Sometimes, you have to get mobile.
Prior to the current version of Scrivener, I would save a copy of my current project to a thumb drive (USB flash drive, the little dongle that plugs into one of the holes on your computer) and carry it along with my laptop when I traveled. This worked fine, for the most part, and I was able to continue work on a project while on the road.
With the current version of Scrivener, you have the option of using DropBox as your online storage site for a project and you can somewhat seamlessly go from the desktop to the laptop or iPad Pro and continue to work on that project. If you are working with one or more other writers on a project, this is a good option so long as your collaborators understand security and use common sense.
But–and there is always a “but”–I’m an old security curmudgeon. DropBox failed me on more than one occasion and I removed my account. I won’t go back. I have no need or wish to.
Since I’ve moved to Apple products as my primary platform, I’ve learned to use iCloud and iCloud Drive. What’s the difference? Well, from a security perspective there is a lot of difference. iCloud and iCloud Drive are tied to my AppleID. There is no intermediary cache that maintains my credentials and everything gets encrypted between my device (computer, laptop, tablet, phone) and the iCloud. But, for some reason, Scrivener wasn’t able to set the application to work from the iCloud Drive. Something about the number of files or dependencies in a project, as they told me. I can set Scrivener to maintain backups to my iCloud Drive, and I can Save As from the File menu and manually place a copy of my current project on my iCloud Drive (or the desktop, if it synchs with the iCloud Drive). Close the project or quit Scrivener on the desktop and give it some time to synch. Then, on my laptop, I can open that file and continue working.
The warning is, if you Save As, be ready to overwrite or add a draft number to the project file. If you overwrite, you might accidentally destroy some later work. If you add a draft number to the file name, you must keep that information in mind when you move to your mobile device. I prefer to verify what is on the iCloud Drive before I Save As the current project and keep the same file name across devices.
iPad Pro
The version of Scrivener for iPad Pro will not see Scrivener project files saved to iCloud Drive. They show up as file folders with no content. I worked around that once using a USB Disk tool to get the file on the iPad Pro, but the full version of Scrivener for the iPad Pro no longer supports that, it seems. I’m hoping that the folks at Literature And Latte are working to figure out how to make the iPad Pro version work with iCloud Drive.
In the meantime, I can start and work on a smaller project (say a short story) on the iPad Pro, get it to a finished state, and compile and export it to iCloud Drive in Word format (.docx format). From there I transfer the file to Pages for final revisions, formatting, etc. Pages saves the file on iCloud and I’m able to seemlessly move from the iPad Pro to the desktop or laptop.
There is always a way to work around things.
Keep writing.
