View Full Version : I have a question about screenplay format.


Ryan Elder
March 6th, 2020, 11:53 AM
I have a question about screenplay format.

I use Movie Magic Screenwriter for my scripts, and sometimes I used Writerduet online, for certain projects.

I noticed that if I take a script out of Movie Magic Screenwriter, and put it into Writerduet, the script becomes longer in page length. This has me wondering if one of the programs, has an incorrect proper format, compared to the other. The font size looks the same to me, and maybe it's a matter of spacing?

Does anyone know if that's a bad sign, if one program has a longer page count than the for the same script?

Brian Drysdale
March 6th, 2020, 12:00 PM
Regarding script page length, that can happen. I wouldn't worry about it as long as the format is correct.

Ryan Elder
March 6th, 2020, 12:03 PM
Okay thanks. Well the format looks correct, it's just thought it's longer in one than the other. So I wonder if the spacing is off then, maybe the margin spacing? Cause it does look a little wider in spacing on the top and bottom perhaps.

So when professionals read your script, they say they can tell when these things are incorrect, if that's true?

Brian Drysdale
March 6th, 2020, 12:38 PM
There are slight variations between script programs, for example Final Draft has it's own Courier font, so I don't think anyone is going to take a ruler to your script unless it's way off.

You can adjust the headers and footers if you want, but I suspect it's least of your worries.

Paul R Johnson
March 6th, 2020, 01:43 PM
Have you ever tired to load ordinary documents from one programme to another? Loading a script into word on a Mac, produced on pages on a Mac creates havoc with page numbering - so it's not just your script writing software, it's perfectly normal, and extremely irritating in practically every text based bit of software.

Ryan Elder
March 8th, 2020, 08:07 PM
Oh okay thanks. No I haven't tried that much.

Well the script goes from 90 pages to 94, if I load it into writer duet. It's not a huge difference, but as long as the format is good enough in either to be proper format.