Measuring progress in Scrivener: Statistics-

Scrivener is a wonderful writing program that also give you the capability of measuring your progress with the various tools inside the program. These include Project (Word) Targets, Statistics, Scrivenings view, the Editor footer, and the Quick Search Bar, among others. You can also use Collections and some of the Outliner capabilities and data columns to measure progress as well. Scrivener includes the ability to add templates which can have preset targets included in them when you use them again and again. We will look at these multiple ways of measuring progress so you can decide which one best suits your needs at a particular time during your writing journey.

You can also review your daily and monthly writing history to see how consistent you have been in the writing process and use this to try and hold yourself accountable towards your goal.

Project (Word) Targets-

— Your Editor Footer will display both quick or extended statistics for a single document or a Scrivenings view in the middle of the editor footer.

— You can also track a group of documents together as a cohesive unit, like say a sequence of sections and sub-sections within a folder, where the important detail is total word count of the entire folder.

— You can use the Outliner to view the Total Progress and Total Goal columns, to aggregate statistics for a group of documents.

— Setting a target on the chapter folder will, even if it has no text itself, work as an aggregate in Scrivenings mode, since child items will be included in the totals. Thus, all words written to any included subdocuments will count toward that aggregate goal, even if they themselves do not have individual goals. Targets for folders can be easily set by using the Target column in the Outliner, or by selecting the folder in the Binder, switching off the current group view mode, and using the target button as per normal in the text editor footer bar on the far right.

Selected word counts:

To get the word or character count for a selection of text, select some text in a document and examine the footer bar of the editor. The word and character count will appear in blue text. When there is no selection of a section of text, then this area will be used to count the entire document or Scrivenings session.

Scrivenings

When in this mode, the Editor footer Statistics counts the whole session. The footer bar will display statistics for the entire session, rather than the individual sections you are currently working within. If you want to get a quick word/character count for the individual section you are writing in, exit Scrivenings and the footer will now reflect the word count of the current document alone.

Outliner Statistic Columns

Word Count shows the word (or character count if choose) for each individual document in the Outliner.

Total Word Count will show the count for the item and nested containers below the selected item, whether it is a folder or a document with subdocuments.

Character and Word Count will show the character or word counts for each individual item in the Outliner.

Total Character Count and Total Word Count will show the character or word count for an item in an Outliner row AND all of its nested children. (For Example, it would show the total word count for the Chapter folder itself, BUT also all the nested Scenes within to give the total word count for the Chapter.)

Include in Compile This can show you at a glance whether files are included in compile or not. Unchecking the Checkbox will remove the document from the Include in Compile list.

(Note: You can change the value of many Checkboxes at once by holding down the CTRL key to highlight multiple documents and then clicking any checkbox to change the Checkbox value of all the selected items at once.)

Target and Total Target will show the Target of an individual file if the Target is set and Total Target will show the sum of all Targets for the files inside the folder IF you have set a target for the folder. To show a number, you must have set a Target for a file.

Target Type defines whether the Target you set is the number of words or characters in a file or folder.

Progress and Total Progress will show a color bar graph of your progress in a file where a target has been set (Progress) or a folder where files within it have targets set (Total Progress). The colors of the Progress bars can be changed in the Options Panel. (see figure 2 below)

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Your Writing History Session Targets:

If you delete a significant number of words from your project during a session, then the session statistics will not start showing any progress until you have written as much again—it is perfectly possible to have a negative session word or character count! (If you choose the options in Writing History to allow negatives.)

How Compile Placeholders determine an output’s total words:

Placeholders that print statistics, such as word and character counts during the Compile process, will by default exclude material found in the front or back matter. This can be changed in the Statistics section of the Compile Format Design you are using.

Options here Include:

Exclude front and back matter- These two checkboxes are enabled by default; they exclude any material in the selected front matter folder from statistics. Typically, Front and Back Matter include items like the table of contents, acknowledgments, preface, and other material which is not generally counted as a part of the main book. If you need this material to be counted, then uncheck the boxes.

Include all text- This is the default behavior. Any text that is set to be compiled as a part of your manuscript will be included in the word/character count.

Only include- This option allows you to fine tune this with the option to include Synopses and Notes with the word count.

— Main text.

— Notes

— Synopses

Count footnotes, comments and annotations- This further fine tunes what is included in the Main text. Footnotes and endnotes will be included in the total count; this is the default. You can also choose to include comments and annotations in your word counts by checking those boxes.

Do not count spaces in character count Enable this option if you require strict character counts. If you are unsure, check with your publisher for which standard they use.