Sophocles Help Contents
1. Sophocles Overview
2. The Edit Window
3. The Explorer Window
4. Tools
5. Printing and Formatting
6. Production Mode
7. Television and Play Formats
1. Sophocles Overview
The Sophocles display is split vertically into two main windows. On the right is the Edit Window, where you type your script. Paragraphs within the Edit Window are color-coded by type (dialogue, action, and so forth). You can change a paragraph's type by manipulating the drop-down box at the top of the screen, but if you make use of the Tab and Enter keys you'll rarely need to do this.
On the left side of the display is the Explorer Window, which displays your script's scenes, sequences, and acts in a hierarchical format. You can use the Explorer Window to navigate from place to place in your script, and also to rearrange your scenes by dragging them from one location to another.
Unlike most word processors, Sophocles performs all formatting and pagination at print-time. For this reason, all printing and formatting considerations (margin settings, page breaks, and so forth) can be ignored until you're ready to print.
To see how your script will appear when you do print, execute the print preview command. Within the print preview window, click the "Edit Format" button to change your script's formatting, or click the "Load Format" button to load any of the predefined format files. Sophocles comes with a variety of format files for feature-film, television, and stageplay formats.
Sophocles provides a number of tools to help you navigate your script, visualize its overall structure, correct errors, and so forth.
Production mode provides fully automated revision handling for screenplays in production. When you revise a script that has already been distributed to a number of production entities, Sophocles will automatically generate whatever revision pages are needed to bring the outstanding drafts up to date.
2. The Edit Window
The Edit Window is where you type your script. You can adjust its appearance in a number of ways:
To split the window horizontally, click the "Split View" button or press F10. To change its width, click and drag the vertical bar separating it from the Explorer Window. To change the font it displays, click the "Font" button. To enable the window to display more lines of text (without changing the font size), click the "Compressed View" button.
Changes made to the appearance of the Edit Window do not affect how your script will appear when you print it. The print-time formatting of your script depends entirely on the values contained in the print format box. (For more on this, refer to the printing and formatting section.)
Right-clicking within the Edit Window brings up a context sensitive menu, the contents of which depend on the type of paragraph you clicked and whether any text was selected when you clicked.
What do you wish to know more about?
2.1. Paragraph Types
A Sophocles script is comprised of a number of consecutive paragraphs, each color-coded by type. There are nine types:
Action
Character Cue
Dialogue
Transition-In
Transition-Out
Scene Header
Act and Sequence Headers
Custom
A paragraph's type determines how it will be formatted at print-time. To change the formatting characteristics for a particular type of paragraph, activate the print preview window and click on the "Edit Format" button.
At the top of the main window you'll see a "drop-down box" indicating the type of the current paragraph. (The current paragraph is the one containing the blinking caret.) You can use this box to change the current paragraph's type, but Sophocles is designed such that you won't usually need to do this, so long as you keep in mind the following rules:
A. To write dialogue, press the Tab key, type the name of the speaker, then press Enter to begin typing dialogue.
B. For scene headers beginning with "EXT." or "INT.", just type the text of the header. Sophocles will recognize the paragraph as a header and change its type accordingly.
C. To write a transition-out (such as CUT TO:), press the Tab key twice.
Action
Action paragraphs are used to describe characters, settings, events, and actions. To create a new action paragraph, press the Enter key.
To split an action paragraph in two, place the blinking caret where you wish to make the split and press Enter.
To join two consecutive action paragraphs, either place the blinking caret at the start of the second paragraph and press the Backspace key, or place the caret at the end of the first paragraph and press the Delete key.
Character Cue
A character cue is the single line appearing above a dialogue paragraph to indicate the name of the speaker. To create a character cue, press the Tab key. When you're done typing the cue, press Enter to begin typing dialogue.
As you type the character cue, Sophocles will try to guess the name of the speaker. To accept a guess and begin writing dialogue, press Enter. If you wish to type a parenthetical alongside the cue, use the Tab key to accept the guess instead. To reject a guess, simply ignore it and continue typing, or press the Esc key.
Dialogue
To create a new dialogue paragaph, first create a new character cue, then press Enter. A dialogue paragraph cannot exist without an associated character cue.
When you're finished typing the dialogue paragraph, press Enter to start a new action paragraph, or Tab to start the next character's dialogue.
To create a parenthetical within dialogue, simply type an opening parenthesis, followed by the text of the parenthetical, followed by a closing parenthesis. Parentheticals do not comprise a separate paragraph type.
To split a dialogue paragraph in two, place the blinking caret where you wish to make the split and press Enter. This action will create a duplicate character cue for the second, newly created paragraph.
To join two consecutive dialogue paragraphs, either place the blinking caret at the start of the second paragraph and press the Backspace key, or place the caret at the end of the first paragraph and press the Delete key. This will only work if the two character cues match exactly.
Transition-In
A transition-in appears immediately above a scene header and is used to describe any visual effects needed to begin the scene. Typically, a feature-film screenplay will contain only one such transition: the "FADE IN:" at the start of the script.
A transition-in can be created by changing the type of an existing paragraph, or by typing "FADE IN:" on a blank line.
Transition-Out
A transition-out comes at the end of a scene and describes how to transition into the next scene. "CUT TO:" is the most common transition by far. (Some screenplays have a "CUT TO:" at the end of nearly every scene; others have no transitions at all.) "DISSOLVE TO:" and "FADE OUT" are the next most common examples.
To create a transition-out, press the Tab key twice and type the text of the transition, or press Ctrl+T to insert a "CUT TO:"
As you type a transition-out, Sophocles will try to guess the text of the transition. Press Enter or Tab to accept a guess. To reject a guess, simply ignore it and continue typing, or press the Esc key.
Scene Header
A scene header describes the location of a scene, whether the scene is an interior or an exterior, and usually the time of the scene. For example:
INT. THE KITCHEN - DAY
EXT. A COUNTRY ROAD - NIGHT
To create a scene header, type "ext." or "int." on a blank line; Sophocles will recognize the paragraph as a scene header and change its type accordingly. Alternatively, you can use either the Ctrl+E or Ctrl+I shortcuts.
Sophocles will try to guess the text of a scene header as you type. To accept the guess as-is, press Enter. If you press Tab instead, the guess will be accepted and the blinking caret will jump to the end of the header, allowing you to add more text. For example, if you type the letter 'T' and Sophocles guesses "THE KITCHEN", press Tab to accept the guess and jump to the end of the line. If you now press 'D', Sophocles will guess "DAY", at which point you can press Enter to begin typing the scene.
Act and Sequence Headers
By default, act and sequence headers don't appear when you print your script, since feature-film screenplays don't normally include them. This behavior can be changed by clicking the "Edit Format" button within the print preview window, or by loading any of the predefined television and play formats. (Those formats do print act and sequence headers).
Even if you won't be printing act or sequence headers, they're still useful for helping to organize the explorer window.
Press Ctrl+A to create a new act header. For a new sequence header, press Ctrl+Q.
Custom
The custom paragraph type is a spare type you can use to satisfy any special formatting requirements you may have. The predefined television and play formats use custom paragraphs in this way. If you have no such requirements, custom paragraphs can be used for including notes or remarks in your script.
You can create a new Custom paragraph from the insert menu or by changing the type of an existing paragraph.
2.2. Selecting Text
A range of text can be selected by clicking and dragging with the mouse or by holding down the Shift key while manipulating the cursor keys. You can clear out a selection by pressing the Esc key or any of the cursor keys, or by left-clicking anywhere within the Edit Window.
When text is selected, the commands, "Underline", "Bold", "Uppercase", "Lowercase", "Cut", and "Copy" become available. Each of these commands appears as a button at the top of the display.
The "Cut" command removes the selected text from the script and places it in the Windows "clipboard". (The prior contents of the clipboard are erased.) A subsequent "Paste" command inserts the contents of the clipboard into your script at the location of the blinking caret. The "Copy" command places a copy of the selected text into the clipboard without removing it from your script.
By selecting, cutting and pasting in this way, you can move text from one location in your script to another.
2.3. Joining and Splitting Paragraphs
To split a paragraph, position the blinking caret where you wish to make the split and press Enter. When a dialogue paragraph is split, its character cue is duplicated for the newly created paragraph.
To join a paragraph with the one below, position the blinking caret at the end of the paragraph and press the Delete key. To join a paragraph with the one above, position the caret at the start of the paragraph and press Backspace. Two paragraphs will not join if their types differ, or if they are dialogue paragraphs with character cues that don't match exactly.
2.4. Undoing and Redoing Actions
Any action you take in the Edit Window can be undone by executing the Undo command (Ctrl+Z) one or more times. If you undo more than you intended, execute the Redo command (Ctrl+Y).
3. The Explorer Window
The Explorer Window displays your script's scenes, sequences, and acts in a hierarchical format, with acts containing sequences and sequences containing scenes. When you click on an item in the Explorer Window, the Edit Window jumps to the corresponding location.
Items within the Explorer Window can be collapsed or expanded to hide or reveal their contents. When a plus sign appears to the left of an item, click on it to reveal the contents of the item. Click again to collapse the item back up. Right-clicking within the Explorer Window brings up a context sensitive menu that gives you the ability to expand or collapse all items at once.
The Explorer Window can be used to rearrange the order of your scenes. To do so, click on the scene you wish to move and hold down the mouse button. Drag the scene to its new location, then release the button to drop it there. If you make a mistake, use the Undo command to put the scene back where it was.
The contents of the Explorer Window can be printed or saved to a file (along with your scene notes and synopses) by invoking the Outline Report.
4. Tools
4.1. Lists
4.1.1. Character List
The character list displays the speaking roles in your script along with statistics for each, including: order of appearance, words spoken, number of speeches, average speech length, and the number of scenes in which the character appears. To sort the list by any of these values, click the button at the top of the corresponding column.
The "Bookmark" button marks all the dialogue spoken by the selected character(s). More than one character can be selected by holding down the Ctrl key while left-clicking with the mouse.
The "Save" button stores the list in a tab-delimited text file, which can then be imported into a spreadsheet or database application.
4.1.2. Scene List
The scene list displays the scene headers in your script, along with statistics for each scene, including: number of speaking characters, length in words (action plus dialogue), and the scene's order within the script. To sort the list by any of these values, click the button at the top of the corresponding column.
The "Bookmark" button marks the selected scene(s). More than one scene can be selected by holding down the Ctrl key while left-clicking with the mouse.
The "Go" button positions the Edit Window on the currently selected scene and closes the tool.