Comparing Scrivener Microsoft Word and Obsidian
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- Scrivener and Microsoft word are both great writing tools but how do they compare with my research tool of choice, Obsidian?
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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Introduction
0:35 Fonts, symbols and app viewing
2:02 Statistic tracking
2:45 Labels and tags
3:50 Figures, tables and lists
4:55 Views
7:00 Backlinks and external links
8:20 Page comments
9:42 Footnotes, references and citations
11:58 Import and export
12:45 Dictation and speech
13:15 Sharing documents
13:55 Spelling and grammar
14:30 Images
15:15 Addin and plugins
16:40 Focus mode
17:08 Bookmarks
18:25 Templates
19:35 Edit history
21:00 Hotkeys and shortcuts
22:04 Summary
🛠TOOLS I USE:
👉TUBEBUDDY: www.tubebuddy.com/dannyhatcher
👉 STREAMYARD: streamyard.com?pal=5354709576056832
👉 EPIDEMIC SOUND: www.epidemicsound.com/referra...
👉 OBSIDIAN: obsidian.md/
#dannyhatcher
The issues I was having which inspired this comparison video: czcams.com/video/4i8eNwQo_U4/video.html
There has been a lack of useful information for students in regards to useful software - thank you so much for this video.
The information is there, it is a case of finding it 😉 glad I could help 😁
Great comparison! Just what I wanted. Thanks!
Glad I could help 😁
for a long time word was my go-to for everything related to writing. Can't believe it never crossed my mind to find something better lol. Now I'm using Obsidian for note-taking and Latex for writing formal reports. Word is just too shtty to use looking back at it.
The thing about Scrivener is that one doesn't need to know or use the *whole* programme. There's a podcast interviewing authors who use Scrivener and each of them loves the programme for a specific feature or two; no one was a power user who used everything. For me it's the way Scrivener lets you rearrange chunks of project -- there's no other programme which does it so well. If only it ran natively on Linux it would be near-perfect.
I wrote my first book in Word before exporting it as html for Calibre to finish the formatting. I have Scrivener, but I just don't know how much I trust it. Word, with its styles and outline mode, let me easily dump and organize a book's worth of written and picture content.
I suppose if I just wrote the traditional novel without pictures or a screenplay, I'd feel much better using Scrivener. The support has been another serious consideration in what I will dedicate hours of work into.
Thanks Danny for sharing the comparison. I'm currently collecting content references in Obsidian. I'm still completely unsure about how the exporting workflow will work though.
I export using pandoc for manuscripts aswell 😁
And now, one year later, there are plugins for surfing the net in Obsidian, creating automatic external links with the page's name and proper format, for better handling of footnotes, better handling of images, better spellcheckers, etc. etc. There's so much flexibility in Obsidian that's not seen or felt on the other two, that it just makes it fun and cool to work with, while also giving you a powerful enough tool to be productive.
I did learn a lot of things I didn't know you could do with Word, but then again... I prefer writing in Obsidian now. And I used to use Scrivener for my novel, but I transitioned recently, again, because of Obsidian's flexibility. Thanks for the great vid and comparison!
Obsidian is my no1 for evwyrhitng writing related 😁
Thanks for this review. I've been playing with Scrivener for years and the integration with AeonTimeline is great. The files being saved in RTF helps over markdown. A lot of professional fiction novelists use Scrivener and AeonTimeline but I always felt I'd need to add a mind-mapping tool before starting a world-building phase.
Maybe the next obsidian update
Sorry, and no offense, but the fact that a professional writer uses this tool or that tool means very little. Word will do some amazing things and the pros I work with are often amazed to learn some very simple concepts. Like fine tuning character spacing, kerning, templates and other things.
I know one best selling author that writes with a pen and paper.
I am struggling to see your point, could you elaborate?
Any tool can be used, we all have preferences 🤷♂️
@@robertmaxey5406 I agree. Niel Gaiman writes his first draft on paper then all subsequent drafts in a word processor. Everyone finds their own way.
I don't do long writing, and I've seen people praise the customizable exporting format in Scrivener. A template for blog A, blog B, book format, thesis....etc, it's CSS underneath. It's a bit hacky but worthy investing the time in if you write for living.
I think I understand your point but from my experience the exporting is so context specific which makes it hard to differentiate 😁
@@DannyHatcherTech it also depends on the material you write and the market. Remember, you are not selling to millions; you are selling to one customer, the publisher. Hopefully, millions of readers will follow.
The desires of the agent and/or editor and their guidelines dictates the mechanicals. Writing a book for a legitimate publisher means you follow their writer's guidelines. Especially if you are attempting to sell your first book.
You can actually write a novel using a simple text editor.
Great video, Danny. Subscribe, yes.
yes please, how to emulate scrivener in obsidian for writers!
I'd say, importing/exporting is a win for Obsidian, since it is plain text files and can become whatever you want. It just needs some extra tools. But with pandoc for example, you can make a beautiful PDF out of the markdown files and they actually look good. Compare a document that is a PDF exported from Word and one that uses an actual typesetting tool like pandoc/LaTeX, you can see, how horrible Word looks.
I agree for those that are knowledgeable enough to use those tools. For the majority of people however, myself included, I just want a simple button push 😁
Scrivener is a pretty interesting app. That first camera angle made me laugh lol
Yeah I like it but not quite in my stack yet.
Aha #vlogger 😅
I would've loved to see how Notion would've done in these comparisons! Any thoughts?
I was thinking about including it but it is a long video already 😅
@@DannyHatcherTech Fair enough 😂 Very good video btw!
Scrivener supports MMD-Syntax and especially in academics it's great to build complex Documents you want to compile as LaTeX. Just writing them in MMD and compiling them with the required LaTeX-Template, while keeping it easy to read and correct without ugly LaTeX-tags inline. E.g. for any kind of thesis. You can even use the same BibTeX/References in Obisidan, Zotero and Scrivener because of MMD. Especially restructuring/sorting such a document is quite easy with Scrivener, as well as exporting any kind of reviewable file in some kind of "pretty" layout for reviewing/grammar checks etc. I am thinking about a zotero > obsidian> scrivener workflow for my dissertation, to fully utilize the different pro and cons.
Sounds interesting. I am not familiar with MMD and have never found a use for LaTeX.
I am writing short essays in Obsidian with ease and am planning out my PhD in there so if there are issues I will find them 😅
@@DannyHatcherTech MMD: Multi-Markdown, an extension of Markdown, used in the md-files in Obsidian, which you use probably daily ;)
Interesting, I didn't know Word could be so useful. I wonder how many those features are also on Google Docs but that's another video. Definitely save me from buying Scrivener until I saw the chart at the end. How can I see the chart without links to next videos?
Thanks for the video!
I am not sure about google docs as that isn't a tool I have used much.
I will look at the endscreen on the video. CZcams throws it up so I will adjust the length.
12:30 - I had no idea you could do this in Obsidian..doesn't seem to work for me though. Anyone else have that issue? Great video Danny!
It might be part of the Obsidian insider update, I have been using the updated version for a while and can't remember what is and isn't included. 😁
a pair of scissors...if anyone knows what I mean
Do not forget a jar of paste.
I have been caught in a similar vortex between these 3 apps, so was interesting to see your perspective. I've come down to using Word for final product, and everything else in Obsidian. One point that I think is really strong for Word is the use of styles, which also allows you to apply them to existing text to ensure consistency. The Scrivener "styles" don't work the same way, and it can be a real pain trying to get everything consistent. And by the way, you can configure hot keys in Word for anything just by recording a macro. I use that lots, from setting styles, to inserting tag-type references.
Thanks! I did find that macro tip out a month after making this video 😁
I do all my writing in Obsidian now, it has gotten way better!!!
Styles are absolutely required if you self publish. Well, one of many. I know ple ty of long time Word users that do not use them which is a big time waster.
One thing I do is modify my right click context menus. I simply add common tasks (common to me) to my menu rather than use macros.
Another thing about Scrivner. It ain't Word so one cannot get too upset if one app does something differently than some other app.
Obsidian got 4 Plugins for Zotero alone.
But only 1 is well maintained... zotero integration.
I did a video on it recently
Here is a challenge: Use Microsoft Notepad and Latex commands.
Erm no thankyou 😁😆
Sorry, but this comparison of these three tools is a trifle absurd. That’s because each tool has a different purpose, And you are comparing apples to oranges to grapefruits! In my view, obsidian is ideal for collecting data and ideas in the initial stages of your research. Obsidian enables you to create links and back links to separate pieces of your thinking before it has gelled into a coherent structured thesis and argument. So obsidian is ideal for the first stages of a project. Obsidian has excellent plug-ins to gather reference links from tools like Zotero. Highlights and comments recorded in Sotero can be easily exported to Obsidian, where they can be used to make connections to other documents and data sources. The second stage of a project is handled ideally with Scrivener, which enables you to organize the writing stages of your work and draw upon notes that you have previously created in obsidian. I think of obsidian as ideal for paragraph writing, well I look at scrivener as a deal for organizing one’s paragraphs into a coherent, structured essay. However Scrivener does not handle the citation of scholarly sources very well. It can handle parenthetical citations, but anything more complicated is far too cumbersome. That is where Microsoft Word is the best tool. Word enables a writer to format her manuscript with all the tools necessary for scholarly citation and formatting that are needed for submission for publication. Actually,‘s Otero has an excellent plug-in that interacts with Microsoft word to make the insertion of scholarly references practically frictionless. So, it’s not a question of choosing between these three tools, but of recognizing the best uses of each tool in completing a project from start to finish. I hope your viewers recognize this added dimension of the comparison that you are making.
Thankyou for the comment.
I to hope every individual uses their own minds to critique comparions when considering purpose.
Each tool here are variations of word processors looking to enhance the performance of tasks at each stage, which is where my feature comparison was directed.
The recent update of the outline plugin in obsidian has made scrivener redundant to me, and with pandoc, much of the formatting is also done in obsidian before exporting to a word file.
So like most tool choices, it depends on the context and direction of use. 😁
My first word processor was a shareware DOS program I ran on an 8088 IBM clone. It had no hard drive and a single floppy drive. I eventually bought Word for DOS.
I have used most versions of Word up through Office 97. I used Word to write a dozen (give or take} technical manuals for training production people as well as several user guides. These books had tables, references and citations (of a sort) a TOC, an index, copious images, proper page numbering, chapter headings, front matter/back matter and so forth. No need for page layout programs because Word did whatever I needed to do.
I have a fairly good knowledge of Word.
I even wrote a book aimed at self-publishers to teach them how to setup Word. Trust me, there is more to this than most think. Word's "problems" can be solved if you dig into Word's settings and learn about styles.
So I ask you all, what does Word not do or perhaps does poorly in your view? I will die on the MS Word Hill because very little can replace it. Well, perhaps Libre Office if you want a great (and free) Word alternative.
I completely agree with you, David. Just try to manage a 30,000 word document and 200 source documents on the same screen in either Word or Obsidian. By the way, there are ways of working with Scrivener and Zotero. Not as directly as with the Zotero Word plug-in, I agree, but there are. I got to this video because I am looking for ways to seamlessly bring together Obsidian and Scrivener into the same workflow. If anybody has advice, I would love to know! Thanks for the review, Danny!
Thanks a lot for that comment!
So, you switch back and forth between applications and programs? Obsidian lost me because it is so table-user-unfriendly. Pain in the neck. You can't copy a freaking table into Obsidian and have to do code work to get a table template going, which kind of looks weird visually. It really sucks. Made me home-sick for Word and Scrivener.
I use Obsidian most the time. I don't use scrivener and I only use word for manuscripts.
I don't use tables in Obsidian. I do use database tables but I think they are different from your use case.
Thanks for replying, Danny. What would your recommendation for someone who needs simple and visually good table templates?
@@thakiusmuckfeather1103 for basic tables any writing tool works, if you want features in the table a database app.
There are loads of apps that could do it.
I think the other features of the tool would ve worth looking at before deciding.
@@DannyHatcherTech thanks!