Scrivener’s editor has four modes—four different ways of viewing your work—and learning how and when to switch between them will make your Scrivener experience much more comfortable. The four modes are as follows:

1. Single Document Mode
In this mode, the editor shows the contents of a single document, whether it’s a text document, a folder, an image, a PDF file or whatever. The editor is in single document mode right now since we used it to view the text of the “Part 2: Organisation” folder.

2. Corkboard Mode
In corkboard mode, the editor shows the subdocuments of the current document as index cards on a corkboard. Let’s take a look at how that works right now:

a) Try clicking on the “Part 2: Organisation” folder in the binder, and then click on the image of the corkboard in the toolbar (the one in the middle of the group of three View Group Mode icons) so that it is selected:

Once you’ve taken a look at the corkboard, return here. See how the subdocuments of the folder you had selected appeared as index cards? If you open the inspector right now and select the “Notes” pane, you will see the index card associated with this document—which you will have seen on the corkboard, because this document is a subdocument of the “Part 2: Organisation” folder.

b) Now—well, after you’ve read this bit, so you know how to get back—click on the corkboard icon again, while viewing this document. You will see that the corkboard is blank. This is because this document (“Step 7: Changing Editor Views”) doesn’t have any subdocuments—but it could. After you’ve seen the blank corkboard, click on the text icon to the left of the corkboard icon in the toolbar icon to see the text of the document again:

3. Outliner Mode
Outliner mode is much like the corkboard mode, allowing you to see the subdocuments of the current document, except that it shows them as rows and allows you to view various columns of information and allows you to view subdocuments of subdocuments to any depth. Try repeating everything you did for the corkboard mode above, but this time instead of choosing the corkboard icon, click the outliner icon on the right (and remember to come back here afterwards):

4. “Scrivenings” Mode
“Scrivenings” is the term for Scrivener’s combined text mode, and it is one of Scrivener’s coolest features. It allows you to view or edit multiple text documents as a composite—as though they were one long document. Scrivenings mode is available when there are multiple documents available to view as one. If you look at the “View Mode” control in the toolbar at the moment, you will see that the left-most icon shows a single sheet of paper. This indicates that the composite text mode is not available here, because you are viewing a single document that has no subdocuments. So, let’s look at one that does.
After reading this part, once more click on “Part 2: Organisation” in the binder. When you do so, you will notice that the “View Mode” icon in the toolbar changes.:

(You will notice that when you select the “Part 2” folder again, it returns to outliner mode—this is because Scrivener remembers which mode you last used to view a group, and will automatically use it for viewing groups until you change it again.)
The single text icon on the left has now changed into a stack of paper. This means that it is possible to enter Scrivenings mode. To do so, you simply click on the button with the icon of the stack of papers. Try that with the “Part 2” folder now, and after selecting the stack of papers icon scroll all the way down to the bottom of the editor, then return here by clicking back on “Step 7” in the binder.
Done that? You should have seen that the text from all the various subdocuments of the “Part 2” folder—including this one—were combined into one long document, with dividers between them. You could have edited the text, and your changes would have automatically been applied to all of the individual files you altered.

What To Remember When Switching Views
You’ve now switched between all the main views. The main thing to remember is that when you are viewing a single document that has no subdocuments, there are only three view modes available—because you can’t enter Scrivenings (composite text) mode when viewing only a single document. In this case, the left-most icon is a single sheet of text. You click on the mode you want to view—single document mode, corkboard mode, or outliner mode.
When you are viewing a folder or a document that has subdocuments, though, there are four ways of viewing the editor available—the single document (disregarding the content of any children items), corkboard and outliner mode, and also Scrivenings mode. You can return to single document mode by de-selecting all of the segments of the Group Mode control—that is, click on the one that is selected to de-select it—just as you did at the end of Step 6 to view the text of the “Part 2” folder.
You can also switch between view modes using the top three items in the View menu, or using the Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2 and Ctrl+3 keyboard shortcuts.

I know, I know—now you really do need that cup of tea, and probably another biscuit too. Once you’re done, we’ll take a look at each of these view modes in more detail.