I use Movie Magic Screenwriter to write my scripts and they have a feature in the program where you can make your own title pages, but the title page is separate from the actual script itself. That's fine when I print it out, but when I send my scripts over the internet to people in pdf. format I can't send the title page and script together in one document.

Does someone know how to fix this problem?

Thanks.

This is probably a bit late but why don't you just make the first page of your script the title page? The first page is where the script starts (obviously lol!) but you could just start the script on the second page and use the first for the title page. And if Page 1 shows up on the title page just remove it. This way you can keep everything in the same document. I had to do this with some other screenwriting programs, but I'm not sure if it'll work on Magic Screenwriter. A person with more knowledge of computers could probably help you out better, but there you go.

Thanks for the reply elite, but the way MMS works won't allow me to make a title page on the actual script. I have to go to another part of the program and do it. I tried it, but it can't be done like that.

Thanks anyway though.  :)

Yeah I didn't think it would work, but thought I'd try anyway lol! Hopefully someone here can clear things up for you if you haven't already.

As a user of Movie magic screenwriter myself, I have to honestly say I have not come up against this problem you have T. Because MMS does not have a PDF save file system, you are therefore having to upload or whatever your script to the site and save it online then download it once more... Along this line I can honestly say I have not had this problem, I have sent a few scripts in recent months to people and they seem to be getting the entire scriptment. Title page included, It could be the version of MMS you are running, pending on your update version it could be a bug!!! I'm sorry I cannot be of much more help,

If you explain to me a little more through PM, I am sure I could help you solve this problem. But keep trying and if all else fails give me a bell on PM and I would be more than happy to help you.

Hey TAnthony

I use Final Draft and have the same problem, the titlepage is seperate and when converting to pdf it dosn't include it.  I of the opinion that pdf's are probably the most user friendly and always go this way.  I just make my page 1 the title page, but unfortunately it does mean that your page numbers will always be out by one!

alffy

In Movie Magic Screenwriter go to:

FILE MENU pull-down option and choose "PROGRAM OPTIONS"

A dialogue box opens, choose the PRINTING OPTION, this opens a second dialogue box:

Slide down and find the "When printing to PDF, prompt user with Options" and check this box. Then close the dialogue box.

Next:

Choose PRINT SCRIPT from the FILE MENU

This opens a dialogue box.

Select the ENTIRE SCRIPT option

Move down to the option within the same Print dialogue you still have open and choose CREATE PDF (ADOBE ACROBAT) FILE INSTEAD OF PRINTING

The above action will proceed to print your script to a PDF. Depending if you have the auto check feature on, which checks for spaces, character names mentioned twice and or spelling mistakes then it does this during the PDF printing process.

The Title page should be printed with the script and page #1 becomes page #1 the title page is simply added before the page count.

Movie Magic Screenwriter therefore uses your own Printer Driver settings to print to a PDF whereas Final Draft simply saves it using an in-built SAVE AS PDF option.

In Final Draft go to the DOCUMENT pull-down menu and choose the PAGE OPTIONS, go to the OPTIONS tab and at the bottom of that tab page you'll find an option which says "Saving PDF files" and a check box for Include title page" tick that box and press OK and you'll find that your PDF scripts generated in Final Draft will now contain their Title page.

Alffy, try this on Final Draft:

Open your script document, go to Document - Title Page and fill out your information, then on that same page go to File - Close. When you close the Title Page window the main script window will still be open, do File - Close. This procedure should save your title page to the script document, then you can save the whole thing as PDF or anything you want. This may work as well with Movie Magic.

Hey guys thanks i'll go it it a whirl.

Hey Ayham,

I tried what you said and it did indeed work, thanks for that...but for some strange reason the file size is like 4 times bigger than when I just wrote the title page as page one, although I think I used the old print option and then pdf.  Also the quality is much worse when I use your option than when I use print and 'primopdf' and ideas on this?

Quoted from alffy Hey TAnthony I use Final Draft and have the same problem, the titlepage is seperate and when converting to pdf it dosn't include it.  I of the opinion that pdf's are probably the most user friendly and always go this way.  I just make my page 1 the title page, but unfortunately it does mean that your page numbers will always be out by one! alffy

On yours when you save to pdf through final draft, does it make you pdf size LARGE? when i did it make like 3 megs instead of being under 500kb.... wtf?

Alffy, I'm not sure I understand what you said...

When you say the file size is much bigger, which file are you talking about? The whole document file? Was it something like 180 KB? (which is the average file size of a feature length script) And now it's something like 400 KB?

Also, I don't think the Title Page should be included in the page numbering process...in Final Draft the Title Page is a separate document from the actual script document.

When you go to "print" are you "checking" the "Print Title Page" option?

Which version of Final Draft are you using?

Quoted from Ayham Alffy, try this on Final Draft: Open your script document, go to Document - Title Page and fill out your information, then on that same page go to File - Close. When you close the Title Page window the main script window will still be open, do File - Close. This procedure should save your title page to the script document, then you can save the whole thing as PDF or anything you want. This may work as well with Movie Magic.

Alffy, try the same procedure but with a minor change; Go to Document - Title Page and after you type the name of your script and all the blah blah blah go to File - Close. The title Page window will close and the main script window will remain open...do File - Save (rather than file - close) then close it normally with the X.

At this point the whole script document should be closed. Right-click on the document and go to Properties and check on the size of the file, if you think it's too large go back and open up the script and run your "Format Assistant" from the Tools Menu, this should take care of any spacing and other formatting problems, also you need to renumber your pages discluding the Title Page, adding the Title Page as page (1) confuses the software, that's why Final Draft made it a separate file. Your first page starts with Fade-in and your last page is when you Fade-out.

Once you renumber the pages and run your Format Assistant and everything looks good, go to File - Save As, once the Save window opens make sure you have the correct file name to be saved...and from the drop-down menu in the bottom (save as type) save the file in PDF format (the second option)

Save the PDF in My Documents for e-mailing, printing and posting purposes, and keep the original copy on the Desktop so you can go back and edit when you rewrite. ( Kinko's and most print shops can print your script if its saved on a disk as PDF but they can't do it with FD. format )

By the way I'm assuming you are using a windows-based computer, not a Mac. I think Mac has different key strokes, not sure. But this is all I can think of, hopefully this will help.

Blimey Ayham thanks for all the advice.

I'll be sure to give it go.  Sorry I confused you yesterday I waffle a lot.

Basically I can save my final draft script as a pdf as you said earlier, with the title page NOT as page 1 which is fine but like JD_OK I have a problem with the whole file size being larger than normal and more importantly the quality of the document (font) is poor.

Anyway cheers for the advice and I'm sure with your pointers I'll work it out.

Ayham

Ok this is what i've settled on for creating pdf's.  It's slightly different from what you said Ayham but thats just because I wasn't happy with the quality final draft pdf's come out with.

I created the title page and then copy and pasted it onto page 1, then when into options and header/footer and changed the first page to 0.  This now means that the title page (1) isn't included in the page numbering.  Next I went to print and selected PrimoPDF (which is a programme I downloaded.  It simply creates a pdf of the final draft document.  

I'm not sure why but this way gives me a pdf document with a much better visual quality.

Thanks for all the info guys.

I'm assuming you're having the problem with the fonts when you convert to PDF, Alffy, which is a formatting problem.

Try this;

http://oslo.instantservice.com/iskb/SearchAnswer.cfm?NodeID=181368

Which version of Final Draft are you using? 5, 6, 7?

Older versions of Final Draft didn't work well with PDF, so if you're working with an older version you need this upgrade;

http://oslo.instantservice.com/iskb/SearchAnswer.cfm?NodeID=203952

It's final draft 7 mate.

Yeah it just looks like its been typed on typewriter when its converted, if that makes sense, but for now i'll stick with the way i've done it because it looks fine, the quality good and page numbers are right too.

cheers though.

Sounds good! Good luck.