When using Scrivener for the early drafts of a screenplay, the line spacing seems much smaller compared to Final Draft. I’ve tried to correct this but can’t figure out a way to do it.
The main reason this is important is that the line spacing drastically affects page count; in general something in Scrivener seems to have around 20% less pages than the same text in Final Draft.
Any insight appreciated. Thanks!
Could you post a screenshot to show what you mean? The line spacing should be the same (in fact, if anything, in the current version Scrivener’s line spacing would be bigger if anything).
Thanks,
Keith
Thanks for the reply Keith. You’re absolutely right, my brain was scrambled and I said the opposite of what I meant - Scrivener seems to average ~20% more pages instead of less.
I’ve attached two pdf’s - one exported from final draft, and one from scrivener. Although they’re just over a page, you can see that the scrivener’s line spacing is a tad bigger and is already affecting the overall length.
I know how to adjust the line spacing for regular text, but I’ve had no luck adjusting the line spacing when it comes to screenplays. Do you know of a setting? Or do you know if this might be addressed in future updates? Writing in scrivener is so much better than final draft.
Thanks for your help.
screenplay from scrivener.pdf (26 KB)
screenplay from final draft.pdf (18.6 KB)
Ah, yes, I see what you mean. This is technically the “leading”, I think. Another user brought this to my attention a while ago, and I’ve addressed this for Scrivener 2.0. Essentially, the OS X text system adds a little padding to lines, so that if you are using a 12-point font, the line will be 14-points high. In Final Draft, it adds no extra padding, so lines will be 12-points hight for a 12-point font. However, the OS X text system does allow for a “maximum line height” to be set, so the solution is to set the maximum line height to 12 points - I’ve added this option to the script settings panel (and made it the default for scriptwriting) for 2.0. In the meantime there’s not much you can do, I’m afraid, other than export to RTF and then set the maximum line height in another editor before printing.
All the best,
Keith
Was this fixed in v2? I’m having the same difficulty. The leading is definitely inflating the overall script length, and I don’t see a workaround. Adjustments in Compile throw everything off, adjusting line spacing (in any of the usual places) runs up against the format, and I’m not seeing the add Keith mentioned here:
""the solution is to set the maximum line height to 12 points - I’ve added this option to the script settings panel “”.
The internet seems to say: “use Finaldraft,” but who wants to go back to that?
This was fixed years ago, so I’m not quite sure what problem you are having. If you compare the line spacing in Scrivener to that of Final Draft, they are identical. You can always tweak the page margins or line spacing settings in the script settings to get it how you want, though - different programs using different text engines will always have slight differences.
All the best,
Keith
I’ve just double-checked this, and Scrivener’s line spacing is identical to that of Final Draft. If you are experiencing differences, it is almost certainly because of a difference in the font used. By default, Scrivener creates PDF and print-outs for screenplays using the standard Courier font, whereas Final Draft has its own built-in “Courier Final Draft” font that is not made available to other programs (it used to be, but seems to be private to FD now).
If I change the font in Final Draft to Courier, here is the result of a comparison between the same script exported to PDF from Scrivener and Final Draft:
As you can see, they are exactly the same.
It does seem that Courier has a slightly different height compared to Courier Final Draft. Here is the same script, this time exported to PDF from Final Draft using both Courier and Courier Final Draft:
As you can see, the Courier font causes the text to take up more vertical space, even in Final Draft.
If you want exactly the same vertical dimensions as in Final Draft, I suggest switching the font in Scrivener to Courier Prime. You can do this by going to Compile and then, under where it says “Section Layouts” at the top, change the font from “Courier” to “Courier Prime”. Courier Prime has very similar dimensions to Courier Final Draft. Here is a comparison of PDF output from Scrivener using Courier Prime against PDF output from Final Draft using Courier Final Draft:
All the best,
Keith
Wow, thanks Keith that’s quite helpful. I may actually have been comparing to a FD export on “tight” setting which would explain my idiocy.
In general, am trying to adjust the vertical space as I’ve got maybe a 35-min script that’s running to 51 pages. I don’t see a “section layouts” in compile, but I am using Courier Prime. Attempts to adjust the leading in Compile just destroyed the screenplay formatting. If there are any other tips to squish overall would love to hear them. thank you
The best way of reducing line height/leading is as follows:
Go to Format > Scriptwriting > Script Settings…
Select an element on the left.
Click on the “Paragraph” tab.
Click on the small “Options…” button.
Adjust the “Fixed line height” option.
Repeat for all elements.
Setting the fixed line height to “11” gives very similar results to using “Tight” leading in Final Draft, and setting it to “10” gives very similar results to “Very Tight”.
All the best,
Keith