Maybe if you're having problems downloading and/or running software applications, you should start a thread in Tech Help forum stating your platform (Windows, Mac, etc.) and software version (XP, Vista, etc.) and listing the errors you get. The problem could be something as obvious as not upgrading to the latest service pack, that kind of thing.
If you're just starting on writing scripts, I doubt if sending files in the correct format concerns you just yet. Notepad is better than nothing, I use it myself for the roughest drafts, then import to MM2000 which does a flawless conversion.
-Derek
It just seems as if there are bound to be free generic word processing programs -- or even free on-line script writing programs that would do a bit of a better job than Notepad.
I mean, you can buy an old, used copy of Microsoft Word for next to nothing on e-bay and download a template for free.
Before Final Draft I wrote scripts in Word for Windows, Wordperfect, Word.3 for MSDos (beautiful font, by the way) Wordstar with it's ghastly dot commands, and before that an electric typewriter and before that a manual typewriter.
Jeez, I've been writing a long time.
It just seems to me that, of all enterprises one is apt to pursue, the cash investment for writing, even screenwriting, is relatively modest. Less now, even then before -- because you used to use a hell of a lot more paper and the cost of paper, believe me, really used to add up.
These days, in the professional movie world, almost everybody accepts -- even expects electronic submissions. I barely ever use my fed-ex account number.
On the downside, in this world of electronics, is the fact that computers and software have a finite life -- I've held on to my copy of Final Draft 5 through around three generations of computers, and I'm probably going to have upgrade the next time I change computers -- but I doubt I'll jump to the current version of FD. I'll buy the cheapest older version I can find that they still provide service for.
In the end -- our poster is sort of stuck in the same technological dilemma although, again, for his purposes, if he can simply get a program that's even a slightly more sophisticated word processor (say one that can do macros or that can re-adjust margins at a key stroke) it's really all that he needs at this stage of the game.
I didn't even have that when I was writing scripts that I was selling early in my career. I just had to tab across and sort of guess when the length of a of a line of dialog looked as if it was about right to space down to the next line.
The trick isn't the formatting -- it's figuring out what to write.
