Screenwriting Softwares????

S

screen_writer

New member
Everyone!!!

I am currently using Sophocles to write my scripts but was researching for a better program.

I have looked at Movie Outline, Scriptware, Movie Magic Screenwriter and Final Draft.

I do like Sophocles but it seems not to be the software used in the industry. I like that for example, I can hit <ctrl> I and it will automatically put everything in caps lock and write out INT. or if I put an open parenthesis underneath the character's name, it knows what to do & once I put the end parenthesis, it automatically goes to the next line for the character's dialog; however, if I decide to change a character's name, I have to go through the whole script and do it. It doesn't have a find and replace option nor does it just automatically know that I want to change that character's name and change it automatically for me.

It seems to be a toss up between MMS and Final Draft as far as what the industry is using but I've heard and read pros and cons about both, not sure what to do. Please advise!!!

Thanks so much for any help!!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
 
I use celtx because it's free and I'm cheap. :P

Um, maybe I should say, I would rather spend money on making the script, then paying for script software... Does that make me sound less stingy?
 
Maybe consider downloading free trial versions of MMS and FD and try each out, see which you prefer?

screen_writer said:
Everyone!!!

I am currently using Sophocles to write my scripts but was researching for a better program.

I have looked at Movie Outline, Scriptware, Movie Magic Screenwriter and Final Draft.

I do like Sophocles but it seems not to be the software used in the industry. I like that for example, I can hit <ctrl> I and it will automatically put everything in caps lock and write out INT. or if I put an open parenthesis underneath the character's name, it knows what to do & once I put the end parenthesis, it automatically goes to the next line for the character's dialog; however, if I decide to change a character's name, I have to go through the whole script and do it. It doesn't have a find and replace option nor does it just automatically know that I want to change that character's name and change it automatically for me.

It seems to be a toss up between MMS and Final Draft as far as what the industry is using but I've heard and read pros and cons about both, not sure what to do. Please advise!!!

Thanks so much for any help!!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
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Well, not to be a bucket of cold water . . .

But this isn't that big of a deal -- certainly not worth getting your blood pressure up about.

They're all fine. Pick any of them. They'll do what you need. Seriously. Any.

There are things you need to be far more worried about than this.

:)
 
i use to use celtx. Then I made the switch to FD. Its all the same, just different buttons to press.
 
I've used them all, and Sophocles was actually my favourite. By far the most stable and least buggy, with some really fantastic outlining features. But it's been discontinued (very mysteriously) so I can't get a serial for my new laptop, and I've been forced to switch.

If you've got a working version of Sophocles, I'd stick with it. It's really solid.
 
Celtx is excellent for the money and, unlike the rest, has constant and ongoing updates and feature-sets added. For free. That's open source. Often, open apps. have glitchy issues or strange features, but Celtx is made by people who write and do pre-production on pictures.

If you've ever used FD or MMSW, you should download Celtx, explore the features and then make a decision based on your experience.

e
 
I was going to switch to Celtx a few months ago prior to their v1 release, i think i tried 0.9 at the time, and it was buggy--seemed to work fine, until you imported a 120 page script in text file format, froze it up; so i suggest whomever tries out Celtx copy and paste text to make a 200 page text file screenplay, import that to Celtx, see how it manages that size of a file. Version 1.0 might be okay now, may have fixed that glitch. (PS: For those using Linux, specifically Ubuntu Linux, I found the Celtx for MS_Windows ran better in Linux using a Wine install, rather than the native Linux download install.)

Erik Olson said:
Celtx is excellent for the money and, unlike the rest, has constant and ongoing updates and feature-sets added. For free. That's open source. Often, open apps. have glitchy issues or strange features, but Celtx is made by people who write and do pre-production on pictures.

If you've ever used FD or MMSW, you should download Celtx, explore the features and then make a decision based on your experience.

e
Click to expand...
 
I use Final Draft now. Used to use OpenOffice. I tried Celtx but did not like it. As mentioned above, download the trials and decide what you like and go with it.
 
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