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Working with Scalar for Digital Projects

This is a short introductory guide to using the Scalar publishing platform.

Add Users

Once everyone has an account, you can add Users to a book and assign different roles. Available roles are Author, Editor, Commentator, Reviewer, and Reader. Users may also be Listed or Hidden by clicking the eyeball icon. In addition, the order of Users can be restructured, which is helpful when listing authors in a specific order.

Users page with list of roles to select from

Editorial Workflows

If you have at least two users on a book—one Author and one Editor—you can use Scalar’s editorial workflow to manage your project.

Some features include:

  • Editorial state tracking: Track the state of items as they move between authors and editors, or change the status of multiple items at once
  • “Track changes” style edit highlighting: Proposed changes, including media formatting, are made visible in the text editor, allowing them to be accepted or rejected
  • Informal usage rights tracking: Track whether rights have been secured for each piece of content in the book
  • Edition Management: Editors can publish the current state of a book as an “edition.” Future changes will not be incorporated into the book until a new edition is published, which can be done whenever is necessary.

Scalar’s editorial workflow, showing the six stages and the actions taken by both authors and editors in each.

Image Credit: Scalar 2 User's Guide, "Editorial Workflow Steps."