What format should I send my script in?
I’ve just finished my first script and a few people who I’d like to impress have asked me to send it to them over email. My question is, what is the proper format for sending scripts through email? Do I attach it as a Final Draft document? Convert it to a Word document? Something else I don’t know about? Thanks.
–Ryan
Los Angeles
Since you can’t count on your friends having the right version of any given program, your best bet is to convert it to a .pdf document. Both Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter can do this pretty easily.
In Screenwriter, choose “Print…” from the File menu, then choose “PDF (Adobe Acrobat) File” from the “Print To:” pop-up menu. Screenwriter gives you the option to make bookmarks from all the scene headings in the file, which is helpful.
In Final Draft, simply choose “Save as PDF…” from the File menu. One caveat: in some versions of Final Draft, the .pdfs generated this way are huge.
As an alternate for Mac OS X, you can choose “PDF” from the main print dialog box, which bypasses the program and grabs the real information that would be sent to the printer. This system-wide ability of Mac OS X is a godsend; I use it all the time.
Almost everyone I know uses .pdfs these days to turn in scripts. You can pretty much count on them printing out properly, and it saves a lot of hassle dealing with couriers and photocopiers.
Articles
July 28th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
Piece of advice for Final Draft (vers. 6) users: Make sure you fill out the title page. It is automatically generated when file is saved as pdf. Hence if you don’t fill out that page, the first thing you (or that big producer who can make your dreams come true) will see is a bland: “(Name of Project) By (Name of First Writer)”. Not exactly an incentive to read on. In addition, Adobe counts this title page as a regular page, i.e. your page count is off by one page. Which can cause confusion, especially when in development or production (number the scenes!). To avoid this you want to open the title page in Final Draft and delete all fields. That way the pdf version of your script opens on FADE IN (i.e. the first page of the actual screenplay). One last tip: if you delete the title page make sure you put the title of your work and your name on top of the first page (right above “Fade Inâ€?). You can also use a header so the title/name/draft/date appear on top of every page. In this case use a smaller font and light gray color so the header text does not distract from the script.
July 29th, 2005 at 12:23 am
In Final Draft 6 PDF conversions also screw up “MORE” and sometimes “CONT’D.” They will appear spontaneously in the middle of pages overlapping action lines and dialogue. If anyone knows how to correct this problem, lemme know!
July 29th, 2005 at 1:10 am
Also, if whatever you’re using to write your script doesn’t have the ability to write out to PDF (like MS Word, for example), you can use something like pdf995 which will appear as a printer in Word, but will create a PDF file.
OpenOffice has PDF export built in and is, in my opinion, a great replacement to MS Office (and it’s free… as in both beer and speech…)
July 29th, 2005 at 6:49 am
Anyone had a problem with the font when the reciever prints the pdf script converted from Final Draft? If their computer doesn’t have the Courier Final Draft font, the script replaces it with some godawful font that looks terrible. And Final Draft software only has their version of the Courier font.
What am I doing wrong here?
T
July 29th, 2005 at 8:45 am
Tim,
You can choose whatever font you want to use in Final Draft. Courier Final Draft is the default, but you can just switch to plain Courier (assuming you have it as a system font — and I don’t know of any OS that doesn’t include it in the system fonts). What you would want to do is to open up the Elements menu, select any element and change its font to the one you want, then select Apply Font/Size To All.
July 29th, 2005 at 11:58 am
Thanks Brandon. The weird thing is that plain Courier doesn’t show up in the font list in Final Draft, even though it’s there in other apps like Word.
It’s probably just my stupid machine.
Cheers
July 29th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
I’m not sure how, using the pdf option from the print dialog box (in OS X), to get my title page included in the resulting pdf file. Acrobat includes it, but I’ve got a dual dialogue section in my current script, which Acrobat can’t seem to handle. Can anyone advise as to how to handle, short of creating two separate pdf files, one for the title page, one for the script?
July 31st, 2005 at 10:58 pm
Hey John, thank you for this post, very timely as I have just sent Final Draft pages to a director this Friday and he couldn’t open them. (first fifteen pages of my production re-write. So you can imagine it wasn’t like sending a ecard to my cousin congratulating them on a new job). This is not the first time this has happened this year to me with Final Draft and I’ve had it with this crap. Of course, I didn’t hit the pdf button. Curious your thoughts on Final Draft as the program of choice re: others, or if you just hit the pdf button on any of them, and it doesn’t matter at all. Best, Philip Morton.
August 1st, 2005 at 12:23 am
Matt: Not sure if I completely understand your question (I blame the all-night writing binge), but what I think your asking is how to create a PDF with the title page included.
If you’re using Final Draft you can use the “Save AS PDF” feature under the File menu. Your title page will be included.
If you’re choosing the “Save As PDF” button in your print dialogue box (which saves to an Apple “Preview” PDF), or choosing Adobe Acrobat as your “printer” in the dialogue box and simply clicking print to save to an “Acrobat” file, the title page will not be included, needs to be created as a seperate PDF and then joined to the script in Acrobat Distiller.
Interesetingly, on my system, when using the “Save As PDF” feature in either Final Draft (v7) or the print dialogue box, the generated 120 page file is about 200 KB. When printing to Acrobat 6, it’s about 1.7MB — a difference I would readily classify as whopping. I “suspect” the latter may have to do with Acrobad embedding fonts, but that’s just a naive guess.
So, if you’re on FD7 and you want the title page in, just Save As PDF under the file menu. It doesn’t seem to create the huge files John says occur with other versions. You can always use Acrobat Distiller to delete that page later if needed.
August 12th, 2005 at 11:31 am
I’ve been using Final Draft for over a year — my co-writer and I are about to submit — and this is the first time I’ve heard of this feature.
THANK YOU!
Steven
August 15th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
I have Final Draft 5 — when I go to “Save As” I don’t see the option to Save as PDF. Is this because I have an older version?
Thanks, Eric
August 17th, 2005 at 2:27 am
If you’re using Word, you can convert to a pdf with adobe’s website at http://createpdf.adobe.com/.
You have to create an ID first, but there are five free gos at creating the pdf.
September 2nd, 2005 at 8:36 pm
Hey, I don’t know if there’s something wrong with my Final Draft program (6.0), but whenever I create a title page for the script and then save the script, the title page is never connected to the script I just saved. It’s just saved as a different file. So whenever I convert to adobe acrobat form I can never get the title page to appear. It always has the embarrassing…”title goes here” stuff. I accidentally connected them once, but I’m not sure just how to do it. I have a feeling it’s the program because it’s getting much harder than it should be. Okay, thanks!
March 17th, 2006 at 6:48 am
I didn’t create a title page first day and now have exported as a pdf….how can I go back in and make myself a title page after the fact that will not then upset the page count?
December 8th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
I have done it all.Wrote a nice query letter,wrote my script in final draft 7,and now i must know where to send it.I just can’t find the wright adress of the agents.I don’t wont to pay money for publishing my script on the net,or pay someone to send it for me…I need help,how to find them:( I am from Croatia and i have worked so hard on my script,translating it.I hope is ok now,but i am always hoping they will give me a brake becouse English is not my first language.Is a great story,but for high budget movie so i don’t have a chance in my country.I am aiming on american market.So if u can help me with this,i would be grateful.
December 9th, 2006 at 1:55 am
And i have so miss the subject…sorry.I will just say that i love final draft 7,is perfect.One more time…i am sorry for not watching the subject:)
January 20th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
where do i send my script and how can i find some one 2 give it too
February 27th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Eric says: August 15th, 2005 at 5:17 pm I have Final Draft 5 — when I go to “Save As� I don’t see the option to Save as PDF. Is this because I have an older version?
Thanks, Eric
I have the same problem and I don’t see a reply… anyone out there know how to save a final draft v.5 to pdf? There doesn’t appear to be a pdf option under ’save as’…
May 19th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
For those having problems with adding a title page to a Final Draft PDF file.
Yes, Final Draft will automatically create a title page if you save your screenplay as a PDF, but there’s a trick to it (ps, I’m using Final Draft version 6.0.6.0)
Save your screenplay as normal (as a .fdr)
With your saved screenplay still open, go to Document > Title Page. A new, blank Title Page opens.
Fill in the blanks, then just CLOSE THE TITLE PAGE. This is the part that I got hung up on forever. If you leave the title page open, then try to save as a PDF, it won’t work. The Title page WON’T attach itself to the PDF if the Title Page is still open when you try to Save as. Just close the Title Page. It saves automatically to your screenplay.
With your screenplay still open, go to File > Save As — then select Adobe Acrobat Document (*pdf) – or whatever your computer says. Save the new PDF file somewhere and open it up. The Title Page should be attached at the top of the screenplay where it should be :)
Hope this helps, Josh C
July 27th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I’m using Final Draft 7.1.3 and when I try and change my font from Courier Final Draft to plain, old Courier, it will automatically change back to Courier Final Draft. Is anyone else having this problem, and if so, do you know how to fix it?
December 20th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I’ve spent three NOT bing able to submit my Final Draft play sript as a fdf or pdf ( it prompts me that my printer path is invalid) I can’t get it converted and sent. I’m beginning to think my Outlook Express simply won’t forward a big file???? Please advise, lonn