Tech Tuesday: Keywords in Scrivener

I was reluctant to take on the topic of Keywords because I hadn’t been using them up to this point. But when mmarkmiller requested a TT post on it, I took another look. I may just be hooked. If customizing the Label and Status drop downs doesn’t provide you with enough ways to categorize and organize your documents, then read on.

Why use Keywords? The possibilities are endless. Here are just a few things you can track for a document using Keywords:

• Characters present in the scene
• POV
• Setting
• Which act or part of the story the scene is in
• Time/Day
• Which subplot(s) the scene belongs to

I’m sure you can think of others. Feel free to share. So are you ready to see how it works?

View the Keywords pane

1. If the Inspector pane is not open, click the Inspector button in the upper right-hand corner.
2. At the bottom of the inspector pane, click the button shaped like a key. The Keywords pane will display, listing all keywords associated with the current document, if any.

Add a Keyword to a document

1. In the Keywords pane, click the + button.
2. On the open line, enter the keyword you want to associate to the document.
3. Note that keywords added in an individual document will be available to all documents in the project via the Project Keywords panel, discussed next.

Adding a keyword in the Keywords pane (bottom right)

Opening the Project Keywords Panel

There are two ways to view the Project Keywords panel:

1. Click the Keywords button at the top of the screen.
2. Click the gear button in the Keywords pane and choose Show Project Keywords.

Adding Keywords in the Project Keywords Panel

1. Click the button on the bottom left of the panel to add a keyword at the same level as the one currently selected, or the middle button to add a child to the selected keyword.
2. Type the new keyword.

Adding a new project keyword (as sibling to Characters)

Example of child keywords, and multiple keywords applied to a document

Applying Keywords to more than one document at a time

1. Select desired documents in the Binder, using shift+click (for contiguous selection), or command+click [Mac] or Ctrl+click [Windows] (for non-contiguous files).
2. Drag the appropriate keyword on top of any of the selected documents.

NOTE: You can also drag a keyword from the Project Keywords panel onto a single document.

I selected three documents, then dragged “Mark” on top of the middle one to apply to all three

Search by Keyword

There are two ways to display all documents tagged with a keyword:

1. Select the desired keyword in the Project Keywords panel, and click the Search button.
2. Or, in the Search pane at the top of the screen, type in the desired keyword, then click the magnifying glass and choose Keywords in the drop down menu.

Delete a Keyword from a document

1. In the Keywords pane, select the desired keyword(s) and press the [-] button.
2. Or, you can select the desired keyword(s) in the pane, click on the gear button, and choose Delete Selected Keyword(s).

Note: This does not delete the keyword from the project. It will still be available in the Project Keywords panel.

Delete a Keyword from the Project Keywords Panel (and thus the whole project)

1. Open the Project Keywords panel.
2. Choose the desired word or words in the list.
3. Click the ⦸ button at the bottom of the panel.

I think with a bit of fiddling, you’ll find the Keywords feature to be very useful. Or, for another option in Scrivener 2.x, check out Custom Meta-Data. Need more help? Sign up for an online class, read more Scrivener articles, or schedule a private training session. If you don't already have it, you can download Scrivener here.

Write on!

[Updated 10/29/14]

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