![]() PDF Expert does a lot of what GoodReader does, and it is much prettier. Rather than build true PDF annotation into ReaddleDocs, Readdle instead chose to launch an entirely new app. I found it ugly, clunky, and un-iPad-like-but I relied on it for its bevy of features that Apple couldn’t or wouldn’t include in the initial iPad release, such as Dropbox file access and handling compressed files.Ī year and many apps later, the two apps I use for reading screenplays now? GoodReader (now $4.99) and a newer app from Readdle called PDF Expert ($9.99). I’d bought, but was not happy with, the most popular iPad reading app at the time, GoodReader from Good.iWare. I’d found an app I liked called ReaddleDocs. On my sixth day of owning an iPad, I wrote about my experience reading screenplays on it. The iPad, on the other hand, invites you to lean back. It bleeps at my with distractions and beckons me to be productive, or to research how felines behave when video cameras are nearby. My computer feels like a thing to do work with. But there’s something both awful and impossible about reading off a laptop screen. Of course, one could simply use a computer for this. So a tablet that allows “reading” a PDF isn’t enough to replace a hardcopy for the work of reading a screenplay. No one reads a printed screenplay without a pen in hand. You’ll be forgiven for flipping back to that dog-eared page to remind yourself who is who. But when reading a screenplay, they’re not movie stars yet-they’re just “Danny,” “Rusty,” and “Linus.” You’re going to need some way to keep track of them amongst Frank, Reuben, Livingston, Virgil, Turk, Saul, Yen, and Basher. Brad Pitt is rather memorable, and quite distinct from George Clooney and Matt Damon. When you’re watching Ocean’s Eleven, it’s never a problem to keep track of the characters. The very least I do when reading a screenplay is mark character introductions and major plot beats. You’re reading a recipe book while your stomach is growling.Īll of these tasks require attentive reading and some form of note-taking. Even if you’re reading a screenplay purely for fun, you’re reading something that isn’t a final product. You’re proofreading your own draft, checking for plot holes, misspellings, or colossal suckiness. You’re “breaking down” a script for production. You’ve promised to give a friend your honest opinion on her latest effort. Reading screenplays, however, is more than just “reading”-it’s work. Maybe not as good as a Kindle, but darn good. It’s painfully obvious that the iPad is good for reading. I knew that there would be some way that the iPad would become the powerhouse document reader I’d dreamed of. So for this reason alone, the price of the iPad felt “pre spent” to me on the day of the announcement. The only real option I considered was the (now discontinued) Kindle DX, which could correctly display PDFs and cost $489. A Thousand Screenplays in Your Pocketīefore the iPad was even announced, I dreamed of a better way of reading screenplays. Most screenplays are shared in PDF format, and that’s a very good thing. But it lacks annotation features, so there is room for Final Draft Reader-if FDX files and their embedded “scriptnotes” are exclusively the world you tread in.īut of course, that’s not the case for most filmmakers. FDX Reader is a must-have for any screenwriter, and a model of iPad beauty and simplicity. ![]() ![]() Screenwriter and Fountain co-creator John August has an excellent app for just that. ![]() There’s nothing new about reading FDX files, the native format of Final Draft, on an iPad. It will be interesting to see what they’ve come up with. The company had already warned us that they were scaling back their iPad efforts from a full screenplay editing app to just a reader. announced yesterday that they’ll be releasing Final Draft Reader for iPad next week. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |