Screen Writing Programs
 

Does anyone know of a good screen writing program? Thanks.....

Microsoft Word.

Okay, that's just what I use but I've written three feature-length screenplays with my own custom template and it's done fine for me. All people care about is if you have the proper formatting.

Final Draft is a defacto standard. After using a suite of Word macros designed for screenwriting I finally succumbed to Final Draft last year. I now lament delaying the purchase.

Ditto on Final Draft. It lets you focus on the writing and leaves all the formatting to a few intuitive key strokes.

which one do you use Ken, Final Draft 6 or Final Draft AV2?
thanks

Final Draft 6.

A few years ago I picked up Movie Magic Screenwriter by Screenplay Systems. The salesman told me it was Final Draft under a different name, for a much cheaper price. I compared the features listed on both boxes and, sure enough, they were virtually identical.

Beautiful program. I love the index card shuffler best.

Carl Russo

MacAddict usually puts in a free/demo screenwriting program every few CD's. I know I've seen a few different ones on past CD's.....check their website or some old CD's if you're a subscriber- you may have one!
Good luck!

Final Draft and Scriptware are the top two used in the profession. Scriptware being the first and oldest, (And what I write on) but Final Draft now replacing it at a higher rate. Movie Magic is very good as well. Final Draft AV is specifically for AV dual column scripts. Scriptware has dual column in it.

THanks for your imput. I will look around for those titles. Thanks

-James

I gotta agree with Keith Loh. I have absolutely no use for screenwriting programs. He's got some downloadable templates on his site you might try. I just programed a handful of macros in my version of Word and it does everything I need. One problem with Final Draft and programs like that is that they're proprietary. If you ever need to open your file on another machine you're out of luck. It also makes problems if you need to e-mail your script to anybody. This is a major problem in my opinion. Some screenwriting contests do require Final Draft though, so that's something to consider.

You can save the FinalDraft script as .RTF files and it can be viewed and "edited" by other programs too. With Mac OSX you can "print" as PDF as well.

Yeah, but you don't want to be switching back and forth. There's just too much formatting in a screenplay. RTF files never quite work right for me. Something always gets messed up. RTFs and PDFs that I've sent to cast members never come out at the proper page length either.