Hi. I have read so many conflicting things about formatting microsoft word for screenwriting. Is it doable or is there another way ( i.e. free software, etc)? I have wordpad 2013 and am curious if there is a relatively simple and effective way to go about formatting it for screenwriting? Thanks in advance.
It would be easier to download the free Trelby screenplay software (
http://www.trelby.org/) providing you're using Windows and it still works with your version (Trelby is getting kind of long in the tooth) Trelby is kind of ugly, doesn't support fancy fonts, but it's a very solid screenplay formatter.
Instead of WordPad, you might want to consider using NotePad and writing in Fountain format (the way I'm going). Fountain is a markup language that allows you to write a script in plain text and then copy or read it into a Fountain interpreter -- online ones are available at
https://afterwriting.com/ or
https://youmescript.com/.
For example ... in NotePad you write ...
------
INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY
JOHN NONDESCRIPT, the right height for his weight, is sitting on his couch watching NASCAR.
JOHN
(laughing hysterically)
Lookee at 'em go!
He passes out from all the beer he's been drinking.
-------
Just straight text. After importing it into afterwriting (which can only save to PDF or Fountain) or youmescript.com (which can save to PDF, Fountain, Text or Final Draft (fdx) you get this ...
Code:
INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY
JOHN NONDESCRIPT, the right height for his weight, is
sitting on his couch watching NASCAR.
JOHN
(laughing hysterically)
Lookee at 'em go!
He passes out from all the beer he's been drinking.
The beauty of Fountain is that you can use any text editor (afterwriting has a built-in text editor -- and you can download afterwriting and use it offline in your browser).
Here's a page with the Fountain text format (it was developed by John August and another professional screenwriter).
https://fountain.io/
Or you could just use one of the online script writing services (like youmescript.com). The advantage there is that it looks like a script as you type it.
Sorry to ramble -- I do that.