![]() fdx file format, which may follow in the footsteps of the. But for existing users, the decision to upgrade may have less to do with new features than an increasing pressure to switch to the. Macworld’s buying adviceįinal Draft 8 is simpler than ever for beginning users subtle feature fixes, bountiful script templates, and top-notch support for the production rewrite process ensure that an aspiring A-list writer won’t quickly outgrow the software. and your deadline is first thing in the morning, it seems like a bargain. Subsequent minutes will set you back a hefty $2.50 apiece, but when it’s 3 a.m. In addition to e-mail support and live chat, Final Draft still provides 24/7 phone support, the first 20 minutes of which are free. During 10 days of testing, I experienced nary a crash or freeze.Īlso welcome was Final Draft’s continued commitment to multi-tiered customer support. Veteran Final Draft users contemplating an upgrade can rest assured that all the bugs that plagued the release of version 7 didn’t show up for the picnic this time around. It does what it’s supposed to do, and it does it well. Overall, I was very impressed by the stability and formatting consistency of Final Draft 8. Thanks to color coding in the Scene Navigator, a single glance helps you identify improperly interwoven stretches of story. How is this useful? Well, one might color-code scenes according to whether they represent the adventure A-story, the romance B-story, or the humorous C-story. In addition, it now provides a variety of scene information in table format, including scene start pages, scene page count, and color coding. First off, it’s now a floating palette, so you can leave it open all the time when you’re writing and use it to quickly navigate to portions of your script in progress. Most importantly, it lets you add a title to each scene, like “Hero Finds Amulet.” The resulting view essentially becomes a high-level skeletal outline of your story–very handy.įinal Draft 8’s Scene Navigator is a big improvement over previous versions’ Navigator function. Though I really enjoyed the double-sided interface, I found myself wishing that I could just flip individual cards with a mouse click.Īlso useful for story planning and evaluation is the newly added Scene View feature, which strips your script to its bare bones, displaying only slug lines, a little description, and page numbers. Unfortunately, flipping the cards is a little clunky, as you have to select the appropriate Index Cards state in the View menu, which then flips all cards simultaneously. The virtual index cards that are used for outlining and notes are now double-sided-one side displays scene notes and the other displays corresponding scene dialogue and description. Final Draft’s Index Card feature also gets a usability boost in version 8.
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