Word allows you to save in either Word of RFT format. These formats are the two most requested by publishers who accept submissions via e-mail. Word Perfect is better at formatting because it is made by a company who specialize in graphics when printing a document.
Wizards for Words This handy program converts whatever your writing into the proper manuscript format for submitting to publisher who still use the US Postal system for submissions and for publishers who ask for Word formatted attachments. Even if you normally use "The Writer's Digest Guide to Manuscript Formats" as a guide to write you queries and masterpieces, this program speeds up the formatting process. Also comes with a grammar style and word usage checker that nicely adds to Word 97's awesome grammar checker.
For composing e-mail, letters, address books, poems, short stories, and articles most any computer on the market will perform well. For script writing, well if your only ambition is a one act, or a Sunday School program any computer will do that too. So if you are reading my web page your computer is up to any writing task you have in store for it.
Unless you decide to write a novel...
For a novel, the computer needs extra memory to remember the formatting on all those pages.
When writing short stories and articles, all you need is whatever word processing software which came with your computer.
Unless you decide that your story has the making of a television show, or a movie...
The formatting required to have a screenplay considered is more complicated than you may be willing to spend time on. To write screenplays or three act stage plays a script writing program is more appropriate for the task.
|
Look over my Comparing Formats Page to see the difference between the format a short story publishers wants to see on his desk as opposed to what a director for a screen play wants to see on his desk. |
Script Frenzy shows what a film, broadway stage play and comic book scripts look like.
The Chameleon Theater Circle an example guide to "professional" stage play script formatting for submitting scripts to places that want that broadway look. A template or stand alone script program will do the formatting for you automatically, so you don't need to all that yourself.
Writing software companies make special script writing programs for writing screenplays. These programs are too expensive for me to use more than one, so I can not recommend a script writing program.
Below are the two that I liked the best while shopping for script writing software. The main advantage of the expensive ones is that they allow you switch easily between different scriptwriting formats. Freeware selections tend to be dedicated to one format per program.
Scriptware This is the script writing package that I chose. This one includes a template for stage scriptwriting. However, the stage template utilizes the newer less used stage play format.
Scriptthing (now called Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000) This software package looks equally as good, but did not support a stage play format.
The Online Communicator Written in the spirit of Smatterings. A straight forward review of scriptwriting software from someone else who writes according to their experiences.
However if you are a student taking a course in writing for film; the freeware option is the best option. Here are the freeware programs I've found so far:
To use any of the files below you need to have an unzipping utility on your computer first if you are using a version of Windows previous to Windows Me/2000/XP. My favorite unzipping utility is located on the top of my Download Aids Freeware page.
Choose a Word Template over a script writing program if you're not going to really shoot your own video or film, when writing the script in hopes that someone buys it and makes their own production script storyboard from your story.
BBC Script Smart Word templates for screenplays, radio dramas and prose. Take care on which template you download. A template designed for Word 2000 will crash Word 97.
Sonnyboo's Free Downloads contains MS Word 97 film screenwriting templates IScript, Swift 97 and Screen Writer, which I'm glad to find that they are still available, now in one zip file packaged with credits templates and WGA contracts.
Screenplay Stylesheets for Macintosh: This looks like its worth trying. I do not have access to a Mac, so I could not try this one.
OO Script Open Office Screenplay Template.
Sometimes the installation instructions are non-existent, so I wrote up some installation instructions based on a template that no longer exists. These instructions should work for most templates made for MS Word.
Successware is free to use until you sell your script.
The Scriptwriter's Toolkit Stage, Film, and Radio MS Word Templates for MS Word 2 to MS Word 2000. Uses short cut keys exclusively. After the annoying reminders about the terms of use it works fine.
CeltxWiki digital pre-production software from the text version of your novel to the industry standard film version script or the other way around. Scene Details and Character Background forms. Add sound files, pictures and video clips to create a media rich Outline. Tag key items like props, and actors and special effects with notes and pictures and even sound files to help give your story shape. Calendar and Reports features to keep your Project organized. Collaboration feature lets you share your entire Project – scripts, breakdown files, budgets, schedules, location forms etc. – with team members.
Cinergy Script Editor free stand alone film episodic, TV and situation comedy script editor works on both Windows and Macs with pc emulation.
Script Maker stores the master-scene script and the shooting-script as two different views of the same document. Exports treatments, synopsis and the scripts to RTF, for editing using MS Word but does not let you import them back into the original program afterwards. Works with Storyboard Tools for printing storyboard-images within your script. Storyboard Tools lets you build, print and maintain an entire storyboard project. Stores any amount of text with each image. Uses jpeg & bmp images. Produces tables of information useful for location shooting. Contains separate tools for drawing and for experimenting with editing ideas. SLang works well if your the type of person who likes to work with recipe cards to organize your work. Each program can be used separately. These programs work together in the shareware version.Rough Draft the easiest writing tool for writing stage plays. Yes! It is easy to setup the normal stage format that you see in English class, used in most amateur theater scripts and find in the library. It automatically generates a title page.
If you are writing newsletters then you need to look for publishing software. WordPerfect then might be your choice. You could possibly use MS Publisher. Give a choice between using MS Word or MS Publisher, I will choose MS Publisher as the right tool any time I have a document that has more than one column, so long as it is not a long document like a script.
PagePlus SE by Free SerifSoftware is a freeware Windows desktop publishing program comparable to MS Publisher. Packed with a host of preset document layouts, automated templates, color schemes and artistic effects. The best free tool for creating banners, flyers, or advertisements. Lacked a booklet template.
Scribus Open Source desktop publishing for Windows, Mac, and Linux and Unix. Will aid in magazine layout, chap books, businesss cards, presentations, and Avery lables. Crashed when my booklet exceeded 8 pages.
Powered Templates offers a free package of brochure templates for MS Publisher, Word, Corell, and Adobe formats
Template Paradise lists a few free MS Publisher newsletter templates.
Comic Book Script Template Word for Windows templates to automate the writing of comic book scripts and plots.
Editorium Authors tools is a MS Word/Mac style macro for poets and book writers.
General Business Templates Newsletters, self mailers, news releases, flyers and stuff for MS Word, and Power point from OKI® printer. Just choose download, copy, paste, and save as a Word template.
Ink Byte Novel, and short story template for submissions to editors.
Microsoft Template Gallery has a good selection of templates for MS Office. Browse around to see if they have anything useful to you. For theater minded people they have a ticket, and a program template for MS Word, and a telephone list that can easily be converted to a cast list for MS Excel. They also offer a screenplay template.
Self Publishing Your Novel Company has a nice comparison chart listing software package available for book layout.
MS Publisher saved the day when SmatterigsBooks published an 8"x5.5", 36 page history of the United Alden Methodist Church for thier 125th birthday as it did when my mom and I volunteered as editors for Northside Writers' Over Coffee 2006 issue. While working on the 2006 issue, we learned for staple-bound publications the size of the local copy shop's stapler determines the length of the book. Exceeding this limit suddenly we found ourselves debating on editing out an excellent work or exceeding our budget with higher cost binding. For a thick 8"x5.5" book MS publisher and the local copy shop is no longer the answer. One needs to convert their word document to a print ready file in PDF format for a POD (print on demand) printer.
When I set out to format my book using Word Perfect Office 11, I found the same info from the articles listed below applies.
Books, Typography and Microsoft Word Typesetting in MS Word by Aalan Shepard.
Editorium Update Typesetting tips for MS Word PC version by Jack M. Lyon.
So You Want to Write a Book with MS Word webpage will point you toward how to set up Word to write a book. Includes a dissertation, or other long document projects that require multiple chapters.
Typesetting in Microsoft Word by Jack M. Lyon instructs on how to set up Mac version of MS Word for a prepress publication.
Open Office Label Templates Templates for labels, VHS, cd and dvd jackets
How to Make a Book With the Free PDF Editor Open Office Instructions for creating a book printing template on flash video.
These helped me to adjust my margins in page setup to match the way text looks like in my choice of books published by an established publisher.
Cool Ruler Measurements can be set for Inches, Pixels and centimeters. Works with DOS and Windows.
Pixel Ruler Float over your screen. Show measurements in Pixels. Works with all applications.
Screen Ruler Measure anything on your screen in millimeters, centimeters or pixels.
Printing companies like Book Surge provide calculators for sizing your book cover. For the first time since 1996, I needed MS Excel installed on my computer in 2008. Although Excel is still a foriegn and strange program to me their software worked like a charm as I typed in the page numbers and book size. It determined the cover size needed for Adobe Print Shop, which I could rent computer time at our local copying shop.
Gnumeric If you only have a word processor installed and suddenly need to run an Excel file, this is definite choice to consider.
Science and math community has been using LaTeX for typesetting papers for scientific conferences, workshops, books and manuals since the late 1980's, but the user needs to know much about computer programming and macros for us non-technical people to use it. Because one knows eats and drinks calculus never infers that this same person is an expert in computer programming. Eventually, a free graphical user interfaces (gui)s became available for it. WordPerfect is an easier tool for making a print ready PDF file of your novel because it works like you'd expect a word processor to work and it's easy to change fonts. Comparing WordPerfect and LyX 1998 article by Larry Ayers who works on a UNIX system, compares the two software programs.
LyX The Document Processor Free Open Source software that lets you create complex technical and scientific articles with mathematics, cross-references, bibliographies, and indices. Useful for dissertations and theses, lecture notes, seminar notebooks, conference proceedings, software documentation, books, articles in refereed scientific journals, scripts for plays and movies, business proposals, presentations... Best to install LateX first and then install LyX. If you use Windows make sure you follow the instructions on the Tweaking LyX on Windows. Follow the tutorial because this program works differently from standard word processors.
A note about scripts for plays and movies: This is a whole lot of mind strenuous effort unless you already use LaTeX for other things. The Unix world is more user code intensive than the Mac and Windows world. Any Word clone will allow you to easily write a letter or an article unless it is scientific or mathematical in nature. This is the right tool if you write non-fiction containing headings, sub-sections, and bulleted lists.
ProTeX Windows LateX version called MiTeX that I downloaded on my mom's DSN Internet connection to make LyX work when the initial version of LateX was corrupt because it was too big of a download for my dialup modem. A cable connection would work too. Although time consuming, it's the way to go with using LyX; it adds an MiTeX updater to keep your program current and functioning at its prime.
LyX Quick Start 2002 article from Linux Productivity Magazine by Steve Litt has instructions to set up Lyx for making a book. This is but one of a series of articles from Litt's LyX Library.
Open Source Self-Publishing Tools: Designing a Book with LyX By Corinne McKay, ATA-certified French to English translator based in Boulder, Colorado, United States and Daniel J. Urist explains how LyX is a tool to create a really professional looking book that is indistinguishable from a book produced by a mainstream publishing house.
What in MS Word and WordPerfect call a Style Sheet, the Linux world sets up its document types with different sub-programs called classes. The default Book class that comes with LyX lacks paragraph environments for the standard beginning pages in a book, things like acknowledgments, publisher info, and dedications so the two classes plus a few others not listed below are installed automatically with ProTeX.
Memoir class for typesetting poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and mathematical works. Memoir class Manual written by the Memoir class's developer Peter Wilson, contains a thorough introduction to typography after you install ProTex it can be found on your computer at C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.7\memoir. Class is worth downloading just to read his book even if you never install LaTex. Memoir lacks headers and footers so if you are doing an install without ProTeX, you'll need to add in a fancyhdr package which provides an easy way to place text on the top and/or bottom of every page.
KOMA-Script is a set of replacement classes for the standard LaTeX classes, provides the scrbook class offering a better set of paragraph environments. Uppertitleback and Lowertitleback environments allows you to format the upper and lower sections of text that appear on the back side of the book's title page, which are normally the copyright, the book's ISBN number, Library of Congress cataloging info, disclaimers, publisher contact info.
AbiWord after you download and install the plugins, allows you to save your Word or WordPerfect file to LaTex. Next, open LyX and import the file.
Return to Smatterings: Word Processing How-To Page for a list of freeware word processors.
