Scrivener (it has a 30-day trial so you don’t need to buy it to try this solution).
The video below will walk you through how to install Scrivener on a Chromebook.
Otherwise, what would be the point? I had no desire to sit and copy and paste files back and forth.įortunately, after some research, I found a way to do exactly this: sync my existing projects from my Dropbox folder to my Chromebook and use Scrivener through an Android app to continue working on these. If I can’t do that, I have to copy and paste files and that’s not really a solution I’m looking for. At first, I was excited but after diving head first into this solution, I realized it lacked a vital part: Dropbox sync.įor me, to even bother with Scrivener, I have to be able to access my projects saved in my Dropbox account. If that works on Ubuntu, maybe I could also get this to work with this new Linux capability on Chrome OS.Īs I started to research this, I realized very quickly that there is another way to do this: through the use of Android apps. After all, my current setup on my regular laptop is running Scrivener through Wine on Ubuntu (using PlayOnLinux). If anything, the larger screen free of clutter was actually quite awesome.īut, with the recent introduction of the ability to run Linux apps the Chromebook, I couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a way to get Scrivener up and running on the Chromebook. Most newer Chromebooks support Android apps and replicating my experience was a simple matter of downloading the app through Google Play. At first, I simply continued with Jotterpad. However, since replacing my defunct tablet with a Chromebook (Acer SPIN 11), I faced the dilemma of trying to duplicate this type of arrangement. It’s by far been one of the most helpful features in Scrivener. In fact, I was able to write pretty much anywhere I went, just hit a button and have all my changes handy when I came home. Until my tablet died, I worked around this limitation by using Dropbox and Jotterpad together with the folder sync option in Scrivener. The lack of an Android app that allows me to sync with my desktop version is one of those examples. As I’ve pointed out on many other occasions, Scrivener isn’t perfect.