I commonly use shift-returns to force a line break within paragraphs so as not to create a new paragraph. When I compile a draft and open it in Final Draft 8 any paragraph with a shift-return in it is not included.
This has 100% reproduction for me. It’s going to mean a long night… sigh
Mac OS X 10.6.2
2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
Scrivener version 1.53
Final Draft 8.0.0 build 81
Repro steps:
File -> New Project
Select “Screenplay”
Next
Fill in a Project Name
Create
Select “Scene 1”
Write a paragraph of text normally in the “Action” format.
Write the same paragraph and somewhere within it include a shift-return to force a line break.
File -> Compile Screenplay
Select “Export Format -> Final Draft 5-7 File Convertor (FCF)”
Export
Give the file a name to Save As:
Export
Open the exported file with Final Draft
Notice the 2nd paragraph with the shift-return within it does not appear in the document.
BTW: Compiling the screenplay as Final Draft 8 (FDX) and attempting to open it in Final Draft results in an error message within Final Draft; “This file is not compatible with this version of Final Draft.”
Which version of Final Draft are you using? An FDX file with a shift-return in it opened fine in Final Draft 8 for me. I can reproduce the FCF bug, though.
Looking into it, it seems that Final Draft doesn’t support the UTF8 line separator character (which is the standard for soft returns), and instead uses the line feed character for this.
I have therefore changed Scrivener’s code to swap out any line separator characters for line feed characters during export. It works better for FDX - Final Draft’s FCF importer insists on converting them to proper returns, but then FCF is a very basic format that doesn’t support all FD features, and at least the paragraphs are not lost entirely. If you e-mail at support AT literatureandlatte DOT com I can provide you with a build that fixes this so that you don’t have to go through and manually change every line separator character.