SmartEdit Writer works best if you are working on a single PC. It’s not cloud based software that syncs to a third party cloud provider such as Dropbox. It’s not a web solution that runs in your browser like Google Docs. It’s not a single document editor such as Microsoft Word, where all you have to do to work on multiple devices is copy or share that single document.
If multi-PC or multi-device use is one of your must haves for writing software, then do not choose SmartEdit Writer. Pick a web solution with a yearly charge, or a single document solution such as Word, or a package that offers built in syncing with one or more cloud solutions such as Dropbox.
Having said that, you can copy and share SmartEdit Writer projects, and it’s not that difficult. But… if you’re non-technical in nature, don’t know what a file is, don’t know what Windows explorer is, then you will find it difficult to copy those projects, as SmartEdit Writer projects are not single files like Microsoft Word documents, and there is no simple “Save as…” menu to allow you to copy a project.
If the above describes you, you should content yourself with working on your project on a single PC, or choose one of the alternative offerings for writing such as Google Docs that come with multi device use built in.
SmartEdit Writer projects can contain may hundreds or even thousands of small files, all sitting inside a single project folder, and all connected by a small project database. This project folder is your project. Single files inside that folder cannot be accessed without the surrounding project. The default location for your projects is your “Documents/SmartEdit Writer” folder. For any project you create, a new folder will be created here, or in another destination you choose.
How you should NEVER open a SmartEdit Writer Project
Never create a SmartEdit Writer project inside a cloud folder such as Dropbox. If you do this, and if you then open your project on more than one PC before Dropbox has correctly finished syncing, you will corrupt your project and you will risk losing work as a result. Do not do this.
Never open the same project twice at the same time. There are built in measures to prevent you doing this, but you should be aware that any workarounds you might try to enable this will result in problems.
How you should work on SmartEdit Writer projects on more than one PC
Option 1. Create your project on a shared drive such as a USB stick, a plug in drive or a network drive. In this way, when you finish working on your project on one PC, you can shut down SmartEdit Writer, remove the USB device and plug it into a second PC. If you use this method, ensure that SmartEdit Writer is closed before removing the USB device, otherwise final changes might not be saved.
Option 2. Click the Backup button on the Actions & Tools menu and backup your current project to a zip file. You can then copy this zip file to another PC, email it and open it on another PC, or share it via a cloud folder. When you then open the ZIP file on the other PC, you should extract it to an empty folder and then double click the atomic.scribbler file inside the project folder to open the project. NEVER overwrite an existing folder, as doing so runs the risk of mixing two SmartEdit Writer projects and causing corruption.
Copying all of your SmartEdit Writer Projects from one PC to Another
As mentioned earlier, the default location of your SmartEdit Writer projects is your “Documents/SmartEdit Writer” folder. If you wish to move all of your projects to another PC, you should start by copying the contents of this folder from the first PC to the second.
If you had created or copied projects to a different location on your PC, you should locate these projects and copy the entire folders to the next PC. For example, a project called “Huck Finn” that you created in a “C:\Writing” folder will exist inside a folder called “C:\Writing\Huck Finn”. To copy this project you must copy the “Huck Finn” folder in its entirety.
As we can be forgetful about things such as where we chose to save a particular project to, you should always save SmartEdit Writer projects to their default location of “Documents/SmartEdit Writer” unless you are saving to a plug in drive. This way, you always know where the projects are.
To summarise the above, SmartEdit Writer works best if you work on a project on a single PC. If you must work on a project on more than one PC, ensure you have the Windows knowledge to be able to copy folders and files, otherwise refrain from doing so, and maybe look at different solution than SmartEdit Writer to meet your writing needs. Finally, never, under any circumstances, create or open an SmartEdit Writer project from within a cloud folder.