Autoformatting in FD

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  • Autoformatting in FD

    quick question.. when i stare at Final Draft i feel a bit of pressure to keep things neat and it slows down the creative process. I'd like to write in something like Pages or Notepad since heard that one can import any document and FD will automatically format it.. What's a good word processor to use for this? And how well does that feature work at detecting characters, action, etc?

  • #2
    Re: Autoformatting in FD

    You're thinking of fountain and Final Draft doesn't support it.

    www.Fountain.io

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    • #3
      Re: Autoformatting in FD

      Final Draft does not support Fountain, but Fountain is a text file. Sometimes you need to use a special formatting command in Fountain, but you will not need to do so as long as you stick to very standard screenplay format.

      Final Draft will import text very well as long as you do not vary from standard format. You get into trouble when you do things like this in text files:

      Charles looks over at

      RICHARD

      who breaks out in loud laughter.


      In such a case you might see FD interpreting RICHARD as a Character name, and the next paragraph as dialogue.

      Go to this site and download the free Treepad Lite 4.3. With it you can write things scene by scene or make notes about characters and events, and then save as a text file, which you can import into Final Draft.

      "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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      • #4
        Re: Autoformatting in FD

        Originally posted by ComicBent View Post
        Final Draft will import text very well as long as you do not vary from standard format.
        Mustardeer, I agree. (Though I might say "will import text [kinda] very well".) And CB's right regarding his example - that that will cause Final Draft to hiccup. But otherwise, it should work for you.

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        • #5
          Re: Autoformatting in FD

          you guys are the best!

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          • #6
            Re: Autoformatting in FD

            I forgot to mention that you can use Fountain format in Treepad Lite or any text editor, and THEN convert the Fountain file to Final Draft fdx format. To convert the file.fountain, just go to this site.

            You can upload your Fountain file quickly and painlessly. The online site will then convert your file to an fdx file that will import perfectly into Final Draft version 8 or 9.

            A few of the more uncommon Fountain features will not convert (like dual dialogue), but you can eliminate the mistakes that are common because of CAPITALIZED words at the left margin.

            "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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            • #7
              Re: Autoformatting in FD

              I write in Microsoft Word (decent, easily accessible Thesaurus; infinitely better spell check than FD) and save as *.rtf

              Drag the file into FD and it formats 95-99% correct.

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