Creating a New Project from a Built-in Template

Back to: Scrivener 3 Fundamentals for Mac

Viewing Built-In Project Templates

Scrivener comes preloaded with a variety of templates (projects with predefined settings) for you to choose from, including a blank one. Whether you’re penning a book, article, screenplay, blog, report, or research paper, there’s probably a template to suit you, but keep in mind that templates are just starting points. You can modify the project setup to suit your own needs later. The Project Templates window displays template categories down the left-hand side, and the offerings in each category to the right. The All category displays all the templates in one place. Go ahead, check out what Scrivener has to offer in each of the categories. The Blank template is the basis for all other templates, and is generic enough to meet your needs no matter what you’re writing. The other templates have been customized for various types of writing, with additional folders and default compile (export) settings that the designers thought you might find useful.

Creating a New Project

When you create a project in Scrivener, you must give it a name and location before you can start writing. Why? Because Scrivener auto-saves your project every two seconds that you’re not typing or accessing a menu. So, if the power goes out, you still have your work. Cool, right? Here’s how to create a new project.

1. From the Project Templates window, click on the Blank category icon. (I like to start with Blank because it's less confusing, especially to new users. Feel free to choose any template you want to check it out. You can always delete the project later, or modify it as needed.)
2. Select the Blank template from the pane on the right.
3. Click Choose…
4. Pick a location for the file (click the expansion arrow to the right of the Save As text box to view more location options, if necessary).
5. Type the desired file name in the Save As textbox, and click Create.  The Scrivener window opens with a new, blank project with the title you gave it at the top.

If you go looking for your project in Finder, it’ll be called <filename>.scriv. All Scrivener projects are saved with the .scriv extension.

Video Review – 3:51 mins