It's amazing how rapidly Scrivener has developed over the years. I recall back when I first started using it, perhaps in 2007/8, whining that it didn't have much in the way of revision facilities or change tracking. Keith, the developer, said very honestly that he didn't have the resources to do something as fancy as the very capable change tracking you see in Microsoft Word.

How things have changed. Scrivener 2's approach to revisions and change tracking is different to Word's, and markedly superior in some ways. It's also less than obvious to find. But worth it, trust me. Here's how to get there...

Here's the problem. We want to carry out a major revise on an invididual scene. One so radical we may not be sure it's a great idea, so we're reluctant to lose the first version we have.

OK. Choose the document you want to work on then hit Command 5 or choose this option from the menu.

<a href="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/01/snapshot.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-6810" title="snapshot" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/01/snapshot.jpg?w=640" alt="" width="640" height="443" /></a>Scrivener will now take a snapshot of the entire scene and store it separately in an inspector window.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6811" title="snap inspect" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/01/snap-inspect.jpg" alt="" width="258" height="504" />As you can see you can give your snapshots titles and take multiple ones of the same scene. You can rollback to the original at the click of a button. Or look at what's changed between that and your revision too, just by clicking Compare.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6812" title="track change" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/01/track-change.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="437" />Deletions appear in red, additions in blue (sorry but this is a work in progress so I can't really show you the actual text).

I like change tracking in the latest versions of Word. And as always I have to emphasise: Word is how a final book will normally be delivered. But this is probably a more subtle and powerful way to keep track of changes on a heavily-edited book. So congratulations to Keith for coming up with such a clever solution.

It is currently Version 2, Mac only, by the way.