Final Draft 8 file corruption

[entlassen]

The formatting on one of my working files suddenly went crazy today, right out of the blue. No alignment, random caps, dialogue unreadable, etc.

I saved the file as plaintext and reopened it as a script in FD and that didn't work. Has anyone else ever experienced this?

[nguyensquared]

Re: Final Draft 8 file corruption

Final Draft has always been finnicky for me. You can try Fade In Pro to salvage the file if at all possible. They read and export FDX files.

The formatting on one of my working files suddenly went crazy today, right out of the blue. No alignment, random caps, dialogue unreadable, etc.

I saved the file as plaintext and reopened it as a script in FD and that didn't work. Has anyone else ever experienced this?

[TigerFang]

Re: Final Draft 8 file corruption

The formatting on one of my working files suddenly went crazy today, right out of the blue. No alignment, random caps, dialogue unreadable, etc.

I saved the file as plaintext and reopened it as a script in FD and that didn't work. Has anyone else ever experienced this?

What version of FD are you speaking of here? Does the file exist on your hard drive or on a removable storage device? Did you try opening any other Final Draft file from the same location? Did you download and install some other program? Was it some type of word processing program, such as a grammar/spellchecker? (it need not have been word processor related, by the way). Whatever you may have installed, if anything, it sounds as though either it needs permissions of some kind to play along with Final Draft, or vice versa.

As you can readily tell from my questions to you above, there are myriad possible cause-and-effect reasons for your dilemma, and my disclaimer is only that I've had such file problems in days long gone and learned the causes by doing the problem-solving.

ComicBent is a whiz with these applications. Perhaps send him a Private Message and ask nicely if he would be willing to help you. Remember: response time is dependent on how often people check their PMs.

If at all possible, do switch over to FadeIn; you won't be sorry.

[ComicBent]

Re: Final Draft 8 file corruption

For FD-8 (Windows) the backup folder will be under your user name. Here is where mine was for FD-8:

C:\Users\Roland\AppData\Roaming\Final Draft\Final Draft 8\Backup\

There you will find older versions of your script. You might find a usable file. You might not.

I doubt that trying to open the file with Fade In will help. However, you can download the free trial version of Fade In and try that.

Yes, you should invest $75 in Fade In. It is completely compatible with Final Draft .fdx files. I have converted back and forth many times.

I would recommend Fade In instead of upgrading from FD-8 to FD-10. At least take a look at the trial version. I have never heard of a file corruption with Fade In, but I have had people write to me from around the world about corruptions in Final Draft. You can also download my free QuickStart Guide for Fade In (it may be a little dated now, but it is basically the same). I also have some other "how to" articles about Fade In on my website.