Comments on: Title page trouble with Final Draft .pdfs

By: Ruth

Ruth — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:40:26 +0000

Hi: I’m still stumped on this one. I have followed the instructions, yet the title page is never attached. I read recently that producers and agents HATE the separate title page. So, I’ve opened and saved a new document, then with that open, I’ve opened, filled out, then closed the title page, and then close the screenplay. The title page just disappears. When I open the document again, there’s no title page attached. The same is true when it is emailed. Is there any way to attach the title page to the screenplay, or is this just a major flaw in the software? It seems silly to open a title page separately, just to see the title page. I am trying to save in a .fdt format. Can anyone help? Many thanks.

By: Brad

Brad — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 06:05:26 +0000

So you obviously have to do this when you're DONE writing the screenplay, right?

Because although your tip worked, and I have a PDF of the title page attached to the first few pages, I can't work on my script in PDF form, can I?

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 01:28:40 +0000

John,

In transferring files from Final Draft format to .pdf format, some of the actions and/or dialogue get infused (this happens most often when the word MORE showing the continuation to the next page appears within the next page's dialoge), and I cannot figure out how to get rid of this. Any thoughts?

By: amy

amy — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:50:01 +0000

Thank you so much. This has been a problem for me for YEARS and someone at Done Deal linked this. Hurray!

By: Andy Forrest

Andy Forrest — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 04:02:56 +0000

John,

I was having trouble with the Final Draft Title page save for PDF, I did a google search and you had the answer!

Thank you very much.

Andy Forrest

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:19:00 +0000

Definitely use Acrobat Distiller (this is part of the non-free version of Acrobat unfortunately) and "print to pdf" instead of using Final Draft's export to PDF feature. The distiller PDF doesn't have the reduced font size and the file size is 60% smaller.

Re: the title page-- I often find it better to export the title page separately anyway: as a title-only page (for contests) and as a standard title page (for normal submissions). I insert them as needed to the body of the script which is real easy to do in Acrobat.

By: Zak

Zak — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 07:05:43 +0000

A little off topic…I can’t seem to get the toolbar boxes to stay the way I want them. Anyone got a fix for that?

By: Stephen G

Stephen G — Mon, 28 May 2007 17:50:38 +0000

I didn't read the Final Draft manual either, John (good thing I read your site).

Thanks, Josh C.

By: Kellie B

Kellie B — Fri, 25 May 2007 05:40:50 +0000

After spending too many hours trying to solve this very problem with Finaldraft, I simply formatted my title page as the first page of my script document and set the page number to start at 0.

Now my title page comes up within my finaldraft document as the first page and the first page of my script starts with 1.

Perhaps it's too simplistic, but it worked for me. No more pesky pdf issues.

By: RAUL

RAUL — Thu, 24 May 2007 22:57:19 +0000

So, after what Scott (#26) and Lex (#30) said…, can you create a small pdf file without allowing people to copy-paste its text? I have Final Draft 7 in PC, and a 111-page script becomes a 4.4Mb pdf file. (However, now Gmail allows to send up to 20Mb! :)

By: Lex

Lex — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:33:38 +0000

Scott (#26):

I think the reason Final Draft's PDFs are so huge is that it converts the text to images or vector outlines (I'm not sure which) to prevent copying of the text within the PDF. If you have a PDF print driver (such as CutePDF) you can print to PDF and it will produce a much smaller file. The disadvantage is that people will be able to copy and paste the text directly from the PDF.