A printed script page
I’ve been working on a play lately, so I got it into my head to see how well script formatting worked in various file formats on an ereader. Turns out, not that great.
It’s a bit of a moot point anyway, seeing as nobody reads scripts without needing to take notes on them, and no current ereader can satisfactorily do that, so consider this purely curiosity.
The long and the short of is that PDF is the only readable format for scripts. Hit the jump for a complete breakdown, pictures, and more details.
The picture above is of a printed script page. You can see the four primary formatting elements: character names, dialogue, parentheticals, and descriptions of action. This is what it should look like.
I began with the original file, created in Open Office, and then I exported it as an .rtf and a PDF. I converted the .rtf to ePub and LRF using Calibre. Below is a gallery of the results (click on thumbnails for full-size pictures).
Worst was ePub, which is entirely unusable, obviously.
Next most useless is LRF, which was stripped of all its formatting, including the Courier font.
The original .rtf file displayed fairly well on the ereader, except there’s something a little wonky. You can see it in the parentheticals: some formatting rule is set wrong. The character names are also off-center. When the size is increased to large, these problems become much more noticeable.
PDF is more promising. Everything’s in its proper place, but it’s quite small. Bumping the size up doesn’t help. Whenever you change the size of a PDF, the formatting has a conniption fit; this is my biggest complaint about reading PDFs on a dedicated device. However, you can change the orientation to “horizontal” and the text becomes at least readable.
You could theoretically increase the font size before exporting a PDF, but that would throw off the pagination, which is, after all, the reason people use script formatting.
In any case, the horizontal PDF is readable, which is about as good as we’ll get.
(Note: it could well be that using Calibre to convert to LRF and ePub is what stripped away the formatting. I’ll try to find a different ePub creator to see if it makes a difference. If it does, I’ll post again.)
I realize that all this affects probably less than 1% of readers, but I think preserving this kind of little-used format will be crucial during the conversion to digital reading, if we’re to convince non-believers (and ourselves) that converting to ereading involves only aesthetic and nostlagic drawbacks.
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- Printed script page
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- ePub — default size
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- LRF — default size
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- rtf — default size
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- rtf — large size
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- PDF — default size
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- PDF — large size
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- PDF — horizontal
Hi Nico,
I have to disagree with you: I think this could be a problem for more than just a small fraction of readers. If the ereader is going to be the device of choice for all lengthy reading, professionally and for pleasure, than not being able to format scripts could be a big drawback for people working in the film industry. Sure, most people will just print the scripts out or read from a computer screen, but not having the option to easily use an ereader instead for the thousands of screenplays passed around each year won’t exactly help push the ereader adoption forward…
Hey Mike,
Yeah, that 1% was just my uneducated guess at how many people work in the film industry/write scripts. I can’t say that the ePub format is incapable of doing more arcane formats like scripts, but it’s not exactly effortless yet, and that’s got to change.
I think that these failures of formatting are more indicative of an overall problem. The book designers NEED the eReader to accurately replicate the layout that they prepare. While it is a problem with script layout, it is also a deal breaker with the far larger market for academic textbooks and reference manuals- while also being an extreme pain in the typography for magazines and newspapers.
I use a TabletPC and that already makes for a far better platform for reading PDFs with their very specific formatting retained. The three hour battery lifespan, 3lb weight and old fashioned LCD rather than eInk are the biggest drawbacks for eReader use.
For marking up my screenplays, I use OneNote with the “Print To OneNote” function out of Final Draft or Celtx where the script comes in with all formatting and I can simply write right on it with a nice red “ink”.
What I am waiting for is a TabletPC under 2lb, with a >8 hour battery and a good transflective screen that can be viewed in direct sunlight or a pitch black room. It is only a matter of (not all that much) time and I fail to see how a dedicated eReader will beat it out unless we have something like the New York Times handing it out free with a yearly subscription. There is also that pesky $1500 versus $400 – but for me it is already more than worth it to have one device that works as my computer AND my eReader rather than haul around two devices.
Hi Clint,
That’s a good point, this does go to a broader issue of ereaders and formatting. I’ve found–especially with PDFs–that formatting is flawless in full-size PDFs, but gets jumbled when you zoom in. I’m guessing this is because the “reflow” feature is still relatively new, and to actually zoom in on a PDF as you would an image on a computer requires more processor heft than most ereaders have. It should, hopefully, be worked out in time.
Personally, I couldn’t see myself reading on any current tablet computer, especially after reading on a nice E-Ink screen. I can, however, imagine a future crossover device: essentially a tablet with a detachable E-Ink screen. I would be all over that.
For eReaders in general, most formats except PDF and pictures are simply HTML and CSS, even things like eReader and Mobipocket. Especially EPUB. So what you really have to do (or I suppose what I or someone else has to do) is sit down with an eReader like the PRS-700 and experiment with the formatting. I’ve already found that normal tags to preserve formatting also cause the eReader to stop word-wrapping, so lines of code (for programming books) run off the screen. And PDFs are generally too large to read comfortably at 100%, and zooming in on each page is a pain, since it forgets after every page turn.
So I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do such formatting, short of manually specifying margins for each line and/or using for indentation and/or … some other technique. Maybe images or laying out the text for the exact dimensions of the eReader in question, as an image or PDF.
In my last comment between using for, it should say using for instead.
yeah, it’s a pretty obnoxious problem. I’m not a programmer, but I think the solution might lie in the reflow capability. PDFs look great at full-size, but when you zoom in and they get reflowed, all hell breaks loose.
I think they need to design reflow to preserve the proportions of the formatting at all zoom levels. Essentially they need to design reflow so that it’s universally capable, and doesn’t need to be tweaked for every arcane format that people use.
I’m personally considering using an ereader for this sort of thing. I have a bunch of screenplays, shots lists and other docs that I could be saving space on. That aside, as long as I remember to bring my ereader where I go then I can’t forget individual docs. If I ever need to take a note, I have my pocket size notebook. I’ll make a note that says: Screenplay, Scene #, Page # and “my note.”
Plus, one of the things that you did not test out was cropping the margins:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51295
Look at DDHarriman’s response on this thread.
He used one of my screenplays excerpts as an example. I have no ereader to test this out. Perhaps you can give it a go? The removal of margins should increase the size of the content in portrait mode.
Thanks for the tip, Ernie. I don’t read/write screenplays enough to go to the trouble of cropping PDFs, but for hardcore users, that could be a lifesaver.
I know it has been a almost a year since that last response on this article but I was wondering if there is any updated news on this topic. I too read would like to read screenplays on a e-reader but not quite sure which device is the best for the screenplay at pdf format. That are so many new e-readers on the market now but which one would work the best. Right now I am looking at the Libre that Borders is now offering and it is at a reasonable price. Is that any one out there that can help me with this?
I have been writing stories in play form (assuming they are just for reading) using an iPad. Each scene is a (iPad) Pages document. When a scene is done, it is eMailed to my Macbook, delivered to Pages, exported into .RTF format, fed to “calibre,” converted to ePub, then uploaded to iBooks on the iPad. iBooks is phenomenal for a writer: you see your “draft” as a published work; you can highlight errors, add notes for changes—and they are all nicely indexed for you, for reference; and, where you have ideas leading to a major rewrite, you can copy-out pieces of your book and paste them into Pages.
My one problem is formatting: I would say I am using variants of “actor’s editions,” but haven’t come up with one I’m completely happy with—too much tapping and finger-dragging.
Anyway, check out the iPad, calibre, and iBooks!.
I may be late to this discussion but as of Jul 11, 2011 I still can’t find anything out there that offers pdf screenplays in epub format. I think the only solution is to have a “modified/simple” format that works on the small ereader screen. Since dialogue only consumes half a normal page, that is a waste for a small screen ereader. So make dialogue nicely indented but not centered, for example. This ePub format would just be for eReaders not studios.