How to handle screenplay revisions in Final Draft?
I need to revise a screenplay in Final Draft, and I'm finding that the revision features in the program are poor. Are there any ways to introduce revision features in to Final Draft, similar to Track Changes in Microsoft Word? If not, what kind of workflow could give me the same benefits of keeping changes visible to the writer?
Some background about what I'm looking for:
In the past, I've done revisions to screenplays in Microsoft Word, where the changes are clearly indicated. Final Draft will show added text in a different color, but as far as I can tell, deleted text is not tracked.
As you can see, Word shows text that's been crossed out, an advantage to editing someone else's work. (You don't have to do side-by-side comparisons when you have this information handy.) Word also lets you add notations in the text, like this might work better if you wrote it like this
.
Is there any solution to this? Moving the text to Microsoft Word and back is not a realistic option, due to the complexity of screenplay formatting. If it's not supported in the application itself, perhaps there's a plug-in?
If that's not possible, what are the import options for moving files back and forth between Final Draft and Word? Or are there third-party document tracking systems that aren't too much in the way of overkill? Perhaps Scrivener can be a go-between to track revisions?
Or am I stuck with simply comparing versions manually?
Note: This question is a more writerly variation on this Super User question.
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