Scrivener 3

Scrivener is for the point where a document stops fitting in one file. Instead of a single scrolling manuscript you get a binder of small documents you can drag around in an outliner or shuffle on a corkboard, with research PDFs, images and web clippings sitting in the same project. At the end, Compile turns the pile back into one formatted thing — manuscript, ePub, PDF, Word — with the formatting decided at export rather than baked into the draft as you write.

Literature & Latte have sold it this way for two decades and publish an unusually plain explanation of their licensing. You buy one major version, for one operating system, and you keep it. Scrivener 4 will cost again, with a discount for owners of 3, and the macOS licence does not unlock the Windows build. Buying direct gets you a household licence covering every Mac you own and a 30-day trial counted in days of actual use; buying through the App Store gets neither, just a purchase tied to your Apple account. The iPhone and iPad app is another $23.99 and syncs via your own Dropbox.

It is the wrong tool for notes, journals or anything under a few thousand words — the binder becomes overhead you spend more time maintaining than writing in. Buy it when you have a book-shaped problem.