Back to: Jump Into Scrivener 3 for Windows: A Mini-Course for Scrivener 1 Users
Project Targets (Project>Project Targets) work basically the same, but with a couple of new features that make it easier to track your progress.
Viewing Progress Bars in Toolbar
If you don’t have a session target, progress toward your Draft target now shows as a thin, blue line along the top of the Quick Search bar.
If you have set both a Session and Draft target, the Draft target is displayed along the top of the Quick Search bar, and the Session target along the bottom.
Viewing Word Counts in the Toolbar
If you have any targets set, you can see the actual word count over the goal by hovering your mouse over the Quick Search bar.
Understanding Your Options
The Project Targets window now comes with an Options button that opens up a whole new set of choices. Here are three key things to know.
Setting a Deadline
You can now set a deadline to display in Project Targets, and even choose to have Scrivener automatically calculate how many words you need to write each day in order to meet it.
To set a deadline, check the box next to Deadline on the Draft Target tab, and type in the date you want to finish the manuscript.
To have Scrivener automatically calculate your daily target from the deadline, see “Additional Options” below.
Understanding Project Targets Overrun Options
The Draft Target tab contains an option called Show Overrun. If you turn that on, Scrivener gives you a red bar showing how many words you've added beyond the allowance you set.
Setting the Compile Group Options
At the top of the Draft Target tab—yes, I'm going out of order, it's fine—there are two options relating the compile group. Basically, turning them on means your progress will only count toward your target in those documents marked “To compile.” If you compile only a subset of your manuscript, having these on will affect what you see in the progress bar. To avoid confusion, unless you find this useful, I recommend leaving both boxes unchecked.
Additional Options
You can find even more options on the Session Target tab.
- Under “Reset session count,” you can choose to have Scrivener automatically reset your session count in case you forget to do it. That way, when you start writing the next morning (after forgetting to manually reset), your session count won't be off.
- “Count text written anywhere in the project” means Scrivener will count text toward your writing session even if it was written in a document that resides outside the Draft folder. The default behavior (unchecked) means Scrivener will only count text from within the Draft folder, so you don't end up counting the text of notes, front matter, character sheets, etc…
- “Allow negatives” means your word count can go below zero. This can happen if you delete more text than you add.
- “Automatically calculate from draft deadline” is only available if you have a deadline set on the Draft Target tab. If turned on, your session target will automatically be determined from the remaining words needed to meet your Draft gaol, and how many days you have left until your deadline. Under Writing Days, you can choose which days of the week you generally work to get a more accurate daily goal. NOTE: When automatic calculation is turned on, you will not be able to set the session target manually.
