From Word or Scrivener

Bring a book you’ve already started: from a Word document, or from a Scrivener project.

From a Word document

Choose File → New Book from Word Document…, or start from a Word document on the welcome screen, and pick the manuscript. Septangular finds the chapters by Word’s heading styles, by lines like “Chapter 12” or “Part One”, or by page breaks, whichever fits best, and shows you the parts and chapters it found, with their word counts and opening words. Change the rule, the title and the status every scene starts with, then make the book. Lines like # or *** start a new scene within a chapter.

Italics, bold, quotations and line breaks come over, and tracked changes are accepted. Comments come over as comments on the passages they covered, and footnotes as comments where they were referenced. Anything before the first chapter, such as a title page or a dedication, goes into the Stash, ready to use.

From Scrivener

Choose File → New Book from Scrivener Project…, or start from one on the welcome screen. The Draft becomes the manuscript, its folders becoming parts and chapters and its documents scenes. Synopses, statuses, comments and annotations come over; snapshots become alternative drafts; documents left out of the compile go into the Stash; and the project’s word targets and deadline carry over to Statistics. Choose where the project’s other folders go: the Story Bible, Notes, or nowhere.

Either way, the original is only read, never changed.