Writing a Screenplay in Google Docs, Word, Final Draft or Skrib: Where Each One Stops
Where Google Docs, Word, Final Draft and Skrib each stop on a screenplay: the Docs setup that works, then locked pages, A-pages and revision colours.
The day a script stops being a document
You can write a screenplay in Google Docs or Word and nobody reading it will know, right until the script locks for production, when the job becomes frozen scene numbers, A-pages, coloured revision sets and a file other departments can open. For a first draft they all work: Courier 12, one inch margins on three sides, one and a half on the left. A word processor does that; it cannot do paperwork.
One column below is ours. We make Skrib, and it sits in the table with the same rows as everything else, which is how you will see that the entire production half of it belongs to Final Draft and not to us.
Task | Google Docs | Word | Skrib | Final Draft, Celtx, Fade In |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Correct Courier page | Manual | Manual | Default | Default |
Tab and Enter element cycling | Add-on | No | Yes | Yes |
Page count matching the PDF | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Scene numbers in both margins | Paid add-on | No | No | Yes |
Locked pages, 62A | No | No | No | Yes |
Locked scene numbers, 14A | No | No | No | Yes |
OMITTED keeping its number | Manual | Manual | Manual | Yes |
Coloured revision sets, asterisks | No | No | No | Yes |
FDX for scheduling software | Paid add-on | No | No | Yes |
Two writers at once | Strongest here | Yes | Yes | Varies |
How to write a screenplay in Google Docs
Neither Docs nor Word has a built-in screenplay template, so you set Courier New 12, the margins above, then build a paragraph style for each element: Scene Heading, Action, Character, Parenthetical, Dialogue, Shot, Transition. Docs is free, and two people can be in the same scene at once. What you give up is drift, because styles applied by hand slip when you paste from your phone, and a page count both apps guess from a word processor file rather than a Courier screenplay. Screenplay length is the first thing many readers check.
The styles are the workaround, and drift is what the workaround costs. Set a Skrib project to Screenplay and the indent belongs to the element type itself rather than to a style you applied by hand, so there is nothing left to slip.
What happens when the script goes into production
Locking happens when the script is published to department heads and cast for prep, and page and scene numbers never change again. Nobody reprints a script because you added half a page to scene 14, so change is absorbed locally: overflow off page 62 becomes 62A while page 63 stays page 63, a scene inserted between 14 and 15 becomes 14A, and a cut scene keeps its number beside the word OMITTED. Revised pages go out on coloured paper in a fixed sequence, the WGA West standard set that Final Draft ships: White, Blue, Pink, Yellow, Green, Goldenrod, Buff, Salmon, Cherry, and then repeats with Second Blue through Second Cherry.
The day a script is published is also the day it leaves a writing app. Skrib has no locked pages, no A-pages, no coloured revision sets and no numbered shooting script, so at publication the file moves into Final Draft, Fade In or Celtx and every revision after that happens there.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you write a screenplay in Google Docs?
Set Courier New 12 and the margins above, then a paragraph style for each element. The page count will not match a real Courier page.
What is a shooting script?
The production version of a screenplay: every scene numbered on both margins, camera direction where the director wants it. A spec script is that stripped back for a reader, held to the spec format standard.
How do you number scenes in a screenplay?
You do not, until the script locks. Inserted scenes then take letters so nothing after them shifts; the apps that do it are compared in best screenwriting software.
Build Your Screenplay in Skrib
The other failure here has nothing to do with formatting: the beats in one app, the research in a folder you never open, and the pages somewhere that knows about neither. In Skrib they sit on one project, the Board beside the Draft in split screen, the Library searchable. It runs in a browser, with no offline desktop app, and the whole production column above still belongs to Final Draft.
Write the thing first. The paperwork has its own software.
