Banner: Scrivener Color-Coding Icons

Scrivener Color Coding Pt. 2: Icons

In Part One of this mini-series I shared how I use Label colors in Scrivener to show progress of my documents. This worked really well for me during UNCHURCHED, which is a single POV. My trouble began when I started work on GISELLE, which has two POVs. Sure, I could use my original color coding method to track who was speaking, but then how would I track my progress?

Custom icons.

Screenshot 2015-08-11 16.35.45

 

The green and blue dots show me whose POV we’re in for that chapter.

You can change an icon at any time, and Scrivener actually provides a lot of them up front, but they’re a little tiny for my taste. I wanted something bolder, so I made my own. You can download the whole rainbow set of dots later in the tutorial.

How To Do It

  1. Learn How to Select Icons

Right-click on a document in the Binder.

Screenshot 2015-08-11 16.39.33

 

You’ll see all the many icons Scrivener haas provided for you (minus the dots, those are mine). Select one and it will change the document’s icon. You can also change the icons for folders, and pretty much any level within the Binder.

2. Choose Custom Icons

Way down at the bottom of the Change Icon menu is Manage Icons. Click on that. A new box opens.

Screenshot 2015-08-11 16.45.19

We’re only going to work with Icons in Project Package for the moment. That means these icons are specific to that one Scrivener project, and they won’t be available the next time you open a new project. (I assume that the Application Support side would carry across projects, but that note about overrides makes me not want to play with it yet.)

Use the plus and minus buttons to add and remove icons.

When you hit plus, a file manager window will open and you can select your icon. You can use any image as an icon and it will be scaled down for you.

Double-click on the File Name to change it. There is no reordering option.

Hit OK.

 

Downloads!

Sharing is caring, that’s why I packaged up my dots for you. They come in a whole rainbow of options and they have a slight gradient, which gives them that nice bubble effect. Use them well, padawans.

Here they are:

Just right-click and Save As. I wanted to give them to you in a ZIP but WordPress has some issues with that. Anyway, enjoy!

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Learn More Mockups of The Monster Novel Structure Workbook

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