Slugline App Reviews

I used Final Draft & Celtx before, but most often found my self fiddling with the app more than writing. It gave me the impression that i was writing… But in reality it was like trying to run while you have cemet blocks attached to your legs. After I switched to slugline, I start to fly while i run/write. Its so fast, clean and minimal. A minimalist writers dream come true. I kiss the brains whomever came up with this app. Thank you.

And thats just how it should be. I can honestly say Ive been much more productive with Slugline than with other screenwriting apps. Clean, simple, and it perfectly translates nonsense Ive tapped out on my phone into nonsense in proper screenplay format. Well worth the dough so far.

Im not generally one to push one particular scriptwriting program or another, but Ive got to say that this is one of the more useful tools for my writing process that Ive seen in a long time. It doesnt provide a bunch of excess features, but instead encourages you to trust it to format for you. Its incredibly helpful in writing dialogue and learns the names of characters as you write them. Wish there was a way that you could smoothly delete people from the suggestions, but maybe it will learn once I purge old characters from the actual document. Overall its a great writing tool and I reccomend it to anyone looking for a script writing program that isnt work all its own.

I have never been compelled to write a review in the App store until now. Slugline’s genius in intelligently formatting screenplay elements based on formats means you. just. WRITE. The program takes care of everything else. The time saved in not having to specify formatting, which every other screenwriting app makes you do more often than you’d like, saves minutes, hours, weeks can instead be spent writing. Do not be fooled by the simplicity and elegance of this program, that is THE brilliant insight of the developers (who are very responsive btw). If time is money, the time saved by Slugline is worth many many times its purchase price, so don’t hesitate. You’ll never look back. I gave it 5 stars as it is. If a future version coudl support some sort of draft / versioning AND the ability to rearrange scenes by dragging and dropping in the outline I will personally hack the App Store to create a 10 star rating capability and give it to Slugline.

I wrote the first 40 or so pages of my script in MS Word. I got real tired of doing all of the tabbing, etc while writing. I looked into FinalDraft but it seemed like overkill for me at this time (I’m sure I’ll buy it at some point). I was researching how to make a ScreenPlay template in Word when I stumbled across a mention of Slugline. I thought it looked great and it was inexpensive so I decided to take the risk. Man, I’m glad I did! It’s so nice to be able to just focus on writing. It’s simple, it’s fast. I learned how to use it in a couple of minutes and got to writing. Well worth the money and I can only hope they KEEP it this simple going forward.

Slugline introduced me to the world of Fountain, which was sort of like taking the Red Pill (a la Matrix). And before I was about to drop $30 on an app AND a new way of life, I definitely did a fair share of research, and urge you to do the same. After a few days, I’m happy I took the plunge. Slugline piqued my interest because I really do agree with their philosphy of simplifying the whole screenwriting experience, and they do deliver on that front. GOOD - The “just write” philosophy works, and should not be understated. - The ability to outline your script is pretty much THE feature that sold me on Slugline. Final Draft’s “Scene Navigator” divides your scenes by heading, regardless of the context, which can be a mess for phone conversations, scenes that take place in different parts of the same room, etc. - The omitting feature is great for cutting down on "different versions” (and more files) of your script. - Notetaking is so much simpler than in Final Draft. No need to click the note, have it come up in an annoying little box, then close out of it just to see what it says. BAD - It’s a little buggy, which definitely takes away from the clean/minimal experience that they’re advertising. For example, when typing dialogue, the font will often change from Courier to Helvetica-ish, then back to Courier after it’s formatted. It’s like you’re seeing behind-the-scenes innerworkings that you shouldn’t be. - No support for Dual Dialogue, though their customer support said it’s “first on the list” in the coming update. - Slugline can only deal with .Fountain files. It’s great that you took the plunge and freed yourself from the shackles of Final Draft, but if you want to collaborate with the 99% of your friends and colleagues who still use it, you’re going to need to convert between Fountain, Final Draft and PDF. Slugline’s sister-app Highland does this, but it’s $40 and really doesn’t do much else. There are cheaper alternatives on the Fountain website, but Highland looked to be the most trustworthy, and is the only one I’ve found that can turn a PDF into an editable Fountain document.

Just installed the update (will add to reveiw if anything else surfaces), but GREAT additions. The (CON’T) was the final element making printout/PDF from Slugline perfect. I don’t use Dual Dialog much, but appreciate the addition for those who do. The other additions and fixes are spot on. Bravo and kudos to Stu and the team.

Ive been using Slugline to write a script for a comic and its been invaluable! It was easy to find a selection of formatting options that worked great for a comics script. The PDF output was highly professional and well-formatted. Ive now gone through 4 drafts of a long (100+) page script thats gone back and forth with the publisher on the way to production and Ive had nearly no problems with formatting, performance, or anything else. When I work on my script, I think about my comic, not Slugline and not the formatting, which is the highest compliment I can think of to pay a writing program.

I stumbled upon Slugline via a few mentions on the podcasts “That Post Show” and “Scriptnotes”. But quite honestly, I didn’t get the whole “.fountain” concept at first. So, if you don’t understand what “.fountain” is, then I suggest learning about it PRIOR to purchasing this app. Basically, Slugline let’s you WRITE in .fountain and SEE what your screenplay will LOOK like while you write it. You just write and Slugline formats as you go without pushing any additional buttons or sorting through menus. It’s a very cool experience. In the past when I had contacted Slugline, Stu always got back to me super quick. And in this latest update all of my issues and concerns were addressed and corrected. However, I wish Slugline had the ability to change the colors of the pages and the background to suit the users tastes; but who knows, maybe that feature will be part of a future update. I like this app a lot and I now do all my screenwriting in it. Five stars and two thumbs way up for Slugline !!!

I’ve set aside Final Draft for good thanks to the ridiculously well-designed Slugline. I love being able to write in Slugline on my Mac, then pop over to do some tweaking on the go to a text doc on my iPad. When I return to my Mac, the new writing is waiting for me, and all of Slugline’s glossy previews and beneficial formatting are there to make writing more pleasant. The new dual dialog function is something I’ve been waiting for, and it works like a charm!

I was worried about how well I understood Fountain before I bought Slugline, but it really is intuitive. That said, it’s worth making sure it’s your cup of tea before you dive in. Heres all you need to know — I haven’t opened Final Draft since Slugline finished installing. Haven’t missed it, either.

This application does it all, with the least moving parts. Built-in, authorized support for Blake Snyder Beat Sheets is a major plus. I recommend this application to all of my screenwriting friends, and truly believe that the .fountain format will become a new industry standard. Computer Geeks: you can use version control systems perfectly with the .fountain text format to save iterations of your scripts as you go, so you never lose anything that you erase in a fit of writers block.

This is the best Fountain-based screenwriting app Ive used. And a great screenwriting app in general, format ignored. I use Slugline to write on my Mac, saved as Fountain files to Dropbox. Then, when Im out and about or waiting to sleep, I edit and write on my iPhone and iPad in Byword connected to Dropbox as well. Its an effective, efficient and flexible workflow. The Final Draft app ecosystem doesnt come close. Much appreciated.

Not sure how I could be happier with this program- doesn’t crash like Movie Writer Pro did, formatting is a breeze (once you know the shortcuts/tricks), and I can use Blake Snyder’s “Beat Sheet” outline to get myself started!!! So glad I purchased Slugline!

I began writing screenplays with a converted typesetting program back in the 1980s. I have used Scriptor and WSA and ScriptThing and ScriptWare and MMSW2000, Final Draft, and, and and… If it’s out there, I’ve at least played with it. Wrietrs should use whatever tool they are most comfortable with. Final Draft and MMSW2000 both work swell, but they also add layers of complexity to the writing process. When I just want to get words down on “paper” nothing beats SLUGLINE. It’s hard to explain why the simplicity works so well. Maybe it’s a Zen koan kind of a thing. I don’t know. I do know that I feel comfortable writing in this environment, and when a draft is completed, I can easily (trivially) convert it to PDF or Final Draft or various other file formats. What SLUGLINE does is get out of my way. There is no gainsaying the charm of that kind of powerful simplicity. If what you want to do is write screenplays or teleplays, I don’t think you can go wrong with SLUGLINE. One man’s .02 Adam Rodman

Ideal minimal screenwriting app. Haven’t opened the archaic drudgery of Final Draft since I bought Slugline.

The ability to outline a story and write a screenplay in the same document at the same time is simply unbeatable. Beyond that, it is fully and completely superior to final draft in all ways.

Over the years I’ve gone from ScriptThing to Final Draft to Screenwriter 2000 and back to Final Draft. I have dozens and dozens of old scripts stored in different formats alongside their PDF versions. When I have to dig up an old script for someone to read I must now update it from the old Screenwriter format to the most recent Screenwriter format, then transfer it to Final Draft where I then spend an hour finding all the subtle formatting mistakes (misplaced CONT’Ds, capitlized SUB-HEADS that became CHARACTERS…) It’s a pain. So I spent a day using Highland to convert all the old PDF files to Fountain format and now I no longer have to worry about future-proofing my scripts. They’re in Text Format and readble via any Fountain-smart program such as Slugline. The only think I miss is the ability to mark changed text. Slugline also can’t format for multi-camera sitcoms (dialog with double-spaced lines) but I’m not sure if that’s a shortcoming in the fountain format itself. Also, creating title pages is currently a pain. I would like to see the abilty to change the names of the various outline levels. Currently it’s hard-coded as Sections, Synopses, Scene Headings and Notes. Id like to be able to change these to, perhaps: Beats, Scene Ideas and Notes. Or Emotional state of Hero, Truby Step number… whatever. Let me use the outline in whatever way suits my organizing style. Slugline feels fast and once you get used to writing with Fountain’s rules (it doesn’t take long) getting stuff down becomes very fast. For the price, it can’t be beat.

Very nice, clean app. I enjoy using it.

It’s lovely to use a software that provides tools you never knew you needed. Being able to keep the outline within my script has made my workflow both more efficient and more pleasurable. My writing has improved as a result. Thank You Slugline! I used to keep an outline in a separate word processor and have been able to put an end to switching back and forth between apps. I used to write in Final Draft, but after using Slugline, Final Draft feels antiquated and clunky. Again — thank you Slugline.