Coming from Scrivener?

Import

Import your manuscript from Scrivener

Scrivener keeps your manuscript in its own format, so the way in is to compile it first. EPUB is the best fit: it carries chapter boundaries and inline formatting, and icanwrite turns each chapter into its own file.

Compile to EPUB

1. In Scrivener, choose File → Compile…
2. Set Compile for to ePub 3 (.epub).
3. Check that Compile is pointed at your Manuscript folder and the documents you want are ticked.
4. Make sure your chapters use a section layout that outputs a heading — without one they run together and you lose the split.
5. Click Compile and save the .epub somewhere easy to find.

Import it here

Click import EPUB and pick the file you just compiled. For a full-length book, choose one file per chapter when asked — each chapter becomes its own card, which is what makes reordering and per-chapter AI work.

Headings, paragraphs, bold and italics, lists and blockquotes all come across. Comments, footnotes, labels, keywords and your binder structure above chapter level stay behind in the project.

The import is just a copy. If something compiles badly, fix the layout in Scrivener and import again into a fresh folder.

You can also compile to .docx and use import DOCX. It works, but the chapter split is less reliable.

Sync

Sync icanwrite with Scrivener

Scrivener can mirror your draft into an ordinary folder on disk and read your edits back in. Add that folder on icanwrite and you can draft in either app, switching whenever you like.

Set up the sync

1. Back up the project first — File → Back Up → Back Up To…
2. Choose File → Sync → with External Folder… and pick a folder.
3. Tick Sync the contents of the Draft folder.
4. Set Format for external Draft files to Plain Text (.txt). This is the important one — icanwrite reads .txt and .md, not RTF.
5. Click Sync, then add the Draft subfolder Scrivener created to icanwrite — not the parent.

The trade-off

Plain text has no formatting to carry. Italics, bold, comments and footnotes are stripped on the way out of Scrivener, and won’t come back when the file syncs in again.

For most drafting that’s a fair trade. You can format your document when it's finished.

Day to day

Write in icanwrite — files save to the folder as you go. Back in Scrivener, choose File → Sync → with External Folder Now to pull your changes into the binder, and sync again after editing there.

• Don’t edit the same document in both apps at once. Whichever side syncs last wins.
• Leave Scrivener’s numbered filename prefixes alone — renaming breaks the link and Scrivener treats it as a new document.
• Deleting a file in icanwrite doesn’t remove it from the binder.