Blink and you may have missed it, but FD 12 was released this week. Anyone got it and can give us a recommendation and maybe a rundown of the new features?

I've been using FD 10 for a while now so I might be tempted with an upgrade.

I think I’ve used every version since 7 and I’ve honestly not used any features that 7 didn’t already have. The newer versions just have a nicer user interface. I find a lot of the added features a bit gimmicky and pretty much unusable on a laptop screen. Maybe if it was connected to a monitor with different screens it’d be handy.

I only just upgraded to 11!
After using 7 for ages.

Now there's a 12?

Quoted from LC I only just upgraded to 11! After using 7 for ages. Now there's a 12?

Same here! Probably just some minor tweaks to try and make you spend another $79 USD for the upgrade which really has no more functionality than the previous version.

I've been hearing things. Some think it's lackluster.

One of the big things is the ability to import PDFs to edit directly. Another is they've improved collaboration for multiple writers.

I've already heard of someone losing work because of a crash because their autosave settings in FD11 didn't port to the new version. The update doesn't replace your old version, it installs a new one with all default settings, so beware of personalized settings if you do upgrade.

For myself, I've never felt the need to upgrade beyond version 9. I'm happy with it, and if anything, I'll likely go with Fade In andyway.

Quoted from LC I only just upgraded to 11! After using 7 for ages. Now there's a 12?

God, 7 was the best. I just threw 11 on my laptop and expect to have that for 3 years or so. We'll see what FD14 has on offer. Lol.

Quoted from Mr. Blonde God, 7 was the best. I just threw 11 on my laptop and expect to have that for 3 years or so. We'll see what FD14 has on offer. Lol.

I still have 7 on my old PC which I frequently go back to cause it just runs great..
The only thing I like on 11 which 7 doesn't have is all the fancy fonts I can now use, just like you guys.  ;D
I wondered if 11 was clunky cause of the new PC I got at the same time.

Hmm, I dunno... I couldn't work out if it was just me.

I'm still on 9 on one laptop and 11 on the other, I always write on 9, I love it.

I use FadeIn, regular upgrades, all free ;-)

I use Final Draft 8. I switched over to 11 for while, but I did not see any great benefit.

Well, maybe someone can point out the excellent new features of 11 or 12 for us. Apart from fonts.
I'd love to know without having to trawl through the tutorial. There's gotta be some, right?

I'm on 10. Thinking about upgrading to 12.

I've found I'm using the beat sheet more and more, so I'm interested in the improvements there. On the page side, I just don't see how much can/should change. The page is the page.

The neat freak in me is drawn to the ability to snap things to a grid in the beat sheet. Can't do that in 10, but you can in 11 and 12. I spend WAY too much time trying to perfectly align my boxes.

It wasn't worth upgrading for in 11, but if they've added further beat sheet improvements, I may have to pop for it.

I did see something about an outlining feature. Haven't looked into it at all. But, if someone has experience with it, I'd love to hear their thoughts. A good outline feature could be game-changer for me.

I bought FD9 a few milliseconds before 10 came out, and got a free upgrade, so no real experience with 9.

Differences between 10 and 11 were going from a fixed palette of tag and font colors to pretty much any color, which was helpful to me personally.

11 also allows you to insert some snippets of non-English characters without committing violence upon your settings.

A new feature I found disappointing was inserting images. The only time I ever felt the need to put an image on a cover page (Timmy), it was easier to do it by manipulating the PDF. Maybe that improved in 12?

Even though I work with my wife on some writing projects, I've yet to crack open any of the online collaboration features. I do use a the beat-sheet features a lot, but I don't think that's new.

Libby, and anyone else who wants to know what's new/different in FD 12...

https://store.finaldraft.com/final-draft-12-upgrade.html

Shows what's new in 12 in comparison to both 10 and 11.

Just bought 11 last month (upgrade)
Seems like most of the changes in the last two versions (11 and12) are in the beat board and outline parts) Since I write from the seat of my pants - Nah.

Quoted from LC Well, maybe someone can point out the excellent new features of 11 or 12 for us. Apart from fonts. I'd love to know without having to trawl through the tutorial. There's gotta be some, right?

The text to speech thing is quite good, although it still sounds a bit Stephen Hawkingish.

I think it had been there in earlier versions but never seemed to work properly for me.

I think you can download a free trial of 12 as well... runs for 60 days, so plenty of time to try out the features...

https://trial.finaldraft.com/

Quoted from AnthonyCawood I think you can download a free trial of 12 as well... runs for 60 days, so plenty of time to try out the features... https://trial.finaldraft.com/

Thanks for the heads up! :)

Quoted from Pleb The text to speech thing is quite good, although it still sounds a bit Stephen Hawkingish. I think it had been there in earlier versions but never seemed to work properly for me.

The trick is to install a bunch of different language packs on your Windows machine, each one comes with one or two voices that you can assign to characters within FD's text-to-speech.

No matter what the intended language is, they can all read English just fine (with an accent).

The problem I ran into was that FD only seemed to see the first ten voices added to the system. For a large-cast feature like Who Wants to Be a Princess? that turns out to be very inconvenient. That limit/bug may be fixed in 12.

Quoted from Pleb The text to speech thing is quite good, although it still sounds a bit Stephen Hawkingish. I think it had been there in earlier versions but never seemed to work properly for me.

Thanks, Max! I forgot to try the new version of this.
Thanks too for the hot tip, Frank.

I've taken the plunge and purchased an upgrade to 12 as it was on offer. I'm currently writing a Novella so I won't get to try it out just yet, but I'll see what it's like (probably for the May OWC) and provide some feedback.

Just to update - I used FD 12 to write a new draft of The Specimen from the April OWC.

The performance was shocking. I'm on a fairly new laptop using Windows 10 Pro and it would take several seconds between me typing and the characters appearing on the page.

I did a bit of research and found plenty of people with the same issue saying the outline function is what is causing the problem. So, I disabled the outline and voila, performance is back to normal. As the outline function is one of the new pieces of functionality, this is not a good start. Plus, I've had the whole thing hang on me even with the outline disabled so I wouldn't recommend getting this.

Quoted from MarkRenshaw Just to update - I used FD 12 to write a new draft of The Specimen from the April OWC. The performance was shocking. I'm on a fairly new laptop using Windows 10 Pro and it would take several seconds between me typing and the characters appearing on the page. I did a bit of research and found plenty of people with the same issue saying the outline function is what is causing the problem. So, I disabled the outline and voila, performance is back to normal. As the outline function is one of the new pieces of functionality, this is not a good start. Plus, I've had the whole thing hang on me even with the outline disabled so I wouldn't recommend getting this.

Thanks for the info, I will stick with trusty old version 9. If it ain't broke...

Quoted from MarkRenshaw Just to update - I used FD 12 to write a new draft of The Specimen from the April OWC. The performance was shocking. I'm on a fairly new laptop using Windows 10 Pro and it would take several seconds between me typing and the characters appearing on the page. I did a bit of research and found plenty of people with the same issue saying the outline function is what is causing the problem. So, I disabled the outline and voila, performance is back to normal. As the outline function is one of the new pieces of functionality, this is not a good start. Plus, I've had the whole thing hang on me even with the outline disabled so I wouldn't recommend getting this.

Well, that's disappointing. Thanks for sharing.

I am on FD 11 - seems good enough

Quoted from eldave1 I am on FD 11 - seems good enough

I'm on 10. Agree, it's good enough.

But, I'm really digging outlining and other pre-writing prep these days. I've been doing both on the FD beat sheet, just making hundreds of those little boxes. I would LOVE to have it more organized and still be all within the same program.

Doesn't sound like it's there, yet. Ugh.

I also write my treatments and one-pagers in FD. I would really like all of them to be somehow incorporated into one big FD project file. (Are you reading this FD? Call me.)

Quoted from PKCardinal I'm on 10. Agree, it's good enough. But, I'm really digging outlining and other pre-writing prep these days. I've been doing both on the FD beat sheet, just making hundreds of those little boxes. I would LOVE to have it more organized and still be all within the same program. Doesn't sound like it's there, yet. Ugh. I also write my treatments and one-pagers in FD. I would really like all of them to be somehow incorporated into one big FD project file. (Are you reading this FD? Call me.)

Good ideas

Quoted from PKCardinal I'm on 10. Agree, it's good enough. But, I'm really digging outlining and other pre-writing prep these days. I've been doing both on the FD beat sheet, just making hundreds of those little boxes. I would LOVE to have it more organized and still be all within the same program. Doesn't sound like it's there, yet. Ugh. I also write my treatments and one-pagers in FD. I would really like all of them to be somehow incorporated into one big FD project file. (Are you reading this FD? Call me.)

I’m also a fan of the beat sheet, great way to organize notes for a feature. Less useful for something you envision as a series.

The text-to-speech, especially if you have a bunch of voices installed on your machine, is fantastic.

Quoted from FrankM The text-to-speech, especially if you have a bunch of voices installed on your machine, is fantastic.

I'm on 11 and found the text-to-speech robotic and clunky, like the old robots in 60's sci-fi movies.  Is there somewhere you can download more human sounding voice patterns?

Quoted from Gary in Houston I'm on 11 and found the text-to-speech robotic and clunky, like the old robots in 60's sci-fi movies.  Is there somewhere you can download more human sounding voice patterns?

It's never going to sound like a dramatic reading, but that's because all you're really listening for would be awkward phrasings, word choice errors, and so on. Having a second option besides reading your words is very helpful.

The easiest way to get additional voices is to install additional languages, then enable their included voices. Better voices are available, but they're not free.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/download-voices-for-immersive-reader-read-mode-and-read-aloud-4c83a8d8-7486-42f7-8e46-2b0fdf753130

Thanks Frank!

Quoted from FrankM It's never going to sound like a dramatic reading, but that's because all you're really listening for would be awkward phrasings, word choice errors, and so on. Having a second option besides reading your words is very helpful. The easiest way to get additional voices is to install additional languages, then enable their included voices. Better voices are available, but they're not free. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/download-voices-for-immersive-reader-read-mode-and-read-aloud-4c83a8d8-7486-42f7-8e46-2b0fdf753130

Also great for picking up typos and missed words

Quoted from eldave1 Also great for picking up typos and missed words

That's a pro tip right there.

Quoted from eldave1 Also great for picking up typos and missed words

This is what I had in mind (and absolutely didn't say) with the term "word choice errors." FD will flag obvious typos, but the text-to-speech will catch the ones where you accidentally spelled a real word or skipped over a word.

Quoted from FrankM This is what I had in mind (and absolutely didn't say) with the term "word choice errors." FD will flag obvious typos, but the text-to-speech will catch the ones where you accidentally spelled a real word or skipped over a word.

Yep - it is invaluable