Bring in a manuscript from Word, Scrivener or a text file

Importing makes a new book in your library from a file. Nothing already in your library is changed or replaced.

You can import:

• Word documents (.docx)
• Plain text (.txt) and Markdown (.md)
• Scrivener projects (Scrivener 2 and 3)

Import a Word or text file

1. In your library, choose Import a manuscript. On a phone, tap Import, then Import a manuscript. In the desktop app you can also use File, Import a Manuscript….
2. Choose your file.
3. Onwarder reads it (Reading The Salt Road.docx… 62%) and shows a preview.
4. Check the preview, then choose Import book.

The book opens at the start of the first chapter.

What the preview shows

• Book title and Author, taken from your title page where there is one. Change either here.
• Contents: the chapters and scenes Onwarder found, in your original order. Select a scene to read it.
• Worth checking: anything that will not come across, in plain sentences. For example Tables become plain paragraphs. or Headers and footers aren’t imported. Export adds its own page numbers.

How chapters and scenes are found

You do not need to prepare the file. Onwarder starts a new chapter at:

• a Heading 1 (or Heading 2, if the file has no Heading 1),
• a short line on its own such as Chapter 12, CHAPTER TWELVE, XII, Prologue, Epilogue or Interlude, with or without a title after it.

It starts a new scene at a scene break on its own line, such as * * *, ***, # or ~. The break line itself is not copied into your prose, so you will not end up with doubled breaks.

Anything before the first chapter becomes an opening chapter called Opening. Scenes without a heading are named from their first few words.

Fix a guess

If Onwarder got something wrong, fix it in the preview before you import. Every row in Contents has a … menu:

• Rename
• Join with the scene before
• Make this a chapter
• Make this a scene

In the preview text, hover over a paragraph and choose Start a scene here to split at that point.

Tracked changes

If your Word file has tracked changes, Worth checking lets you choose Use the text as it reads now (with the changes accepted, the usual choice) or Use the original text.

Stopping

Choose Stop import while it runs and nothing is added: Stopped. Nothing was added. If Onwarder closes partway through, your library shows The Salt Road didn’t finish importing. with Finish importing and Remove it.

Import a Scrivener project

Onwarder reads your Scrivener project directly. You do not need to compile it first.

On a computer (Mac, Windows or Linux, in the app or a desktop browser), choose Import a manuscript, then Choose a Scrivener folder, and pick the .scriv project folder.

On a phone, or if folders will not open, import a zipped copy:

1. In Scrivener, choose File, Back Up, Back Up To….
2. Tick Back up as ZIP file and save it.
3. Import that zip file. On an iPhone you can also touch and hold the project in Files and choose Compress.

What comes across from Scrivener

In Scrivener	In Onwarder
Folders in the Draft	Chapters (deeper folders, such as parts, become chapters in the same order)
Text documents	Scenes
Synopsis	The scene’s summary on its card
Status	Progress: planned, drafted, revised or final
Documents left out of compile	Sketches, kept out of your exports as before
Project word target	Your book’s target
Character and place sheets	Story bible entries, if you choose

Italic, bold, underline and strike-through are kept.

Before importing, the preview lists your character and place sheets under Add to the story bible. Sheets from your own Characters and Places folders start ticked. Guesses from your Research folder say From Research. Ticked only if you choose.

What stays in Scrivener

Worth checking lists these, so nothing goes missing silently:

• Snapshots stay in Scrivener. Onwarder keeps its own history from today.
• Compile settings aren’t needed. Export makes Word, EPUB and PDF directly.
• Collections, project notes and the scratchpad aren’t imported.
• Pictures, PDFs and web pages in Research, for example Left out: 14 images, 3 PDFs. They stay in your Scrivener project.

If a file will not import

Onwarder says	What to do
This is an older Word file (.doc).	Open it in Word or Pages, save it as .docx, then import that.
Onwarder can’t read .pages files yet.	In Pages, export it as Word (.docx), then import that. The same goes for .odt and .rtf files.
This file is 81 MB. Onwarder imports files up to 64 MB.	Save a copy without pictures and import that.
This file has no writing Onwarder can read.	Check the file opens in Word or Scrivener, then try again.
A Scrivener project is a folder, so the browser can’t open it.	Import a zipped copy, as described above.

Bringing back a manuscript your editor has marked up

That is a different job: see Send your book to an editor and bring it back.