Is anyone having luck any luck using the “Open In” function to open a compiled .fdx file into Final Draft Writer on an iPad?
When I do it, my iPad switches from Scrivener to Final Draft Writer, but my compiled document doesn’t just isn’t there.
It’s no biggie – A work around is to save the .fdx to Drop Box and then re-import from there to Final Draft Writer. But this, of course, requires an internet connection. 
-Tim
Or, to follow-up on my thread, is there any way to SAVE a compiled document to iCloud Drive? (that would work equally well)…
I can’t reproduce this - Compiling and using “Open In” to open the compiled document in Final Draft Writer works fine for me. There is a bug in Final Draft where it reports that the file is an invalid FD file (it does this with other apps sending it data, too), but the document appears and opens fine.
I don’t believe there is a way for for an app to save into another app’s iCloud Drive folder, though. Apple isolates the file system for each app, so the iCloud Drive folder for one app on iOS is completely inaccessible to other apps.
All the best,
Keith
Thanks for the reply on this. I’ll do a reinstall of Final Draft Writer and see if I can get things to work. FDW has been incredibly buggy.
(And I got a save to iCloud button via a 3rd party Action Extension – but you’re right – I can’t drop it directly in the FD folder.)
Thanks again!
If anyone else is having this problem – this is a known bug in the current version of Final Draft Writer for iOS. As noted by the app store reviews, a ton of people can no longer use the “open in” function" to open FDX files in their eMail messages in Final Draft Writer. So, apparently Final Draft Writer is having serious import issues – nothing to do with Scrivener. Hopefully an Final Draft Writer update will fix this soon.
Hmm. There may be another way.
As background, I used Final Draft on Windows very briefly, at one point when I was helping someone create a film – in the end typical ex-Hollywood disaster about which not more will be said, but I did get to create a full musical sketch, beautiful stuff, and picked up a real model many dimensions for arch-villains of a contemporary-extended variety. And had a remarkable dream also, after, also…
Final Draft is a mess, even on laptops. Also pretty much 1954. We know why people use it, but. It’s like Word for editing novels, but at least Word has cleaned up much of its act. New to the game, also, I found the script formatting, white space and so forth, pretty tedious on only short acquaintance.
Now here are three related things, purposefully as you;'ll see in reverse order. If you don’t know about them already.
Ok, seems like some kind of alternative screenplay editor. But is it??
Intent of Highland – johnaugust.com/2014/highland-as- … riting-app – by the guy behind it, who is surprised that people want to write in it – as it was built as a text converter to get from, wait for it, Fountain, to the required Final Draft, without bothering with Final Draft.
Fountain – johnaugust.com/2012/introducing-fountain – now this may be ‘a thing’, and as I understand it, already is.
What is Fountain? It’s like Markdown, it allows you to write formated-intended documents in easy plain text, in plain text editors. Then you convert/compile it, whichever term you like, to get the beautifully formatted final product. Apparently, though I haven’t tried it, Fountain does this in spades, hence the big interest.
Jump to the moment: if I were doing screenplays, I think I would indeed write Fountain.
And I would write it in Scrivener, iOS and laptop, for all the writer’s advantages
To turn it in, I would run it through Highland. Bingo – should be perfect Final Draft copy.
Small point – at this stage, I would have to have access to a Mac for Highland. There has been talk of it showing up on iOS, not sure that’s realistic [have we been here before…]. No hint of any Fountain compiler on Windows. On Mac, I think something called Slugline can do it, if Highland is the Fountain creator’s baby. I can’t at moment see if there’s any relation to Celtx, etc…
With all the loose ends, you can have fun. But I suspect Scrivener iOS to show up very brightly as the missing link in an already great chain around Fountain.
John August is also a pretty interesting guy, sharing lots for years and inviting other voices, via johnaugust.com. I read it not for screenwriting…
Best fortune,
Clive
As soon as posting that screed, I thought about a suggestion for Mr. August: create convert-as-a-service, on the interwebs. Of course he would have to consider degree it would cannibalize Highland, thus pricing, feature division, etc…
I went on Google, and immediately this turned up, which looks like it does that job, and more, but I think it says the conversions are free: writerduet.com/convert#convert
It’s kind of a slow site to come up, warning Will Robinson, and who know how accurate it is for Final Draft from Fountain, compared to Highland, which is not any small point given how picky FD and the screenwriting profession are, but at the least would allow trying out some Fountain.
And in Scrivener, I would
I may…
C.