Final draft page count oddity

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  • Final draft page count oddity

    So I decided to do some more work on a script that I hadn't touched for about a month or so.

    I open up the latest draft in FD (version 8) and it's 96 pages long. This strikes me straight away because I clearly remember having done extensive editing in the last draft and cutting it down to 90 pages. So I open up the PDF I had saved at the time of the same draft... and lo and behold it's 90 pages.

    I wonder if someone is playing some kind of strange trick on me, so I decide to compare the text of the first few pages...

    The text is the same, EXCEPT, final draft is pushing lines down. So for example the last three lines on Page 1 are now at the top of Page 2 instead in final draft. And over the course of the script this incremental pushing has added 6 pages to my script!

    Okay this is a purely cosmetic change, but where I had a tight 90 page script I now have 96 pages which is not exactly the end of the world, but not great either. And I worry if this bloating effect will recur again in another months time or whatever.

    I've never played with the margins or settings or anything in Final Draft, always left it at default. Anyone else had this or a similar problem in FD? Or have any clue why this might be happening?

    Now I did originally write a couple of drafts in a very old version of MMS which I then exported into FD. But that was many, many drafts ago, and I've never noticed this page inflation thingy with Final draft before...

    Edit: I did notice that going from my old version of Movie Magic to FD always pushed the page count up a little, but I was fine with that. This increasing of page count within FD is something i've never seen before.
    Last edited by Klazart; 04-06-2015, 01:45 AM.

  • #2
    Re: Final draft page count oddity

    One of the many annoying features of Final Draft is that it automatically adjusts the page size to that of your default printer but doesn't indicate what paper size it's using anywhere in the program, or warn you if it has changed. I suspect that is the reason for the increase in the number of pages in your script - either someone changed the paper size of the default printer or changed the default printer to a different one.

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    • #3
      Re: Final draft page count oddity

      Originally posted by justin View Post
      One of the many annoying features of Final Draft is that it automatically adjusts the page size to that of your default printer...
      Yep.

      It's all the more stupid because FD has its own Save-to-PDF function, and so it should allow you to set literal, unchanging margins if only to dovetail with Save-To-PDF.

      Short of that, FD should at least allow you to pick a default printer for FD, independent of your system default printer.

      This is one reason my default printer on Windows for all programs has been/is my pdf printer.

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      • #4
        Re: Final draft page count oddity

        Might want to also check the default spacing before a new slugline, because when i upgraded then copied and pasted a section into a new FD sheet it defaulted to 1.5 instead on 1.0.
        "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy b/c you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowden

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        • #5
          Re: Final draft page count oddity

          Originally posted by finalact4 View Post
          Might want to also check the default spacing before a new slugline, because when i upgraded then copied and pasted a section into a new FD sheet it defaulted to 1.5 instead on 1.0.
          Yeah, I was going to suggest the same thing, on mine when I open a new screenplay the Space Before for sluglines is set to 2, it can add a few pages. Also are you using Continued header and footers?

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          • #6
            Re: Final draft page count oddity

            Thanks guys. It's not the spacing before, as I checked that and everything else. It must be the printer because I am visiting family so it's a different printer, though the paper size is the same A4. I can't believe final draft is this Orwellian. Is there anyway to change the setting in final draft to be fixed in terms of page count?

            I'm not using continueds except in specific cases, but again that hasn't changed from the last version to this one so there is no reason for the page count to increase because of that. Though I did check it all the same.

            It must be the printer thingy. How nuts is that. I will play with the printer settings and report back.

            Thank you all so much for shedding some light on this!

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            • #7
              Re: Final draft page count oddity

              Originally posted by Klazart View Post
              Thanks guys. It's not the spacing before, as I checked that and everything else. It must be the printer because I am visiting family so it's a different printer, though the paper size is the same A4. I can't believe final draft is this Orwellian. Is there anyway to change the setting in final draft to be fixed in terms of page count?
              AFAIK, no.

              I'm assuming you're using Windows. Anyway, lots of software on Windows does that.

              For example, in MS Word, back when I had a laser printer and an inkjet printer, pagination would change in my Word doc depending on which printer was selected. If my default was the laser printer and I opened the doc, it paginated one way. Then if I switched in Word to select the inkjet, it would re-paginate for the inkjet. Then, close Word, reopen it, and it would again paginate for the default/laser.

              Some software I have remembers the last-selected printer for each doc, but in my experience with Windows, most software always opens with pagination per the default printer.

              In a way FD is even worse, because if you open a doc and print to a non-default printer, FD doesn't "remember" that selection even as you keep that FD doc open. And, IIRC, even with a non-default printer selected for a specific printing, it won't re-paginate for that.

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              • #8
                Re: Final draft page count oddity

                Yeah it was the printer thing. I changed the default back to my original printer and I'm back down to my 90 pages. How silly final draft is!

                It's a pity there is no way to fix it. I suppose it's a handy enough way to change the page count now. I can make it longer or shorter by a few pages simply by changing the default printer without the appearance of any 'cheating.'

                Thanks again all.

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                • #9
                  Re: Final draft page count oddity

                  Originally posted by Klazart View Post
                  It's a pity there is no way to fix it.
                  They could fix it easily if they wanted to.

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