How to Email a Project From Scrivener

While Scrivener doesn't have an email option in its project export utility, its backup feature does offer a convenient way of sharing a project with others. Scrivener backups take all of the files in a project folder and compresses them into a single ZIP file, which you can send as an email attachment. The files use the SCRIVX file extension, which both the Windows 8 and Mac OS X operating system can open just like any ZIP file. To read the project files, however, your email recipient needs to have Scrivener too; if he doesn't, you can still share a draft of the project as a PDF file.

Launch Scrivener, click "File," select "Recent Projects," and then select the project you want to email by double-clicking it.

Click the "File" menu again after the project is open, select "Back Up," and then click "Back Up To." Select your desktop or any folder on your computer. By default, Scrivener uses the project name and the date and time the backup was saved as the filename, but you can change this to anything you want by clicking the editable Name field and typing a new filename.

Click the "Backup as ZIP" option if it isn't selected already, and then click "OK." Scrivener saves a copy of the project as a single ZIP file using the SCRIVX file extension.

Attach the SCRIVX file to an email message. Alternatively, upload the file to a cloud storage service like Dropbox or Google Drive, and then email the link.

Open your project in Scrivener, click the "File" menu, select "Export," and then click "Files."

Select a destination folder for the PDF, select "Recent Projects," and then double-click the project you want to email. Scrivener saves the project as a PDF document that can be read without having the Scrivener software.

Email the PDF document as an email attachment. Alternatively, upload it to a sharable cloud folder and email its link to the person you want to see the project.