Several screenwriting software alternatives have arrived on the market in recent years to challenge Final Draft as the industry standard - or simply to improve upon its shortcomings. Despite its position as the top-selling screenwriting software, Final Draft seems to be playing catch up in certain areas. Now that Final Draft Writer for iPad has been available for quite some time, Final Draft 9 for Mac and Windows has arrived with a new look and new features. Many of these new features are welcome additions to Final Draft, but some new features will look familiar to screenwriters who have sought out alternatives to accomplish certain screenwriting tasks. With this new release, you can now save over 30% off the list price on Final Draft 9 at The Writers Store until Jan. 31.
I've mentioned this before, but I write with Final Draft, not because I love the software, but because it was the only screenwriting software available back in the day when I started to write screenplays. Final Draft also became the industry standard over all those years, so sticking with it made sense. I appreciate that screenwriters now have many screenwriting software alternatives ranging from free to not that expensive, which means Final Draft needs to improve its product continually to keep it relevant. Given its industry standard position, however, Final Draft doesn't update as frequently as many would like.
Check out some videos showing off the new version (there are Windows versions of these videos as well here):
Here's a list of what's new in Final Draft 9:
- Character Navigator lets you add character arc beats in each scene and add non-speaking characters to the Navigator
- ScriptNotes Navigator makes ScriptNotes sortable and allows organization by color, name or note type
- Improved Scene Navigator allows scenes to be filtered by keyword
- Watermarking scripts is now available for PDF and print
- Full screen mode (Mac only)
- Character highlighting
- Cast List element can now be custom ordered
- Non-speaking characters can be added to Cast List element
- Thesaurus accessible through contextual menu
- Improved spell-checkers that automatically include SmartType list words
- OSX dictation support (Mac only)
- Include non-speaking characters in Character Report
- Revision page colors now added
- Enhanced revision mode to streamline changing revision sets
- Retina display support (Mac)
- Updated look and feel of buttons and menus to match Mac and Windows styles
Now through Jan. 31, 2014, the full version of Final Draft 9 is available for $169.99 from The Writers Store, a 32% discount from the list price. Upgrades are available for $79.99, 20% off list price. Academic versions are available for $99.99, 23% off list price.
Will you be buying or upgrading to Final Draft 9? What do you think about the new features list? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
Link: Final Draft 9 Now Available - The Writers Store
