Having trouble importing and splitting documents into Scrivener? Are you getting an unknown error when trying to import and split a Word document into Scrivener? Tip for importing and splitting files into Scrivener. There’s a really simple fix!
I’m really excited about the possibility of using Scrivener to organize my Kindle notes from my reference books I’m reading for a biography on Marie Antoinette. It seemed like the import and split would be super simple, but when I tried it, it aborted really quickly with an unknown error.
How to import and split a Word document into Scrivener
Literature and Latte has a great video about how to split a document at the same time that you import it.
Seems easy right? But when I tried it, it quickly aborted with an unknown error.
Trouble shooting import and split a Word Document into Scrivener
I got lucky – my first idea was to try making a sample, shorter document, to import and split and see how it worked.
That failed too.
My second idea, saving the file as .rtf instead of .docx, also failed.
But my third idea was better – I tried a plain import, with no split, of my test document.
I used –
- Files >Import File, chose my file, > Open
- got the message about RTF conversion, >OK
That’s when I got a warning that the file was being used by another program, to close the program and try again.
A simple solution to unknown errors when you try to import and split a Word Document into Scrivener
When I closed my files in Word, and then tried Import and Split, it worked!
When trying to recreate my files in use error, I didn’t get the same problem again. So it might not always happen. But, if you do run into an error when trying to import and split, I suggest you try a straight import, and see if you get a more helpful error message.
Check out more of my Scrivener tutorials.