Goals

1. Keep large images outside the project to improve Scrivener performance.
2. Keep all images outside the Draft/Manuscript, also to improve performance.

The steps below show how to manage image location and size, using the same Compile format for everything and allowing us to store images (a) in the project or (b) in a separate hard drive folder with ease.

Below you'll see part of the section layout for chapters in my WIP. It Compiles POV-specific images (based on chapter folder Labels) and assumes three things:

• image location is determined by the value of “bookImages”,
• the images are PNG files, and
• I want images to Compile at a width equal to “imageWidth”.

The same $img tag structure is used in text files in the project, where needed. ALL images are specified in the same way.

I put my images (POV-specific or not) in “~/Dropbox/Universal Mind Images”. When the POV in a chapter is Kell Stark, I set Label = Kell Stark for that folder.

Note: “~" is the user root folder, “/Users/fellmonger” on my MacBook Pro but “/Users/savage” on my Mac Mini. The images are in a Dropbox folder, and the same Compile works for both machines.

Here I’ve activated two rules to set bookImages and imageWidth. A wide image works well for eBooks or a DOCX file, and Vellum may prefer an even wider image. I can accomplish that by creating a new rule changing imageWidth to 2000 rather than 1800.

Here’s an alternate set of rules.

• The first active rule changes “bookImages” to a null string, causing Compile to find images in the project, not externally on the hard drive.
• The second active rule changes “.png” to a null string, since image names in a project don’t include the file extension.