Final Draft Reducing My Page Count. Help!

LaneHeymont

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I couldn't find this anywhere despite the use of the search button, and mods feel free to move this if it's in the wrong spot, but....

I finished a screenplay on Movie Draft at around 113 pages. I convert it to .pdf and then import to Final Draft 8 (just got it), and suddenly my 113 pages go to 66!

That's way too short, so does that mean the screenplay is actually too short, as in Movie Draft has a different page layout, or is that just a foible and not matter much?

Help! Oh and thanks.
 

LaneHeymont

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Somehow the default page size in the JUST downloaded Final Draft was all out of whack. The paper was 12x18 instead of letter sized, and the page setup was all wrong. Very weird.
 

dpaterso

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Yep it had to be something like that. I'd like to think I would have suggested checking that setting. :)

I wonder if you'd have gotten different results if you'd exported RTF (Rich Text Format) from Movie Draft, and imported this into FD. Not to worry, as long as you've found the solution.

-Derek
 

LaneHeymont

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Yeah, it was really weird. At first when I imported ANY file from Movie Draft it just showed all the formatting code. Even the .fdx file. It took hours figure out. SO a warning to anyone as computer illiterate as I am!

I also assume you'd have suggested it!
 

ComicBent

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Bizarre behavior

I have not checked the board for three or four months, so I missed this question.

I am not sure what really happened here. The poster originally said:
I convert it to .pdf and then import to Final Draft 8 (just got it), and suddenly my 113 pages go to 66!
Yet here is what Final Draft says on its support page:
Question
Can Final Draft import a PDF file?

Answer
No. PDF (Portable Document Format) files are designed to be read-only and cannot be directly imported into Final Draft for editing.
Also, the way Final Draft works, up through version 8 anyway, is that you do not choose paper size within the program. Instead, you choose it within your printer setup (which you can do in a couple of ways).

I have never tried to import a PDF file into Final Draft (and do not intend to try it as an experiment). If the original poster really did try to import a PDF into FD, then he could have had either or both of two results: (1) failure, maybe with a message; (2) some kind of unforeseen effect on FD.

If, in fact, his pages were 12 x 18 (inches?), then that does not correspond to any size of paper that I could find. However, it is fairly close to the size of A3 paper (11.7 x 16.5"). But A3 paper is so big that ordinary printers cannot handle it.

If the original poster comes back and sees this, let me ask: Did you really try to import a PDF directly? I ask because Final Draft itself says that you cannot do this.