Final Draft 8

[rnbrewer]

-- Continued From Previous --

Scene Navigator -- I can see how many writers would be frustrated with this loss. The scene navigator feature makes moving around the script an absolute breeze and SOOOO much easier than hitting scroll or PgUp/PgDwn buttons.

As for the rest of the features... well... not much new was added. Some new script templates were added, but they feel unnecessary since Final Draft.com has an entire database full of templates anyway. Also, I was very displeased to discover that the PDF function not only works differently than the previous version (you have to "Print" your script to PDF instead of simply "Save as") but it also doesn't work with Windows Vista 32/64bit operating systems. You have to download a separate, non-related program called CutePDF just to get it to work. According to the tech guy I spoke with they will be releasing an update in September to solve this problem, but it still sucks to have to wait for an update to make a program work that should have been working just fine the moment I got it. Especially when you consider that FD8 isn't that old of a program and Windows Vista already has a couple years on it. There's no reason they shouldn't be compatible. Anyway, not a bad program. Was it worth the upgrade? Scene Navigator is great but hardly enough to merrit buying a whole new program just to use it. They could have saved more money by just making an update to FD7 that included the "new" feature.

[rnbrewer]

As many of you know I've been using Final Draft for all of my screenwriting needs. Up until recently I was using version 7. Well, the new version finally arrived and registered FD7 users were given the chance to upgrade at "special" discount price. So I went ahead and did the whole upgrade thing and I've had a chance to work with it for nearly two months now. Having said that I would like to present you with a review of the product.

I must admit that I didn't jump on the Final Draft band-wagon till version 7 to start with. Up till that point I had been struggling with simple Microsoft Word documents. As such I have no experience with the program prior to seven.

Other than only having to pay $80 to upgrade -- a huge difference over the nearly $300 price tag I paid to start with FD7 -- the differences between the two programs are actually minimal. The overall layout has been made sleeker in its presentation and I'm quite pleased with how quickly the program loads. One of the most notable differences however is the return of the Scene Navigator function which was missing from FD7. Again, I started with FD7 so I wasn't even aware that this feature was missing in the first place. However, other reviews I've read over the past few weeks speak of great sadness with the loss of this feature. -- Continued ....