Final Draft update adds highlighting, quicker PDFs
Final Draft 8.01 adds one thing I really wanted — a highlighter right in the toolbar.
And for those frustrated by FD8 forcing you to create .pdfs through the Print dialog box, you can now make a .pdf right from the file menu. (Weirdly, the vestigial disabled Email menu item is still there.)
I’ve tested the new version for all of three minutes, so I certainly can’t vouch for its stability. And I haven’t tested its Script Compare ability at all, but it could be a handy way of created starred changes when you forget to turn revisions on.
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October 26th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Nothing to do with Final Draft. I just wanted to add another trope to the cliche bank. No more cops who are cops because they lost a loved one to a violent crime, particularly a parent.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:25 am
I’m having the damnedest time finding the UPPER CASE tool…
Happy Halloweek John and Family!
October 27th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Is this a Mac-only update? I’m not seeing it on my PC. Boo
October 27th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I’ve been holding off on FD8. I have Vista X64 and the PDF printing is broken. That highlight tool sounds good. But I came across a product called Movie Outline, that combines outlining with screenplay writing. I was thinking about it because I’m getting too many 5×8 cards piled up. If it works, I may switch. I’m about to upgrade to Windows 7.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:15 am
WOOOO-HOOOOO!
Many thanks to Kristen Thayer if she had anything to do with this! Or even ONE conversation brought about by the previous Waterfall-Of-Conversation inspired here. :)
A waterfall in which I just might have, in my huberous said: “It SHOULD keep up with the basic Special Olympics software standard of being smoother than Microsoft by having a highlight selector right on the control bar… but we’re not there yet. And if you’re on a PC… :) well… Your highlighter is safe… living happily in the candy forest with Charlie the Unicorn. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFCSXr6qnv4“
And for that reason, I thank you. :)
October 27th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
John,
Tech-related question: are you running FD8 on Snow Leopard? If so, how’s that working? A suggested improvement, or something to live without?
-Drew
October 27th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
@Drew:
I’ve had no problem with FD8 and Snow Leopard.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
There is one annoying thing about this new one… If you’ve installed both v7 and v8, when you click on a file, it opens in v7 and if it has that new extension, it won’t open in v7. Obviously. Now FD has a solution which doesn’t work:
http://kb.instantservice.com/iskb/SearchAnswer.cfm?NodeID=549212
And then they say: Uninstall both and choose one. Hello?! The whole point is to keep both. The problem just won’t go away. I don’t know how files get re-associated with v7…
If anyone knows the solution, let us know!
October 27th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
P. S. I have tried purging my computer from both versions with an extra powerful uninstaller, then tried to install v7 first – hasn’t worked out. Uninstalled again, tried installing v8 first, again – wrong. Tried fixed for file associations on some support websites – zero.
Now I’ll probably have to dig something out about how to fix this from the Registry or something. FD people do one right and TEN wrong.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
@Drew:
A second hand up here for FD8 on Snow Leopard on a MacBook Pro w/4GB. No issues. Smooth like butter for me. My only beef was that nobody made a decent FD icon for the dock so had to fanangle my own out of a Moleskin icon! :)
@Emma
-> Don’t know if I’m understanding you correctly, but it sounds like you want .FDX files to open in FD7. Don’t think that FD7 supports .FDX formats as it was introduced in FD8. Or are you’re writing in FD8 and saving all your drafts as .FDRs to maintain backwards compatibility with FD7?
-> If so and you’re on a Mac … To set either FD7 or FD8 as the app version to open a .FDR upon double clicking … Try GET INFO (CMD+I) on a .FDR file -> OPEN WITH -> select either FD8 or FD7 -> Then hit CHANGE ALL
Hope that helps.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Emma,
If you’re on Windows XP you can try the directions here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307859
If you’re on Vista you can follow these: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article02-500
October 28th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Thank you, Son1ze and Nima!
Son1ze, I installed both. I had the both prior to this updated, and .FDX files always normally opened in Final Draft 8. But with this update, things got messed up and even though the icon is right and it points to a right .EXE file in the right folder, it kept opening up in v7 (which clearly ended up with a mistake since it cannot read it).
Then I tryied installing v7 first, v8 second – thinking that v8 might overwrite file associations, but no look. Same with the reverse order. Their solution in the link I gave below didn’t work.
Somehow I think they’ve yet again messed things up with the code and perhaps improved a thing or two, but scr*wed up several others. Very frustrating
October 28th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I reckon most likely the FD8 development team probably didn’t take into account the users who might have both apps installed when compiling whatever source code they wrote for this update …
Also to be honest I have no clue as to how to help you further on PC/Windows XP/Vista end of things as, once upon a time ago, I caved to the pretty packaging of my somewhat overpriced, often over-hyped, but oh so indispensable Mac/OSX combo for as long as I can remember. Lol.
Besides not sure why you’d have both versions installed still … had both installed as well during my FD8-poking-toes-in-water trial phase, but ditched FD7 within a week & have been swimming with FD8 since. What’s your reasoning?
That said, if I were you I wouldn’t bother updating to 8.0.1 if it is too much of a hassle in the long run … the ol’ “If it ain’t broke …” adage.
Good luck!
October 28th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Son1ze, guess what? I solved it using Nima’s Annoyances.org solution, i.e. Creative Element Power Tools! A big thanks goes to Nima and you!
October 28th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
P. S. If it is in any way possible, since you, John, useboth MMS and FD, could you tell what is the most successful way of exporting a script from FD to MMS and vice versa, with the least amount of “re-touching”? Thanks!
October 28th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
The easiest ways to move a script from one program to the other is to just copy and paste the entire text of the document. Should work without any major errors.
October 28th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
How frustrating. The first release of v8 had a bug in its PDF formatting feature that resulted in inaccurate top and bottom margins. I know it’s not just my machine, since I’ve seen it in scripts floating around the internet, but when I told FD support about this, the wall of apathy was shocking. They showed absolutely zero interesting in understanding – let alone fixing – the problem, despite distracted assurances that their programmers “would look into it.” I held my tongue and waited for the first revision.
Well, here we are, and the problem persists. If I save my docs in FD7 format and use the old version (which I thankfully retained) to create my PDFs, the margins are accurate, but my opinion of Final Draft’s tech support, and Final Draft as a company, had plummeted.
October 28th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
this is a late response, john, but thanks! i appreciate the information!
October 29th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Nima, thanks! :)
Grimace, does this happen if you print to PDF using a different PDF creator than the one provided by Final Draft?
October 29th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
@Emma Barton – If I use a different PDF creator (I’ve tried PrimoPDF and PDFCreator), the margins are correct, but the font looks a little wispy compared to PDFs created by Final Draft.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:08 am
Emma: a program called Ccleaner is also good about fixing registry issues, esp. w/ un-installed programs and such
October 30th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I have that one, Chris! I solved the problem using the solution from Annoyances.org!
Grimace, that “wispy” look… Does that depend on the DPI resolution set in the PDF creator or…?
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
As the Product Manager for Final Draft I wanted to respond to the various issues posted here since many Final Draft users turn to John’s blog first to look for unbiased advice.
If you have a question about anything below please feel free to email me at pmATfinaldraft.com. Please note that I’m on maternity leave through the first week of December but will do my best to respond to you in a timely manner…
Email: John references the email menu option being disabled. Final Draft v.8 was designed to work only with MacMail and Entourage. One or the other must be set as the default email client in order for the menu option to be enabled. If you use another email program (including and especially web-based email programs such as Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo), you will have to attach the Final Draft file to it outside of Final Draft.
Double clicking v. 8 files launches Final Draft v. 7: This was a legitimate issue and we have already posted a patch on the updates page for this problem. It only occurs for Windows users who have both versions 7 and 8 installed on their computers. Here is a link to the page for easy reference: http://finaldraft.com/support/software/final-draft-8.php
PDF and Vista 64 bit: Although not widely reported, the 8.0.1 update supports Vista 64 bit, Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6. The third party provider we use for PDF creation (Amyuni) released their update for Windows 7/64 bit after we released version 8 so we weren’t able to get this fix in for the initial release of version 8.
Margin differences: There is a reason why your margins may look different now than before. In previous releases of Final Draft it was possible for a user to adjust the margins outside the area his/her printer would support. A user might not notice this because the application would adjust pagination rather than clipping any script text. What this also means is that people with older printers or printers with non-standard settings could see different pagination than someone else with a different printer. This issue also applied to PDF files because the PDF output is just a printer driver like any other printer. In order to comply with industry specifications and to ensure consistency across platforms and printers, we addressed this in the 8.0.1 update by providing a warning and allowing you to reset the margins – which means that margins on some scripts may become slightly bigger.