Screenwriting : Scriptwriting Software by Jodi Rath

Hi, Jodi. I use WriterDuet. There is a free trial. It's easy to use.

Final Draft. Only software really. The rest are make do.

FD is the most used software. "Industry standard is marketing" which FD is excellent at. They fund a yearly respected screenwriting contest, and they are the official software for WGA union members. I have FD 11; they built into the software a portal to WGA script registration. If you want to be an Asst/television Script Coordinator, master FD. Lots of tv shows use FD. Get to know all functions - revision mode, breakdown, printing.

What sucks is you got to pay extra $$ for updates.

Hi Jodi (same as Maurice), I currently use WritersDuet. It does allow you to download in different formats (e.g. PDF and .FDX). It also allows real-time collaboration.

If you are writing on spec can use any software you want as long as it will format your screenplay correctly. However if you end up working with people in the industry you'd probably want to use Final Draft because it make life much easier for all involved. I use FD 9.

I use Drama Queen, and it formats to Final Draft. Simple to use as well.

I use Scrivener for drafting and then I begrudgingly fire up Final Draft 11 and travel back in time to what feels like the mid-nineties era of software development for collaboration. I also have the FD app on an iPad for on-set rewriting. The app is actually quite nice.

There are A-list writers who use Scrivener, Fade In, Highland 2, Movie Magic, Slugline, and Writer Duet.

Smart creatives use what works best for them and smart professionals gain the skills they need to deliver.

Thank you all for your insight and for sharing different software. I am a higher ed prof and I see FD 11 has a discount for educators. I've written and published several novels and so I have Adobe for covers and Jutoh and Scrivener as well for writing, organizing and formatting books. The discount is pretty good for educators with FD 11. I think I'm going to dive in!

PDF is the industry standard. A few bits of software (used in production) will read a FDX file which is a file format of final draft.

I used writerduet. It is great on an ipad which is my main weapon of choice.

I used to use Celtx but they went cloud based; monthly subscription, ok if a team, or production co., but as a solo writer not so useful. I looked at Movie Magic, Fade in, Truby etc.. Fade in I liked for something more simple, and cheaper at around $80, it was flexible file imports too. I settled on Final Draft 11 because of its story ribbon and beat board tools, which I find useful. FD 11 on Mac has speech to text, windows version, not yet.

Hi Jodi I use Final Draft, and I have to say its amazing. It really puts things in order, its sets up Beats, and allows you to create character backgrounds. Its is a great investment in my opinion.

Thank you for posting the question, Jodi. I'm getting ready to take the FD plunge as well. As I was about to hit the button of no return, I decided to first tap into the collected wisdom on Stage 32, where I'm never disappointed. I didn't even have to type out the question.

These days I am using MS Word for my script writing. It is easy to format your MS Word into a Script Writing program using this link: https://www.awn.com/blog/how-turn-microsoft-word-terrific-screenwriting-...

In MS Word, I can use Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, etc whatever fonts you like, using Google Input tools, and you can easily save it as a PDF.

Marli J Monroe you're welcome--if you are a student or educator you can get an educator discount on FD--just FYI!

I use Fade In. Very easy to use and collaborate.