Import from Final Draft Dialog Box

The path to the Final Draft script you are importing.

You can click on the Browse button on the right to open a dialog box that will allow you to browse for and select your script.

The list of all element types included in your Final Draft script. These may include Action, Character, Dialogue, Scene Heading, Shot, Transition, End of Act, New Act, General, and any other type of element, including custom elements.

You can select an element in this list, then configure what Storyboard Pro will do with each instance of this type of element it finds in your script in the Element Options section of this dialog.

What to do each time an element of the selected type is found in your script.

When you import a Final Draft script as a new Storyboard Pro project, Storyboard Pro goes through your script from top to bottom and, for every element in your script, it performs the action you selected for that element type, so as to create the structure of your project.

For example, you can select Scene Heading in the Elements list, then select New Scene in the action drop-down, so that Storyboard Pro generates a new scene in your Storyboard Pro project for each Scene Heading element it finds in your script.

• None: Does not create anything in your project for this type of element.

  NOTE Even if an element is not configured to perform any action, its text can still be stored in captions. If you select a caption in the Destination caption field drop-down, its text will be stored in that caption field, but for the last panel that was generated.

• New Act: Creates a new act in your project whenever an instance of this element is encountered in your script. The act is named after the text content of this element.

  Typically, this action should be selected for New Act elements.

• New Sequence: Creates a new sequence in your project whenever an instance of this element is encountered in your script.

• New Scene: Creates a new scene in your project whenever an instance of this element is encountered in your script.

  Typically, you should select this action for Scene Heading elements.

• New Panel: Creates a new panel in your project, whenever an instance of this element is encountered in your script.

  Typically, this action should be selected for Action elements, as well as Character elements, as they are usually used to signify that a character is about to speak.

• New Transition: Creates a new transition in your project whenever an instance of this element is encountered in your script.

  Typically, this action should be selected to Transition elements.

  NOTE A transition is always followed by a new scene in Storyboard Pro.
• New Scene Prefix:  Sets the prefix to add to the name of every ensuing scene. The name of every scene created after this element will start with the text in this element, followed by its scene number

If this option is enabled for the selected element type, when Storyboard Pro finds several consecutive elements of this type in your script, it will only perform the selected action in the Action drop-down for the first of these consecutive elements.

For example, if you configure Action elements to generate new panels, by default, a new panel will be generated for every Action element in your script. However, if you also enable this option for Action elements, then consecutive Action elements will only generate a single panel, and their text content will be added to the same caption field, separated by paragraph breaks.

In Final Draft, it is possible to number scenes, or any type of element for that matter. If this option is enabled for an element type that is numbered in your Final Draft script, Storyboard Pro will add that element's number before the element's text when importing it into a caption field.

For example, if your Character elements are numbered in your script, you set each Character element to be imported into your project's Dialogue caption fields, and you enable this option for Character elements, each character name that is added to a panel's Dialogue caption field will be preceded by its character number.

The caption field in which to import the element's text.

For example, it is typical to import Character, Dialogue and Parenthetical elements into the Dialog captions, and the Action elements into the Action Notes captions.

Allows you to instantly create a caption field for your project, so that you can import specific script elements into caption fields that are not created by default.

For example, Storyboard Pro has four default caption fields: Dialog, Action Notes, Slugging and Notes. You could choose to store Scene Heading elements into the Notes caption of their respective panel, or you may want to store Scene Heading elements into a caption field of their own, which you could name "Scene Heading" or "Setting". This button allows you to create such custom caption fields for your project on the fly.

To create a new caption field, simply click on this button and, in the dialog that appears, type the name of the new caption and click OK.