Will someone please check out Celtx and give us a review? Here’s what the website says about it:
Celtx is the world’s first all-in-one media pre-production software. It has everything you need to take your story from concept to production. Celtx replaces ‘paper, pen & binder’ pre-production with a digital approach that’s more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share.
It’s downloadable screenwriting software that offers pre-production tools as well. It looks pretty good but I haven’t had time to use it yet. If you have, let me know.
BTW, the folks who created Celtx are in Newfoundland!
Lynn Ellen Wolf
I’ve used Celtx for three months now, and use nothing else. It has features for every format I’m writing. It’s flexible, usable, has so many features that I haven’t even used them all yet. I’ve been recommending it since the second day I got it. The free software is fantastic, and even more features are available with a membership to the Celtx Studio Online – I can save a copy of my work to Studio and work on it from my desktop, laptop, anywhere I can get on the internet. Aa a related side note: I used it to format my last screenplay and it’s being read right now by a major producer and every eye that’s seen it has accepted it without comment about changing the formatting or appearance, and I got one comment that it “looks good, very easy to read” – from a producer’s point of view. I couldn’t be happier with the software (Free!), the service or the price (Studio).
Josh K
I second the endorsement. There are a couple of features I would add — for example, I have to fuss around with the space bar to make centered title headings like “Act Three”, and the keyboard shortcuts could be a little more helpful for parentheticals in the middle of a block of dialogue. But the studio feature is great for working with a writing partner, and you can’t beat the price.
I have not used any of the preproduction features. They look neat though.
Xander
I’ve used it for over a year. I run Ubuntu Linux, so Final Draft won’t work for me anyway.
The screenwriting part of the software should be instantly familiar to anyone who’s ever used Final Draft, except more stable and reliable. It spits out perfectly formatted pdfs — strangely, though, they’re always a few pages longer than the same script would be in FD. (There’s also no margin-tinkering tool in Celtx, so if you like to cheat and save lines in FD, you can’t do that here.)
It’s got a lot of bells and whistles (outlining, collaborating and production tools) that I don’t use. Although I’ve gotten good use out of the template for writing comics — you write a comic book script like a screenplay, but then it cleverly outputs in a nice panel grid format.
The only thing to be aware of is this: you must always use the ‘Typeset’ tab before converting your script to a pdf, and for some reason you can’t use that function when not connected to the internet. A minor problem with a generally very awesome piece of software.
Oh yeah, and it’s free (without the collaboration tools) and open source. Fight the power. 🙂
Robbo
I have merely dabbled with it – being an inveterate software collector – but was dismayed when it didn’t come loaded with inspiration, discipline and fresh cookies. Aside from those glaring omissions it seemed to perform well.
It’s a fully loaded package that has waaaay more than any one writer really needs – but as a package for an entire production team (or sufficiently inspired & disciplined solo artist) it really is outstanding.
Cheers.
grapeshot
I thought it was fantastic to use — especially for the price. It’s very easy to learn so you can immediately begin working on your project without having to spend a great deal of time figuring out where all the buttons are and what do they do.
There is a good review of all the things the software can do here:
This reviewer argues that it is not just a tool for writing, but also for pre-production planning. It does seem to be able to break scenes down into lists that would be useful for a production team as they plan their shooting schedule. However, that’s not my primary interest. Mind you, that review is from someone who’s affiliated with Celtx, so keep that in mind when you read his comments. But I have never heard anything negative about Celtx, and I’ve been using it since ver. .9 (Beta).
John August also did a review of that Beta version:
https://johnaugust.com/2005/celtx-screenwriting-application-shows-promise
I’ve been using it for collaboration on a script with someone four states away, and for scripting slide show (power point) presentations. (Heh. That’s so I can sound “spontaneous” and yet be coherent. I use the Audio Visual format for this.) I’ve even used it to transcribe a couple of audio interviews. (The auto formatting feature let me concentrate on what was being said without worrying about proper print formatting, so as dumb as this example might seem of what the software can do, at the time it was PERFECT for the task! And it was EASY to turn into a nice HTML page and throw it up on the web. See here:
I’ve even noted someone using it to write a novel:
While I wouldn’t go that far with the software, I can understand the lure of using it to plan your story’s plot points. It’s story boarding feature is pretty nifty, and it does a good job of letting you keep track of places and things.
admin
Thanks all for the great reviews. I’m gonna download it now!
Claire
A bit late to the party but another huge fan of Celtx here! I’m married to Screenwriter to write for no particular reason other than stubbornness, but I’ve found the pre-production and collaboration tools in Celtx (once I’ve uploaded my script as a txt file) invaluable, and as someone said about, great value for money!
multibrain
nice blog, my only shortcoming is I wish I were a better screenwriter. How do you like this CELTX? I could use it to hone in on these skills, since I’m working on two pilots right now. Nice to meet you Jill. Scott
John Gaskin
Man, the shooting schedule reports are really simple and easy to follow. I’ve been doing workshops on Film Accounting, Film Budgeting and Film Payroll, but I couldn’t figure out a way to teach Film Scheduling. I just wanted to show Line Producers a quick way to get out a One-Liner without getting into head-splitting scheduling software that makes you wait every time you click (tough on presentations), that has a tendency to freeze-up at inopportune moments (even with 2Megs of RAM), etc. I’m definitely into Celtx – can’t wait to practice more on it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to introduce Newfie Tech into Detroit and Toronto! (I’m a Bluenoser myself and always proud of East Coasters – go Celtx!).
David Cooper
I own Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter. I also have Celtx on my drive and I use Zhura.com
What does screenwriting software do anyhow? It isn’t tough stuff and I don’t like the price that the other packages charge.
Celtx works great. It does everything you need.
If you want to write a script, save your $$$ and grab this software.
Greg
It works well enough except I don’t like the fact that you have to register your script at their website for the software to add “more’s” and “cont’ds”.
David Cook
I find it a pleasure to work with… It’s easy on the eye and gives Final Draft a good run for it’s money!
Previous replies have already mentioned that you need to be connected to the internet to typeset your script. This is the only issue with an otherwise fantastic product.
I find it useful to be able to save my work as a PDF and be able to review the latest additions of my script as it appears on the page.
What I can’t believe is that it’s free… A cash strapped screenwriter will find themselves in writing heaven with Celtx!
Dzof
I too have Celtx installed on my laptop, but it’s hard to make a wholehearted transition to it since none of the other writers I work with (and more importantly, the Producers) use it.
If Celtx could import and export files in Final Draft format, then this would be a complete winner.
Juha Mustanoja
I was really into Celtx first, but I’m afraid the pagination glitch is a whopper: it is impossible to accurately estimate how many pages one has written. This realy puts me off. The discrepancy can be as big as five percent – I think I’ve written a 100-page script, and after typesetting I find I’ve only written, say, 92 pages.
I discussed this a lot on the Celtx forums, but it seems that WYSIWYG isn’t a priority at the moment. Well, I want WYSIWYG, period. I want to control what the pages of my screenplay look like, because that makes a BIG difference when selling your script.
Celtx is an enormous, wonderful project, but I’m afraid I’m stuck with Movie Magic until this problem is resolved – not too far in the future, I hope.