Final Draft 7
Final Draft provides instant access to proper screenplay and script formats.

Your Hollywood pitch won't mean diddly without a properly formatted script—one with your character names centered and capitalized and your scene-transition notes always flush right. Final Draft 7 streamlines the formatting so you can concentrate on writing rather than text alignment and fonts.

Final Draft works much like a word processor; it has many of the same tools, so you don't feel like you're using an app that isn't suited for writing. But Final Draft has additional features for quick formatting that go beyond what you'd find in a word processor, such as a toolbar menu with access to common script-formatting options. No more fiddling with paragraph formats in Word. Whew.

Anticipation. As you write, Final Draft's Smart Type feature anticipates your next move. For example, when you type a character's name, Final Draft knows that it should be followed by a parenthetical comment or dialogue and suggests your next step. When you choose your next step, the cursor moves to the proper position for you to continue writing. These actions really save time.

Final Draft includes a list of 90,000 character names—a helpful reference, but you can't add your own. Final Draft's Smart Type feature does, however, remember character names as you work.

Once you complete your draft, a split-screen feature lets you view a scene-location list in one window and the script in another. Script Compare merges two drafts into a third, adding colored text to note the differences. When it's time to shoot, Final Draft prints a scene-numbered version of your script.

The bottom line. Final Draft is like a good Hollywood assistant. It worries about the little things while you focus on the big picture.