Formatting and Elements

Elements

Elements are at the heart of what makes Fade In Professional Screenwriting Software useful. Screenplays, by convention, share a relatively strict set of formatting rules, and all of the standard indentation, line spacing, capitalization, and formatting each standard screenplay element are taken care of automatically by element styles.

Element styles make it easy have consistent formatting without, for instance, manually capitalizing each scene heading, or remembering to hit Tab the right number of times for each block of dialogue. They also allow elements to be modified so that changes consistently affect formatting of all similar elements throughout the screenplay.

The application provides a number of built-in elements:



     SCENE HEADING

     Action

                         CHARACTER
                    (Parenthetical)
               Dialogue
	  
                                        TRANSITION:     

     SHOT

Normal Text
Normal Text (or Unformatted Text) is the plain, unformatted element style on which all of the built-in elements are based. Changes to Normal Text affect all element styles based on it. For instance, to modify the font of all built-in elements, simply change the font of Normal Text.

Scene Heading
A Scene Heading element is used to indicate the start of a new scene, such as "INT. LOCATION - DAY". Scene headings are capitalized and, by default, preceded by two blank lines. Pressing the Enter key after a Scene Heading sets the next paragraph to an Action element.

Action
Most descriptive text in a screenplay, including scene descriptions and action, is written as an Action element. Pressing the Tab key on an empty Action paragraph changes the current element type to Character. (Note that pressing Tab at the end of a non-empty paragraph is the same as pressing Enter.)

Character
Spoken dialogue is preceded by the name of the character speaking, capitalized. Pressing Enter after Character sets the next line's element type to Dialogue. Pressing Tab on an empty Character paragraph changes the current element type to Action.

Parenthetical
Any specific directions for how lines of dialogue are to be spoken are placed in parentheses below the character's name. Pressing Enter sets the next paragraph's element type to Dialogue. Pressing Tab on an empty Parenthetical paragraph sets the current element type to Dialogue.

Dialogue
Spoken dialogue goes below the character's name, and is indented on both sides. Pressing Enter sets the next paragraph's element type to Action. Pressing Tab on an empty Dialogue paragraph changes the current element type to Parenthetical.

Transition
Transitions such as "DISSOLVE TO:" go on the right-hand side of the page, and are capitalized. On Enter, the next paragraph's element type is set to Scene Heading.

Shot
Directions for a specific shot, such as "CLOSE ON CHARLIE", are capitalized. On Enter, the next paragraph's element type is set to Action.



Modifying Element Styles and Custom Element Styles

While almost all aspects of the built-in element styles can be modified, it is also possible to create custom element styles that can be used for recurrent elements not addressed by the built-in standard screenplay elements.

For instance, if you wanted to have song lyrics, for instance, appear similarly to dialogue but in an italicized font, you could create a new "Song Lyrics" element type based on Dialogue, and change the font formatting to italic.

Custom element styles are saved with the currently open document. If you no longer wish to use a custom element style, it can be deleted (but built-in elements cannot).

Whether it's a built-in or custom element style, you can modify any or all of the following: the name, the font (including font face, size, and formatting), left/right indent, alignment, spacing before the paragraph, line spacing within the paragraph, and whether a paragraph of this element always begins on a new page. If an element style is set to be an act break, then it will end any current scene (for numbering, etc.).

You can also change the element style on which the element is based, as well as what element style, if any, is automatically set upon pressing Enter, Tab on an empty line, or Tab at the end of a line.



Additional Formatting

In addition to using element styles, it's possible to apply formatting changes directly to individual words, such as underlining an emphatically spoken line of dialogue, etc.

Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough
Click the button on the Format panel, select the item from the Format menu, or press the appropriate shortcut key to toggle on or off bold text, italics, underlining, or strikethrough.

Left Align, Center, Right Align
Click the button on the Format panel, select the item from the Format menu, or press the appropriate shortcut key to set the current paragraph's alignment to one of left-aligned, centered, or right-aligned.

Highlighting
You can highlight sections of text with one of a number of bright background colors to make them stand out during writing. You can easily search through a screenplay for any highlighted text. This is useful for marking things that still need work, that you want to go back to, etc. (Note that highlighting is generally never found in a finished screenplay.)

Font Formatting
Given that screenplays are, by convention, written in 12-point Courier, there will likely be relatively few times you'll ever want or need to directly change the font of any text, but in case you do, you're able to alter the font face, size, and formatting. Note that if you need to change the font of the entire script, you can (and should) do so by modifying the Normal Text element style instead.

For screenplay documents, it is recommended to use a screenplay-specific Courier font. These can be found at www.fadeinpro.com on the Download page under "Extras".

Upper/Lower Case
Use this to quickly toggle a word or selection (within a single paragraph) between all uppercase and all lowercase. As with most additional formatting, this should be used sparingly. For things like "INT. LOCATION - DAY" and character names over dialogue, uppercase is handled by the element style (i.e., Scene Description or Character).

Adjust Line Length
Adjusting the length of the current line or paragraph can help keep a single word from causing things to break onto an unwanted additional line.

Page Break Before
Selecting this will ensure that the current paragraph always begins on a new page.