I have been using Pages to wrote TV Show scripts, as I've found it to be less restrictive than celtx, and cheaper than final draft.
It's been working really well, I just defined a bunch of custom paragraph styles, and I select the relevant one as needed.
This doesn't take much overhead, but there are a few things I would like to be able to do.
Basically, there are certain things that should be enforced between the styles. I've attached a screenshot of a script I've written to better illustrate what I'm referring to:
In most cases, when there is the name of a character, i.e. PHIL
, or CLAIRE
, it should be followed by the paragraph style that you see in the screenshot. Is there someway to have it set up so that when I press enter to go to a new line while I'm entering a characters name, the paragraph style of the new line is that of the dialog?
Also, when there is a name heading at the bottom of the page, the dialog is the first thing at the top of the next page, but the name heading should be grouped with the dialog on the next page. Is there some way to enforce this? The problem is illustrated in the below image.
Thanks!
Best Answer
You control both those issues from the
MORE
tab on the Text Inspector window.The drop-down Following Paragraph Style will determine what the next paragraph's style settings are.
For example, if your paragraph style for character names is called
CHARACTERS
and for dialog it is calledDIALOG
what you do is select a bit of text that is using theCHARACTERS
style, then in theMORE
tab, set the Following Paragraph Style toDIALOG
.Likewise, you set the page break parameters in the same
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tab.By selecting the
Keep with following paragraph
will force theCHARACTERS
style to always be on the same page as the next paragraph. If there is enough room to display theCHARACTERS
line and at least 3 lines of theDIALOG
the text will start on the current page and then continue on the next page. If there isn't enough room to display theCHARACTERS
line and at least 3 lines of theDIALOG
, the whole group will be pushed onto the next page.According to Apple:
If you want to keep the entire paragraph on the same page (so, not have it break across pages, you select
Keep lines together
.Once your style is set, you then either create a new paragraph style or you redefine the existing paragraph style to reflect the changes you just made.