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I need to revise a screenplay in Final Draft, and I'm finding that the revision features in the program are poor. Are there any ways to introduce revision features in to Final Draft, similar to Track Changes in Microsoft Word? If not, what kind of workflow could give me the same benefits of keeping changes visible to the writer?
Some background about what I'm looking for:
In the past, I've done revisions to screenplays in Microsoft Word, where the changes are clearly indicated. Final Draft will show added text in a different color, but as far as I can tell, deleted text is not tracked.
As you can see, Word shows text that's been crossed out, an advantage to editing someone else's work. (You don't have to do side-by-side comparisons when you have this information handy.) Word also lets you add notations in the text, like this might work better if you wrote it like this.
Is there any solution to this? Moving the text to Microsoft Word and back is not a realistic option, due to the complexity of screenplay formatting. If it's not supported in the application itself, perhaps there's a plug-in?
If that's not possible, what are the import options for moving files back and forth between Final Draft and Word? Or are there third-party document tracking systems that aren't too much in the way of overkill? Perhaps Scrivener can be a go-between to track revisions?
Or am I stuck with simply comparing versions manually?
Note: This question is a more writerly variation on this Super User question.
(3)More posts by @Dunderdale623
3 Comments
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An ancient question, but I've an updated suggestion. Final Draft is only useful for script formatting, submission, and production. It is not designed for collaboration or multi-party editing.
I suggest writing a draft in Final Draft. Then convert to fountain (a Markdown-like text format see fountain.io) and import into Word or Google Docs for collaboration and revision. I prefer Google Docs myself, but keep the fountain syntax.
Finally when the next draft is "finalised", turn revision marks off and save the text back to fountain format. Convert back to Final Draft and you have Draft 2 in Final Draft.
I have used this procedure many times.
Alternatively Writer Duet has amazing collaboration tools.
Also Final Draft from version 9 recommends desktop screen sharing via join.me for live online collaboration (yuck). Update even FD11 built in collaboration still sucks.
Final draft has a script compare function. TOOLS > SCRIPTCOMPARE.
If you compare two drafts it will point out the differences.
First option:
I do not understand why you have to move the file back to Final Draft. You can export it to Word, track the changes, find the corresponding parts in the Final Draft document and change them there.
You can also export to a plain text format and use a diff tool. Yes, it's cumbersome to find the text passages in the original Final Draft document and change there, but it should be feasible.
Second option:
Instead of deleting, strike the text through (with the corresponding formatting option) and mark it as revised afterward. Maybe with this trick you can work around the issue.
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