I gave myself a big extra push today, and wrapped up my writing. I wrote 10 pages yesterday and 10 pages today. And I came up with an ending that I believe actually redeemed the whole thing, which was a load of hoo-hah before that. I was so proud of myself, for finishing the story, finishing it early, and writing 13 more pages than last year.

Until I PDF'ed it using the two links, Zamzar and FreePDFConvert. Both of them stole 10 pages from me!I have been using the Microsoft Word formatting that was posted on the site last year. That formatting fits 42 lines per page. The PDF conversion sites fit 47. Plus the line lengths are a tiny bit longer - maybe just one character wider. But it's really the 5 extra lines per page that have done me in.

I think a warning is in order. And now I have to try to find an extra 10 pages - 10 whole pages!!! - of plot in a story that's already told. And it will never feel the same as it felt to have completed 100 pages - not even counting the title page! - of a screenplay.

I'm going to go off into my corner and cry a little now.

You know what? You probably haven't yet installed the Courier Final Draft font set. It's freely available all over the Web; just Google it. When I first installed it, I found my script was 5 pages shorter. But at least it happened relatively early. Since I had the Courier Final Draft fonts installed, I've been able to convert my script to PDF and keep the identical page count.

Of course, I used the BBC script template in Word and converted it to PDF in OpenOffice Writer. But I suspect your (lack of the right) fonts may be the problem. It certainly was mine.

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Script Frenzy 2008: Spanner
Project Blog: Spanner's World

*Don't* use Courier Final Draft - As Dennis says, you'll lose pages - not lines, but pages Courier FD isn't as tall as Courier and Courier New is bigger than both. AFAICT.

If you install OpenOffice, it will open Word documents exactly as Word (use NeoOfice on a Mac - it's the same thing as OO but more stable, apparently)

OO will turn your document into a PDF with no loss of pages, and Script Frenzy will accept the PDF page count whatever it looks like inside the PDF.

Ian

Well hell.

I don't use FINAL DRAFT. I have also used Word as it what I am most comfortable with. And now I'm being asked to make a PDF of my script... Why?

I didn't think these scripts were going to be vulnerable to change. I didn't even think they would be vulnerable to being read such that anyone would have to be concerned with being plagerized. So why the PDF?

And with PAGES being changed due to formatting... the month of tension and mad focus... continues while persons who are sure they have done the job must squeeze out of themselves... TEN or more pages MORE???

Somehow I missed in the rules when I read them and signed on that we would be required to put our work into PDF file... I don't like being asked to go to another site to download anything, to fetch anything... to upload anything so that I can accomplish what I have already done.

I know what work I did. I don't need ScriptFrenzy to tell me. But it was going to be fun and feel good to show off a little bit to others attempting to do the same. I could type in my 107 pages... but.. that would only be me telling you wouldn't it?

Whatever you can do or think you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
~~Goethe

You convert to PDF because it's easy to count pages that way. Every PDF file is always divided into pages, unlike the files in certain programs (at least by default).

I would have used Celtx, since I can't afford Final Draft and Celtx is free; but it didn't have a comics script template, not even movie-style. So I broke down, downloaded the BBC template, and started writing my script in Word. Then since I have OpenOffice as well, I loaded the script file in OOo Writer and clicked the "Export to PDF" button on the toolbar. There's also PDF converters out there on the Internet for Word .doc files.

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Script Frenzy 2008: Spanner
Project Blog: Spanner's World

I'm sure it wasn't intentional. I just don't think the coordinators realized how hard it would be to count pages vs. words. It's just disappointing that it has taken so long to find out how far behind I am - especially since I'm using the exact template from last year. And the validators are never released until the 25th of the month anyway.

But on the other hand, the people using Final Draft and Celtx etc. with 100 pages have obviously done more writing than I have. So who's to say what's fair.

I just hope they start warning people now, especially those using MS Word, to start checking their page count and be prepared to be behind where they think they are...

Okay, here's my latest update. I imported my script into Celtx, using the simple procedures they detail - strip off the title page (everything up to the first INT or EXT), save as text, then import (then add the title page info, of course). And I ended up with one MORE page than I started with!

I got these extra pages because Celtx added a CUT TO: between each pair of scenes, which I had not included, and also put (CONTINUED) at the end of each page of a split scene.

I will have even MORE pages, when I go through and split out all my Action text, which has been wrapped into all the character dialog that came before it. (Sluglines it knows what to do with).

So I'd advise anyone using MS Word, to convert to Celtx if you've just lost a bunch of words, or anything like that. Remember, it's free!

Whew. I'm feeling SOOO much better now!

Twilite: No one is going to read your script unless you send it a friend to read. The page counters are robots. So no one is going to be privy to what you've written.
__________
-Sub Rosa-
Episode 1x01 "Down and Dirty"
Episode 1x02 "Welcome to the World"

COMING SOON to a TV near YOU!