About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

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  • About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

    John August is a font nerd ("nerd" is not a pejorative). He's posted a new "Courier Prime" font for FD - http://johnaugust.com/2013/introducing-courier-prime. He says it was specifically designed to be "substituted letter-for-letter with Courier Final Draft". And, for both Windows and Mac.

    But... On my Win7 machine with FD8, it turned my 118-page script into a 158-page script. Even if I change the line spacing to "Very tight", it's still waaay off. IOW, it's worse than if you try to use MM Courier with FD.

    IIRC, John August is a Mac guy, so... And, it's free, so...

    In any event - FYI, if you use FD on a Windows machine, this font might not work for you. It doesn't for me.

    Addendum:

    If you click over to the font dl page, there's an FAQ. There it essentially is explained that this font is not compatible with Windows, after all:
    I’m using Final Draft for Windows. Any special warnings?

    (sigh) Yes, unfortunately.

    Final Draft for Windows uses a special version of their house font with a different line height. So while you can absolutely use Courier Prime, your page breaks might change if you swap back and forth between Courier Final Draft and Courier Prime. Likewise, if your writing partner is using Courier Prime on Final Draft for the Mac, and you open that file on Windows, page breaks might be off.

    It’s a Final Draft problem, not a font problem, so it’s out of our control.

    Note that PDFs work great, so the only hiccups come when passing around an FDX file.

    I find it puzzling that, on the one hand, it says, "Final Draft for Windows uses a special version of their house font with a different line height", then OTOH says, "It’s a Final Draft problem, not a font problem, so it’s out of our control."

    Bottom line: While this font will "work" in FD on Windows in the sense that it will appear on your screen... Beyond that, as a practical matter, it doesn't actually work in FD on Windows.
    Last edited by Manchester; 01-28-2013, 04:39 PM.

  • #2
    Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

    I actually prefer the look of traditional Courier to the new Courier Prime, except for the improved italics.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

      Maybe try adjusting the top and bottom margins slightly until things match up? FWIW, the same thing happened to me.
      All the best,
      Lee
      __________________________________
      I'm not just a screenwriter...
      I also write and illustrate picture books!

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

        I just put my new spec into Prime and it's great IMO.

        And by great I mean sexy.

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        • #5
          Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

          Armak, are you running Mac? I love the font too, but can't use it.
          All the best,
          Lee
          __________________________________
          I'm not just a screenwriter...
          I also write and illustrate picture books!

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

            On my Win7 machine with FD8, it turned my 118-page script into a 158-page script.
            I downloaded the font and did some quick testing, using the traditional six-lines-per inch standard (which really means baseline of line 1 to baseline of line 7).

            TESTS ON COURIER PRIME in Windows 7

            In Final Draft, the line spacing for "single spacing" is entirely too much.

            Six lines of text ran about 1.34". If we take that as a ratio for the additional length, we get:

            118 pages x 1.34 = ~158 pages in Manchester's script

            Amazing how math works, isn't it?

            In Word, "single spacing" puts six lines in 1.3" (close to what Final Draft does).

            In Word, though, you can adjust the line spacing to get six lines into 1" if you want to do so. Consequently, Courier Prime is quite serviceable as a font in Word and any program in which the line spacing can be adjusted with precision.

            In both Final Draft and Word, the characters per inch (cpi) was a little higher than the 10 cpi that you got in a traditional Courier on a typewriter (which was 10 cpi if you had "pica" type, and 12 cpi for "elite" type). This measurement that is slightly more than 10 cpi is normal in Final Draft even with its own font.

            In Screenwriter 6, "single spacing" rendered exactly six lines per inch. Also, the characters per inch was so close to 10 that I would judge the deviation to be insignificant in a full line of text.

            I am not really crazy about the 'y' without a foot, but I can live with the new design.

            All things considered, though, I see no advantage to using this font over Courier Screenplay, which is also free.

            But naturally, being a Courier fan, I have added Courier Prime to my collection.

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

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

              Any idea if it will go into MM? (Sorry, I'm not fluent in this sort of thing.)

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

                Originally posted by ComicBent View Post
                In Screenwriter 6, "single spacing" rendered exactly six lines per inch. Also, the characters per inch was so close to 10 that I would judge the deviation to be insignificant in a full line of text.
                Originally posted by carcar View Post
                Any idea if it will go into MM? (Sorry, I'm not fluent in this sort of thing.)
                I believe that ComicBent's reference to "Screenwriter 6" means, "Yes."

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

                  Oh, sorry, I read Windows 7 and since I run on Mac...

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

                    Originally posted by LFGabel View Post
                    Armak, are you running Mac? I love the font too, but can't use it.
                    Yup, an older Macbook Pro. Didn't change the page count, just made it all pretty.

                    Final Draft pro-tip: apply the new font from the Elements dialogue box, or else you'll waste a buncha time like I did.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

                      Just for the record, Fade In seems to handle this properly as well, on Mac, Windows, and Linux, as it should (or at least is designed to).

                      It's a nice font. Very close display-wise to Courier Screenplay - which is a good thing - making it strong, well-formed, and highly readable. (Although the italic face is entirely new and different.)

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

                        worked perfectly for MMSW6 on windows

                        Only thing is, when I export to PDF it defaults back to the old courier.

                        And since everything gets sent by pdf these days, kinda defeats the purpose. Also, even if it was pdf'd in courier prime, wouldn't the person receiving it need that font? If they don't, and they probably won't, it'd just sub in plain old courier right? In which case, I'd rather just see it on my computer the way everybody else will see it.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

                          Originally posted by Mossbraker View Post
                          worked perfectly for MMSW6 on windows

                          Only thing is, when I export to PDF it defaults back to the old courier.

                          And since everything gets sent by pdf these days, kinda defeats the purpose. Also, even if it was pdf'd in courier prime, wouldn't the person receiving it need that font? If they don't, and they probably won't, it'd just sub in plain old courier right? In which case, I'd rather just see it on my computer the way everybody else will see it.
                          Not that I recommend using that new font... But have you tried "printing" to pdf w/ a (free) 3rd-party ap versus "exporting" to pdf.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

                            Manchester is correct. You will be able to use Courier Prime with a third-party PDF driver.

                            A free PDF driver like primoPDF will embed the font that you have used in your script. And, no, the recipient does NOT need to have that font on his machine, provided that the PDF has the font embedded in it.

                            A disadvantage of MMS6 is that it does NOT embed a font when you create a PDF. Hence you get the default Courier Type 1 font.

                            But you can download a free driver like primoPDF. All you have to do is install by clicking on the .exe file. It will install itself as a "printer" that you will select as your printer when you print the script. The driver will then create a PDF instead of actually printing physical pages.

                            The download link redirects to CNET (reliable site). The direct link to the free version of the PDF driver is this CNET link. If that ever fails to work, try the link to primoPDF and then find the link there.
                            Last edited by ComicBent; 01-30-2013, 05:26 PM.

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

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                            • #15
                              Re: About - John August's new Courier Prime font for FD

                              Nice, thanks!

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