On the verge of giving up with Final Draft

Sorry, I've never used a PDF to RTF converter... tho' I just did a Google search on "convert pdf to rtf" (without the quotes) and several promising links came up.

Scene numbers don't export when I save to txt with layout either, so it's not just RTF format. I did see them however when I used a mad workaround of printing to a generic/text printer I set up to print to file, which created a txt file that had to be manually edited to take out page control codes, but that's hardly elegant or convenient.

What you might consider as a workaround (if you haven't already) is exporting the RTF file, then manually editing this to insert the scene numbers, if these are so important to the recipient.

-Derek
My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies.
Take the critiques you get with a grain of salt. Invariably, some of the critics will be kooks, bitter curmudgeons, or complete fools. ~odocoileus

A suggestion

Mac,

If you think you might be needing to send out your scripts for folks to read and don't want to worry about what script writing software they have, I highly suggest getting Movie Magic. It allows you to convert to PDF at any time. Also, if you transfer Final Draft RTFs into Movie Magic, very little editing is necessary.

If you are a student, you can get it at a great discount (just search on the web). I use it exclusively now because EVERYONE accepts PDFs and the files are very small when you have to send them as attachments.

Of course if you don't want to mess with all that, I am almost positive that you can upgrade Final Draft to allow exports to PDF. I know they have discounts for students as well. And if you're not a student, check eBay.

Now that I've done all this writing, I hope I actually addressed your question. I was kind of confused as to what you wanted.

Oh well.

Razor

I love Movie Magic.

I've had final draft and compared it side by side with MM.

It ain't for me.

billythrilly7th said:

I love Movie Magic.

I've had final draft and compared it side by side with MM.

It ain't for me.

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Nor me. But neither is MM for that matter.

I use Sophocles, which beats them all hands down, IMHO and is nowhere near as expensive (a demo can be downloaded from www.sophocles.net).

I'm not sure I understand the need to include scene numbers in an RTF export from FinalDraft. I don't ever turn the scene number feature "on" in Sophocles, which to my brain is for shoting scripts and I write specs, not shooting scripts.

I guess I can see some advantage to having scene numbers in terms of someone reviewing or critiqueing and having them to use as a handy point of reference, but even then in my own work of evaluating and critiqueing scripts I never use scene numbers in this way. I like to work with an RTF, which I open in Word and then use that word processor's "comment" feature to annotate the script, which is nice because the comments are not imbedded in the script itself but are stored in a separate but associated file, and are easily referred to with a click of your mouse. I then send this annotated RTF back to its originator and they open it in Word and can review my evaluation/critique/story notes at their leisure.

I dunno, I've just not ever encountered a need for scene numbers.

I didn't like FinalDraft for other reasons, and even though I came into it at a huge discount because I happened to meet its original developer at a film festival ... I did finally dump it when I found Sophocles, which features all the bells and whistles I'll ever need or use and has kept me happy for five years.

Mac H. said:

It basically means that it is impossible to distribute the files to get meaningful markups without the person marking it up buying a copy as well.

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Dashedly clever of them, isn't it?


And I use Soph as well, 'cause FD sucks.

Unless you're working with a shooting script and great if you are, why would you want scene numbers on your script?

As for a title page, just copy and paste it on the front of the rtf with the word or text program that comes with windows.

If you have Word, then add page numbers as well.

You got lemons?
Make lemonade.

I wrote my first six scripts on a typewriter. Now that was something to complain about.

Joe Calabrese said:

Unless you're working with a shooting script and great if you are, why would you want scene numbers on your script?

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I put them in so people reading it can say sc28 is a pile of crap and so are 44 thru 49. I like to be helpful that way.

It is also helpful to me when using scene navigator and I want to shift things around.

Mac H. said:

Exporting to PDF is easy - any Windows program can do it, once you've installed a PDF generator.

The problem, though, is that I want them to be able to mark up the file. You know, cross bits out, highlight bits, change spelling, and then send it back.

That's not something that PDFs are known for.

RTF would be perfect, though.

Mac.

Click to expand...

Indeed.

Later versions of MS Word can "save as" a PDF. But a PDF isn't appropriate for reviewing, evaluating, and commenting or editing.

You need an RTF for that, as you note.

But I still can't figure out why one would need scene numbers to get this done. You're gonna send your counterpart the entire file (script) or perhaps some sizeable part of it and they're going to do markups top to bottom. Why do they need scene numbers?

I've critiqued at least 400 scripts over the past six years, not a one had scene numbers.

I guess scene numbers are fine if it's for your eyes only, but never send a script to a competition, agent, manager, producer, or a paid consultant with scene numbers.

Joe Calabrese said:

I guess scene numbers are fine if it's for your eyes only, but never send a script to a competition, agent, manager, producer, or a paid consultant with scene numbers.

Click to expand...

It is true that they can be distracting for the cold reader and I agree I wouldn't recommend them when sending to professionals.

I find them helpful prior to that though. Also I do a lot of TV work where scene numbers are the norm so I guess I come at it slightly differently.