document references, keywords, snapshots and comments & footnotes. But there are a few more aspects of meta-data to explore.

First, on the Inspector, the General Meta-Data is almost always available (except in Snapshots and Comments). You can label a document with color or indicate the status of your document based on a number of criteria. Below you indicate when the document was created or modified. Use the check boxes to include the document in compile, set a page break before the document or compile it as-is. All this is pretty straightforward – use these settings to mark your progress. These can be viewable in different ways from the Outliner, Corkboard and Binder.

Next, there’s customizing Meta-Data which allows you to add categories to label and status lists. Clicking over to the Custom Meta-Data button on the Inspector menu reveals a button named Define Meta-Data Fields. From this window the Status and Label lists can be managed in addition to your custom meta-data. Again these are valuable for how you track progress in your projects.

I’ve found general meta-data useful for updating the progress of any document including a chapter, short story, blog post, blog tour and anything else on which I’m working. It’s a useful and easy way to track your work and customizing is even more useful. It’s one more way the Inspector is as powerful as the Binder.

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section.

About the Author

P. H. Solomon lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, he performs these duties to maintain a nice home for his loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In his spare time, P. H. rides herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, he also has a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone his writing. The Bow of Destiny is his first novel-length title with more soon to come.

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