WriterDuet isn’t your run-of-the-mill scriptwriting software. It’s jam-packed with features designed to enhance your writing flow. Here are a few of the nifty features you may have missed!
Dark Editor
When enabled, Dark Editor turns the pages of the document from white with black text to dark grey with white text. This is an awesome option for late night writing sessions or just for a more focused view.
To active Dark Editor, select “Options” at the top right of your page and check “Dark Editor”
Typewriter Mode
Typewriter Mode is a method of viewing a document while it is being edited. Just as a typewriter, the cursor will stay in the middle of the screen rather than moving down the page as text is added.
To turn on/off, navigate to the app Menu > View > Typewriter Mode (check mark will appear next to menu item when enabled).
Note: there is no noticeable difference when Typewriter Mode is turned on while typing at the very top of a script.
UI Theme
The WriterDuet app can be customized in many ways, including the app colors. Make the app your own! To customize your UI Theme, navigate to Menu > Customize > Display > UI Theme.
The Primary Color is the base color for almost all of your display (by default it is gray). I’d recommend a fairly dark color, but you do you. And the Secondary Color is the color for some of the buttons and other accent areas (by default it is blue).
Keyboard Shortcuts
WriterDuet has a keyboard shortcut for most functions. Speed up your writing process by utilizing some of these hotkeys!
On Mac, you can use both Control (Ctrl) and Command (Cmd) interchangeably for shortcuts. Option and Alt are also interchangeable.
- Ctrl+Z – Undo
- Ctrl+Y – Redo
- Ctrl+F – Search for text
- Ctrl+Shift+D – Start (or Stop) dictation
- Ctrl+Shift+F – Enter (or leave) full-screen mode
- Ctrl+O – View list of all your scripts (the same as going to File>Open)
- Ctrl+D – Make lines into dual dialogue
- Ctrl+G – Go to a page or scene number
- Ctrl+B – Bold
- Ctrl+I – Italic
- Ctrl+U – Underline
- Ctrl+E – Highlight
- Ctrl+L – Color
- Ctrl+Shift+X – Strikethrough
- Ctrl+Shift+K – Insert hyperlink
- Ctrl+A – Select all
- Cmd+Option+] – Increase right margin
- Cmd+Option+[ – Decrease right margin
- Alt+A – Change line type to Action
- Alt+S – Change line type to Scene
View all of the keyboard shortcuts in the WriterDuet app in the Menu under Help > Keyboard Shortcuts.
Ruler
The ruler in WriterDuet is hidden by default. When visible you can use the ruler to check/adjust margins on the fly. Select a line to adjust manually using the ruler slider. Do this while holding shift and you will adjust for all of the lines of that selected line type.
To enable the ruler, open the Menu and head to Customize > Format and select the ‘show editor ruler’ checkbox.
Tag and Filter
Like many WriterDuet tools, the Tagger is built to be flexible so that it can suit many workflows. You could use it to filter between A, B, and C plots in order to focus on each at a time. Jokes that need work could have a filter so that they can be quickly viewed and edited by your funny friend. Scenes could even be tagged and filtered based on the day that they will be rehearsed or shot. The two basic functions you’ll need to perform for all of these scenarios will be the same: Tagging & Filtering.
You can open up the Tagger by going to Tools > Tagger within the app, or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+T. You should see it pop up in the corner of your screen. You can then create a tag that you’d like to apply to your script. Enter the name of the tag into the field, and select your preferred color for it from the box to the left, then hit Enter to create the tag.
You can apply a tag by clicking into a line on your script, and then clicking the circle to the left of your tag. The tag will appear on the left margin of your page to indicate a tagged line. If you highlight a word or phrase, it will turn the chosen color to indicate it has been tagged.
Once you’ve applied your tags to your script, you can put them to good use with filters. This will temporarily remove all lines in your script that don’t have the associated tagged, so you can quickly view everything. You can turn on a filter within the tagger by clicking the Filter icon to the right of your preference. Quickly see every prop that you would need to shoot this scene. Using these same two steps for any number of tasks, Tagging & Filtering becomes a very powerful tool for outlining, drafting, and production!
Cards View
In WriterDuet your script can viewed in different ways. Switching from Page View to Cards View can add a unique benefit to the writing process and can be useful depending on how you prefer to outline!
Change your page to the Cards View by either by using the dropdown in the left corner above your script, and it will open it up in a new project tab or going to Menu > Tools > Outliner > Cards, you will see your script broken down into cards, where every scene has its own dedicated card. Cards are in a left-to-right, vertically descending grid by default.
Cards are the exact same document as the script — think of your cards as dozens (hundreds, even!) of small individual scripts that by default have every line filtered out except for Outline lines. Outline lines are a Line Type that show as light gray and allow for outlining and notes, but can be hidden in the final export of your script.
You can click and hold a card to drag it and drop it into a different position if you’d like to move a scene, and this change will automatically reflect in your script the next time you view it in page view. This way, you can always take a step back and re-outline if you need to!
Remember what we said about the cards essentially being tiny scripts? (We hope so… that was, like, one paragraph ago.) Well, by going to Options in the right corner above the cards and unchecking the Outline Mode box, this will un-filter all line types on the cards and show you the entire scene’s contents within each one. This makes them, literally, a ton of tiny scripts!
Knowledge Base
WriterDuet has a slew of features not mentioned here, so jump in and discover at WriterDuet.com or checkout the extensive knowledge base to learn even more!
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