Screenplay Template Maker

Note: some time ago, Jeff Miholer put together a web page to guide users in the construction of macros or templates for their word processors. If you don't feel like spending the time, you can download freeware or shareware template packages to accomplish many of the same purposes. Some are even listed on this site. At the time he wrote his page, Jeff was a law student, and published it on his University-hosted website. Since then, he has graduated, that site went away, so he bequeathed the page to The Online Communicator for the sake of future generations. I have adapted and updated it a bit, but neither Jeff nor I can keep up with maintenance of the page from here on. It's provided as-is for your use, with hope that you find it useful no matter what word processor you use.

This is provided in response to the questions of many poor souls asking the writers of the misc.writing.screenplays newsgroup about the number of expensive screenplay formatting templates available on the market. It is the opinion of the present webfellow that much of what's commercially available (at great cost) can be replicated by the end user.

Before you start, take a look at the m.w.s. FAQ for screenplay formatting guidelines, and check out real movie scripts -- among other places, some are available at Drew's Scripts-O-Rama. These will give you an overview of what this page will attempt to guide you in constructing. You can also read about other software available right here on this site, in the Scriptwriting Software Section.

The following set of instructions, for use within your normal word processing program, will set up a blank document with a title page, page number, standard screenplay font, and macros that allow you switch between dialogue margins and action margins. It will not help you create a story, type character names, or add "continueds" or page breaks. These things you have to do yourself.

You will need to be familiar with your software, and you may need access to help screens or documentation to pull this off. So, before you start, play around with your software to figure out how to use all of the features required here. If you jump right in, you could be discouraged. Learning these features takes longer than using them. Once you are comfortable with the commands involved, making your own templates should be rather quick and painless.

The first order of business is to figure out how to make a template. If your software has such a feature, it may call it a template, stationery, stylesheet, form, or some such term. A template file allows you to call up the rules for a certain type of document (like a screenplay) just by opening that file. If your software doesn't have such an option available, you can simply set up the "rules" you need, then save them in a file with no other content (with a name you'll remember!). Later on, you just make copies of that file (renaming them, of course) anytime you want to start a new project. Once you've figured out the procedure that your software uses, begin with an empty (new) file.
Set the font for the whole document to Courier 12 point. It's not a pretty font, but it is the industry standard. Use of a different font is discouraged. (Courier 12 point is the same as Courier 10 cpi, for those insanely curious about numbers. CPI=characters per inch; a 12-point letter in Courier is 1/10 of an inch wide.)
Set margins as follows (in inches): 1.5 left; 1.0 top; 1.0 bottom; 0.5 right (the right margin will be 8.0 inches from the left edge of the paper). Note: at some points in your script, you may want to cheat the bottom margin (making it smaller) by a line or two, to allow you use that space to squeeze in the last bit of the occasional lengthy paragraph. Just don't overdo it. Excessive use of this area will look like squeezing. The same goes for the right margins -- cheat them now and then if necessary, but just don't overdo it.
If you can, set the ruler bar (if your program has one) to tenths of an inch, alternately referred to as 10 divisions per inch. This is not necessary, but it will make it easier to set appropriate tabs. Insert regular left tabs at 3.1 and 3.7 inches. Clear all other tabs. (If you cannot set in tenths of an inch, go ahead and use the nearest fraction you can set.)
Pages will need to be numbered. To create a space for this, make a header at the top of the first page. The top of the header should be about 0.5 inch from the top of the page. You may or may not need to adjust the margins you set earlier. Put two blank lines in the header.
On the top line of the header, insert the automatic page number command. After the auto-entry space for the page number, put in a period. Justify or tab the number and period to the right margin.
Put all of the header in Courier 12. Get out of the header and back into the main text. Test your header by making a few blank pages, using a hard-page or page break command, to ensure that this will repeat in the upper right hand of all pages. You can delete those blank pages after testing.
Create a title page. Some programs have a command for this. In others, you may be able to number the first page "0" and suppress the page-numbering header on that first page -- the Title Page -- only. This is your goal, as it will allow the second page (which is actually the first page of your script) to be page 1, as you want it to be. If none of this works, you may have to simply save the title page as a separate file. It's not a big deal, but we're trying to create a tool that can make life easier later on, so go ahead and see what you can do now.
On the title page, drop down 16 or 18 lines and make a note: "PUT TITLE HERE." Two lines under that, put the appropriate "written by" or "adapted from" information. Center all of this. Then, at the bottom of the page, in the lower right corner, type in your contact information.
Save what you've got, if you haven't already. But you already knew to save your work regularly, right?
Create a macro for dialogue. I use the "D" key in conjunction with modifier keys to represent this. This macro will take you from the end of an action paragraph, down two lines, set the margin for dialogue, and put the cursor in the spot where the speaker's name begins. Start with the margins at the points created earlier -- 1.5 and 0.5 inches on the left and right, respectively.
1. Begin recording
2. Insert 2 lines
3. Adjust margins to 2.5 inches on each side (the right margin will be 6.0 inches in from the left edge of the paper)
4. Press Tab 2 times
5. Finish/stop macro recording
Create a macro to go from dialogue margins to action margins. I use the "A" key (with modifier keys) to play this macro. This macro will take you from the end of a dialogue paragraph, down two lines, and set the margins back to full-width. Begin at the end of a dialogue paragraph (make one up if you need to).
1. Begin recording
2. Insert 2 lines
3. Adjust margins the original 1.5 and 0.5 inches on the left and right sides, respectively (the right margin will be 8.0 inches in from the left edge of the paper)
4. Finish/stop macro recording
Repeat these macro steps to create margins for character names, parentheticals, and transitions. The formatting guidelines in the FAQ file should help you set the margins appropriately for each element. Character names will always be in uppercase, so your macro could include turning on the caps lock key, if you want. In the parentheticals, you could choose to include the open and close parentheses, then park the cursor between them before ending the macro recording. Transitions are also always in upper case, and flush right.

Later, you may wish to use an orphan command (if available) to help you keep paragraphs together at the ends of pages. Also note: you really don't need a separate macro for Sluglines, since they use the same margins as Action. But you can create one if you wish. The level of work you put in on this project is up to you. In any case, as you can see, macros can automate a lot of complicated changes to page layout, line-by-line, and boil them down into simple keystrokes. And templates can save all those commands for frequent reuse.

This document is meant only as a starting point to get you going. Your software manual and online help should be useful, and don't be afraid to experiment. Good luck!