You’re only willing to read one page before using Screen Writer Studio. Ok, it’s your decision. Here are the critical pieces.
· Do not give out your user name/password. If you do you can lose future updates, tech support, etc. (Registration).
· Screen Writer Studio follows the Windows User Interface guidelines. And as much as possible follows the User Interface implemented in Microsoft Word. So if you can do something in Word, it probably works the same way here.
· Use the TAB key to switch a paragraph between the common format styles. It will only switch to the format styles that can follow the preceding paragraph. SHIFT-TAB switches in the opposite direction.
· You have lists of words to auto-complete paragraphs for you. Some are standard lists like INT./EXT. for scenes. Others are generated based on what you type, such as a list of character names in the script. These will appear in pop-up windows as appropriate. You can use the up/down cursor keys to select one and then press Enter.
· You can also type enough that it automatically moves the selection to the desired word(s) and then press Enter. If you type in letters that do not match any word(s) in the list, then even though one line is selected, pressing Enter will add the new word you have typed to the list, not use the selected line. You can press ESC to make the pop-up window go away.
· You change the paragraph styles by going to Format, Edit Script Styles. You can format the paragraph you are on by going to Format, Paragraph.
· Screen Writer Studio has true undo/redo. Pressing undo (CTRL-Z) 3 times will undo the last 3 commands/keystrokes you made. If you pressed right cursor 3 times and then undo 3 times, it will move the caret back to the left. If your previous command was to replace Dave with David throughout the document, undo will undo that.
· Undo will not undo a global spell check. (It will undo a spell check of a single word). When you do a global spell check, you cannot undo back past the spell check.
· There are four views; Normal, Page, Outline, and Card. You have the same capabilities in all 4 modes. Use card view when you are first making notes for each scene. Use outline view when you are working on the basic flow of the script. Use normal view when you are writing the scenes. Use page view when you are doing final edits and trying to get it to look just right.
· You can have several views of the same document open at once. Use this ability if you want to see the outline and page view side by side. (Go to Window, New Window.)
· Use the reports. They show you the flow of your script. They show you if your characters sound the same.
· The options let you set almost anything in Screen Writer Studio. If you would like something to work differently, check the options.
· The pointer you move on the screen with the mouse is called the cursor. The blinking bar in the script that shows your present position and is moved using the cursor keys (or by clicking the mouse), is called the caret. Keep this in mind when reading the help information.
· Screen Writer Studio handles most foreign alphabets including European and Far-Eastern. It does not handle complex alphabets such as Hindi, Thai and Right-to-Left alphabets such as Hebrew & Arabic. You may not mix character sets (i.e., you cannot have Japanese and Cyrillic in the same script).