Retroactively mark revisions in Final Draft?

[Bunker]

I just completed a polish for a producer, and I foolishly didn't do it in revision mode.

I'd like to give them a doc that has the changes marked in the margins with asterisks. Is there a way to get Final Draft to retroactively compare two drafts and say "changes were made here, here and here"?

The "script compare" function is close to what I'm looking for. Unfortunately, it crosses out all the old lines, making it hard to read. It also puts all the changes into a continuous document, instead of locking page numbers, so it makes referencing difficult.

[ComicBent]

Re: Retroactively mark revisions in Final Draft?

I have never seen this question come up before. Unfortunately, I do not have a great answer, but here is something that I figured out. A simpler and more elegant method may exist. But I have been doing my taxes for two days, and my brain is now at 17 percent of optimal function.

Here goes. At least this worked in FD 10.

Open the original script (let's call it Script-A).

Under "Tools" select "Script Compare".

Open the "polished" script (let's call it Script-B).

Doing this, you automatically create a new script called something or other with the word "Change" added to it.

When I tested two scripts this way, the deletions in Script-A appeared as red strikeout. Insertions into Script-A (as seen in Script-B) appeared in blue.

Now use Production > Revision Mode to enter Revision Mode. The purpose of this is that you want to mark the changes that you are about to make.

Here comes the part that will not make you happy, though really it is no big deal. You have to go through the script and highlight (select) the red text that has been deleted. Select it and delete it. Because you are in revision mode, FD will automatically put * by the paragraph that you have tinkered with.

Do these manual deletions of all the red text. Actually this is not so bad. It is easier than you might think, and it gives you a chance to do some further polishing.

After you finish deleting and revising, the red deletions are gone, and you have all your insertions still present in blue text. If you do not want the blue, you can change everything to black. To accomplish this, first GO OUT OF REVISION MODE, and then select all of the text in your script. Use "Format > Text Color" to change the selected text to black.

I hope I got all of that right. My brain is now down to 16 percent. Everything goes to H&R Block tomorrow.

Do not forget to save your work.

[Bunker]

Re: Retroactively mark revisions in Final Draft?

Thanks, ComicBent!

You're right. It wasn't so bad to go through manually and mark the changes. It took about an hour. I ignored the small stuff, as no one really cares if I slightly reworded a sentence here and there.

It's silly that Final Draft has the revision tool AND the script compare tool, but has no way to combine their powers. Seems like a relatively easy thing to program, especially if they're already on version 10.

[ComicBent]

Re: Retroactively mark revisions in Final Draft?

Just for anyone who might be interested (and I think that this is helpful), here is how you would handle the same situation in Fade In. I think that the Fade In method is better.

Suppose that you have the following speech:

                         PIERCE
          No, we just moved in here two days 
          ago. We haven't met anybody yet.

You decide you want to change 'anybody' to 'any neighbors'.

Your polished version then looks like this:

                         PIERCE
         No, we just moved in here two days 
         ago. We haven't met any neighbors yet.

To perform a script comparison, you open the polished version first and then you open the previous (original) version (use "Document > Compare to Previous" to open the original version).

You see a dialog asking you whether you want to see additions only or all changes. You want to see all changes.

When you click All Changes, a combined version of the two scripts opens (it has a name to keep it separate from the other versions).

Here is what you see for all the paragraphs that have undergone even a single change. The old paragraph has a red background; the revised paragraph has a green background. NOTE: This board does not support background colors (just text colors), so I will use text colors here.

                         PIERCE
          No, we just moved in here two days 
          ago. We haven't met anybody yet.
          No, we just moved in here two days 
          ago. We haven't met any neighbors yet.

You can now make any edits to the red or green paragraphs. Then, you can get rid of the paragraph that you do not want. For example, to get rid of the red paragraph (the original), click it three times - this selects the entire paragraph. Then hit Delete. Zap, it is gone!

To change all the remaining red or green text backgrounds to white, just select the text of the entire script; then right-click to bring up a context menu; then click Highlight, which will undo the color highlighting.

If you want to mark revisions after the fact, as Bunker wanted to do, then you can enter the Revision Mode after you create the comparative version. Select Blue or some other color for your Revision Mode (just not White). When you delete a red paragraph, a * appears next to the polished green version. Unfortunately, in rare instances when you decide that you like the old red version, and you delete the new green paragraph, a * appears by the following paragraph - and that is not what you want. This is a bug that I will report to Kent. However, you can easily remove that * manually by selecting the paragraph and using Production > Unmark Revision. Before you try to remove any background highlighting, be sure to go out of Revision Mode (which you do by selecting White as the Revision Mode).

[SBdeb]

Re: Retroactively mark revisions in Final Draft?

It's silly that Final Draft has the revision tool AND the script compare tool, but has no way to combine their powers. Seems like a relatively easy thing to program, especially if they're already on version 10.

When do you typically use the script compare tool?

[ComicBent]

Re: Retroactively mark revisions in Final Draft?

When do you typically use the script compare tool?

It does not come up very often, but sometimes it is a useful tool.

Sometimes you want to compare an older version with a more recent version. Probably some time has passed between the two versions, and maybe it has been a while since you worked on the most recent version. You just want to look at what you have done and create something usable from the two versions.

[SBdeb]

Re: Retroactively mark revisions in Final Draft?

It does not come up very often, but sometimes it is a useful tool.

Sometimes you want to compare an older version with a more recent version. Probably some time has passed between the two versions, and maybe it has been a while since you worked on the most recent version. You just want to look at what you have done and create something usable from the two versions.

Dumb question (my specialty), but would you have had to given the files different names?

[ComicBent]

Re: Retroactively mark revisions in Final Draft?

Dumb question (my specialty), but would you have had to given the files different names?

All of us have heard people say, "There are no dumb questions."

That is so close to being absolutely true that I will just agree with it. There are no dumb questions.

Yes, the files must have different names. Now, if the two files are in different folders, they can have the same name. However, this can become confusing if you are trying to compare files. So if you are going to compare files, make sure that they have different names.

In Final Draft and in Fade In, you get automated backups of the script that you working on. These have different names in the backup folder. Both Final Draft and Fade In use date and time in the name of each file to distinguish it from other backups.

Clarification:

Final Draft automatically makes a backup of the file when you save. It does this even if your automatic backup is set for 30 minutes and you only edit a file for a minute or so and then save it.

Fade In does not make an automatic backup in the same way. If you have your time set for 30 minutes, Fade In does not do the automatic backup before the 30 minutes are up, not even when you save and exit. (I do not know whether the timer resets if you manually save your file after a minute or so.)

The practical result of this difference in how the programs back up is that Final Draft saves a version to the backup folder every time that you save the file. Fade In does not; the Fade In backup is strictly a safety feature to make sure that a backup takes place, though it may not include the latest changes.

Of course, you can always save your file under a new name (or change the name of an older version) and compare the two.

The location of the backup folder differs, depending on screenwriting program and operating system (and version of the operating system).

For Windows 7 the backup folders for Final Draft and Fade In on my machine are here:

C:\Users\Roland\AppData\Roaming\Final Draft\Final Draft 10\Backup

C:\Users\Roland\AppData\Roaming\Fade In\autosave

Final Draft backups have the usual .fdr or .fdx file extensions.

Fade In backups have .fadein.autosave file extensions. (You can navigate to the file, and Fade In will open it. Or you can just remove the '.autosave' portion of the file extension, and open it by double-clicking it.)

It is a good policy, if you use a file from your backup folder, to copy it to a different folder before you open it. That way you preserve the original backup.