Tools for authors

How to Import a Scrivener Project into Your Book Pro - and Export It Back Again

If you already have a book in Scrivener, the last thing you want to do is start again.

Your chapters are there.

Your notes are there.

Your synopses, research, characters, places, ideas and all the little pieces that have accumulated while you have been writing are there too.

Your Book Pro is designed to work around that existing project.

You can bring your Scrivener project into Your Book Pro, use tools such as Ask the Editor, Detailed Editorial Feedback, Beta Readers, Proof Read, dictation and source analysis, then export the project back to Scrivener when you want to return.

The basic journey is:

Scrivener project ZIP → Your Book Pro → Scrivener project ZIP → Scrivener

Bringing your Scrivener project to Your Book Pro

Don't flatten your project first.

Your Book Pro is designed to work with the Scrivener project itself, so we can preserve much more than a compiled Word or PDF file - including your book structure and useful project material.

A Scrivener project can contain much more than the manuscript itself. Depending on how you use Scrivener, it may include:

• chapters, parts and scenes;
• folders and subdocuments;
• chapter synopses;
• document notes;
• characters or key people;
• places and settings;
• ideas and planning material;
• Research;
• metadata and other project information.

Keeping the complete project together allows Your Book Pro to understand far more of the book than it could from a flattened document.

Literature & Latte explains how to create a portable zipped copy of your Scrivener project in its official guide:

How to prepare your Scrivener project →(opens in a new tab)

Scrivener is a product of Literature & Latte. Your Book Pro is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or partnered with Literature & Latte.

Step 1: Open your book in Your Book Pro

Sign in to Your Book Pro and open the book you want to work on.

Then go to:

Create → Upload

Choose:

Import Scrivener Project

This is different from An existing manuscript.

The normal manuscript uploader is for files such as Word documents, PDFs, text files and RTF files.

Import Scrivener Project is specifically for the native Scrivener round trip.

Select your zipped Scrivener project.

Your Book Pro will inspect the project before anything is imported.

Step 2: Review what Your Book Pro found

The first part of the import wizard gives you an overview of the project.

Depending on the contents of your Scrivener project, Your Book Pro may identify things such as:

• manuscript chapters and sections;
• parts, scenes and nested folders;
• chapter synopses;
• planning notes;
• characters or key people;
• places or settings;
• ideas;
• to-dos;
• Research;
• other project material.

This matters because Scrivener is deliberately flexible.

A novelist's project may contain Characters and Places.

A memoir may contain people, memories and archive material.

A non-fiction author may have arguments, evidence and Research.

A screenplay has a completely different structure again.

Your Book Pro therefore does not assume that every Scrivener project is a novel, or that a folder name always means the same thing.

Instead, it looks at the structure and material in the project and proposes where it should go.

Step 3: Check the mapping

The next stage is the mapping review.

This is where you can see how the parts of your Scrivener project will fit into Your Book Pro.

For example:

The precise mapping changes according to the book.

That is deliberate.

A person in a biography should not be treated as a fictional character simply because they happened to live in a Scrivener folder called "Characters".

Likewise, Research should remain research. It should not suddenly become part of your manuscript.

If Your Book Pro is confident about a mapping, you should not have to make unnecessary decisions.

If something is ambiguous, the wizard asks you to review it.

Material that does not have a direct Your Book Pro equivalent is preserved for the return trip rather than silently discarded.

Step 4: Confirm the import

Once you are happy with the proposed mapping, review the summary and confirm the import.

Your material is then added to the appropriate parts of the book.

Your manuscript remains manuscript.

Your planning material remains planning material.

Your Research remains Research.

And the Scrivener project information needed for the return journey is retained behind the scenes.

After import, you can see where everything went and continue working normally in Your Book Pro.

Step 5: Work on your book in Your Book Pro

Now you can use Your Book Pro for the things you brought the project across to do.

Ask the Editor

Ask questions about the book itself.

For example:

"Does the middle of this memoir lose momentum?"

"Does this character disappear for too long?"

"Does Chapter 6 actually advance the argument?"

"What is this book still missing?"

The Editor works with the context of your book rather than answering as a blank general-purpose chatbot.

The Editor advises.

You decide.

Review the shape

Go to Shape → Plan to look at the structure of the book.

Your imported chapter planning, synopses and other useful material can sit alongside the rest of your Book Plan.

You can reorganise ideas, add new planning cards and decide what the manuscript still needs.

Get Detailed Editorial Feedback

Use the Improve tools to examine the manuscript according to the kind of book you are actually writing.

The criteria for a memoir are different from a novel.

A business book is different from a children's book.

A screenplay is different again.

Add Beta Readers

Ask different Beta Readers to work through the manuscript and tell you what they understand, expect, enjoy or find confusing.

One reader's opinion should not dictate your book.

Different reactions can be extremely revealing.

Proof Read

When the larger editorial decisions are done, use Proof Read to look for spelling, grammar, punctuation, missing words and passages that may not make sense as intended.

Suggested changes remain yours to accept or reject.

Add new material

You are not limited to the material that came from Scrivener.

You can also:

• type directly into the book;
• dictate new passages;
• upload interviews;
• bring in podcast episodes;
• add lectures or talks;
• attach Background Research.

Your Scrivener project becomes the starting point, not a cage around the book.

Step 6: Keep Research as research

One of the most important parts of the import is what Your Book Pro does not do.

It does not simply pour everything into the manuscript.

If your Scrivener project contains articles, papers, PDFs, notes or other reference material in Research, that distinction is preserved.

In Your Book Pro, Background Research remains separate from your own manuscript and source material.

That helps you use evidence without losing track of where it came from.

Your manuscript is one thing.

Your own source material is another.

Somebody else's work that you are consulting is research.

Those distinctions matter.

Step 7: Keep developing the book

You can now continue working normally.

Reorder chapters.

Change titles.

Edit the manuscript.

Develop your Plan.

Add characters or key people.

Add locations.

Add ideas or notes.

Add new chapters.

Add Research.

Your Book Pro keeps the Scrivener connection behind the scenes so the project can be reconstructed when you export it.

You do not need to keep worrying about the mechanics of the round trip while you write.

Taking your book back to Scrivener

When you're ready to return to Scrivener, export your updated Scrivener project from Your Book Pro.

Go to:

Prepare → Export to Scrivener

Choose:

Export to Scrivener

Your Book Pro creates an updated Scrivener project ZIP for the return journey.

For a book originally imported from Scrivener, the aim is not to create an unrelated new project.

The round trip preserves the project structure and identities needed to connect the exported project back to the one you started with.

Your current manuscript, chapter structure, supported planning information and Research can make the return journey.

Material without a direct Your Book Pro equivalent is preserved rather than silently discarded.

You'll receive a Scrivener project you can open again in Scrivener.

Literature & Latte's official guide explains how to restore and open a zipped Scrivener project:

How to open your project in Scrivener →(opens in a new tab)

Want to move selected material into another existing Scrivener project instead?

How to Copy Items Between Scrivener Projects →(opens in a new tab)

What happens to things Your Book Pro does not use?

Nothing should have to disappear simply because Your Book Pro does not currently have an equivalent feature.

The round-trip system preserves Scrivener project information needed to reconstruct the project on export.

So the process is not simply:

Scrivener → convert everything into Your Book Pro

It is closer to:

Scrivener → map what is useful into Your Book Pro → preserve the rest → rebuild the project on export

That distinction is what makes a native round trip useful.

Can I use this with books other than novels?

Yes.

Scrivener is used for far more than fiction, and the importer is designed accordingly.

The mapping can adapt to the kind of book you are working on, including:

• fiction;
• memoir and biography;
• non-fiction;
• business and professional books;
• children's books;
• graphic novels;
• poetry;
• scripts and screenplays;
• textbooks;
• travel books;
• religious and historical works.

The wizard looks at the project and the destination book rather than assuming every project has the same structure.

What if my Scrivener folders have unusual names?

That is fine.

Scrivener lets authors create their own structures, so Your Book Pro does not rely only on folder names.

The import wizard proposes a mapping based on what appears to be in the project and lets you review anything uncertain before importing it.

Does importing change my original Scrivener project?

No.

You upload a zipped copy.

Your original Scrivener project stays where it is.

Your Book Pro works with the uploaded copy, and when you are ready you create an exported Scrivener project containing the work you have done.

Do I have to go back to Scrivener?

No.

Some authors may use Your Book Pro for a particular editorial stage and then return to Scrivener.

Others may decide to continue through preparation, publishing and print in Your Book Pro.

The point of the round trip is choice.

You are not locked into either tool.

Scrivener + Your Book Pro

Scrivener is extremely good at giving writers a flexible place to organise and write complicated long-form projects.

Your Book Pro adds another layer around that work:

• book-specific editorial advice;
• structural analysis;
• Beta Readers;
• Proof Read;
• dictation;
• spoken-source tools;
• Research handling;
• publishing preparation;
• print support.

You do not need to choose one or the other.

Keep Scrivener. Add Your Book Pro.

Then take your project back whenever you want.

Scrivener → Your Book Pro → Scrivener

Troubleshooting

Most Scrivener round-trip problems have a single, fixable cause. If you see one of the messages below, try the exact step before contacting support.

"Please choose a zipped Scrivener project (.zip)"

The importer only accepts a zip file containing the Scrivener project itself. A compiled Word document, PDF, ePub or a single .rtf file will not work.

Fix: Close the project in Scrivener, then compress the entire.scriv project package (macOS) or folder (Windows) into a zip file and upload that.

"We could not read that project" or the upload finishes but nothing is found

This usually means the zip contains a compiled export rather than the live Scrivener project, or the project was still open when it was zipped.

Fix:

• Close Scrivener completely before compressing the project.
• Make sure the zip contains a .scriv folder/package, not a single .docx, .pdf or .epub file.
• On macOS, right-click the .scriv package and choose Compress.
• On Windows, right-click the .scriv folder and choose Send to → Compressed (zipped) folder.

"The project appears to be empty" or your manuscript is missing

Scrivener projects can store manuscript text in many places. If the importer cannot find the manuscript, the text may be in a folder or document that was not recognised as the main draft.

Fix: In Scrivener, make sure your draft text is inside the Draft or Manuscript folder. If you use a custom top-level folder for the manuscript, rename it to something clear such as "Manuscript" or "Draft" before zipping, then review the mapping in the import wizard and point it to the right place.

Formatting looks different after import

Your Book Pro preserves plain text, italics, bold, underlines and paragraph structure. It does not preserve every Scrivener-specific style, compile format, custom font, footnote placement or image layout.

Fix: For the round trip, keep formatting simple. Re-apply complex compile styling after exporting back to Scrivener. Images and PDFs attached to Research are preserved but are not embedded in the manuscript text.

The exported project will not open in Scrivener

Exported projects are valid zipped Scrivener projects, but they must be unzipped before Scrivener can open them. Double-clicking the zip from a browser may not extract the project correctly.

Fix:

• Download the exported zip to a folder you control.
• Extract the zip manually (macOS: double-click and move the .scriv package out; Windows: Extract All).
• Open the extracted .scriv project in Scrivener, not the zip itself.
• If Scrivener asks about a newer format, choose to update the project normally.

Upload fails part-way through or takes a very long time

Very large Scrivener projects, especially those containing many high-resolution images, audio files or video in Research, can exceed upload limits or time out.

Fix: Remove or compress large media files from the Research folder before zipping, or split a very large project into smaller logical parts. The manuscript and planning material are the most important parts for the round trip.

The Scrivener offer did not unlock

The 50% discount is earned only after a genuine Scrivener project is successfully imported during your free month. Opening the offer page, clicking the button or uploading a non-Scrivener file does not qualify.

Fix: Make sure you complete the import wizard and confirm the import. The offer is checked server-side after the import succeeds. If you imported during a previous billing period, the offer window may have closed.

Frequently asked questions

What file do I upload to import a Scrivener project?

Upload your Scrivener project as a zip file. On macOS, compress the .scriv project package; on Windows, compress the .scriv project folder. Your Book Pro reads the project's binder structure from inside the zip, so a compiled Word, PDF or ePub file will not give you the same result.

Does importing change my original Scrivener project?

No. Your Book Pro only reads the copy you upload. Your original project on your own machine is untouched, and it is still sensible to keep your usual Scrivener backups before you import.

What comes across from Scrivener?

Your binder structure comes across as folders and documents, along with your manuscript text and its basic formatting, document synopses, and supporting material such as characters, places, notes and research. Anything Your Book Pro does not place directly is preserved with the project so it can be returned on export.

Do my folder names have to match Scrivener's defaults?

No. The import wizard shows you how each part of your binder has been mapped and lets you change it before you confirm, so unusual or personal folder names are fine.

Can I export back to Scrivener afterwards?

Yes. Prepare → Export to Scrivener builds a zipped Scrivener project containing your current structure, text and synopses, which you can unzip and open in Scrivener. The round trip is designed so you are never locked into either tool.

Does importing a Scrivener project unlock the Scrivener offer?

New customers start Pro with 30 days free. When a genuine Scrivener project is successfully imported during that free month, Your Book Pro automatically unlocks 50% off the next two months. The discount is earned by completing the import, not by clicking the offer.

Scrivener is a product of Literature & Latte. Your Book Pro is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or partnered with Literature & Latte.