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Using the Element Menus & Ctrl Keys

You can reformat existing paragraphs or add new ones

Depending on what you want, there is a menu for that

In Script 360, most of the time when you write you will be adding new paragraphs (elements) to the script - scene headings, character names, dialogue etc. In actual writing, the simple use of the Tab and Enter keys should handle just about all the cases (refer to the topic on that in this tutorial). Enter a character name, hit enter, and just type in teh dialogue.

Case 1: Changing a paragraph's element type

As a practical example, consider the occasion where you wanted a Shot (KITCHEN, HALLWAY, etc) but you accidentally typed it in as a Scene heading, as in the following image:

Note the little icon to the left of the paragraph shows the icon we use for Scene Headings (), not Shots (). In common practice, scene headings usually have INT/EXT and DAY/NIGHT text along with the major location, in this case maybe RAY'S HOUSE, with shorts being used for various places within that location. Scene Headings also get scene numbers when you add those, which you will want to be added just to the major headings, not shots.

In this example, to change the paragraph to be a Shot element, click your mouse on the icon to the left of the paragraph, which displays a menu where you can change the Element of that paragraph:

If you were to select Shot in the menu (as shown above), the paragraph would be changed and an updated icon displayed, letting you see the change visually:

Note: If you have a multi-paragraph selection

Only the first paragraph in the selected range will have the little icon ( in this case), and only that first paragraph will change to a different element if you use the icon menu to change the element.

Case 2: Adding a new paragraph

The other need when writing is to add a new paragraph where the new paragraph element is an infrequently used element not a part of the tab/enter key system. Consider the following example, where the caret is at the end of Ray's dialogue - with the desire to start a new act after that:

In contrast to reformatting the current paragraph, which we discussed above, you use the dropdown menu at the top-right above the script to add a new paragraph:

Note that the title of the dropdown (DIALOGUE in this case) represents the element of the current paragraph, providing you with a textual listing in addition to the little element icons we have been referencing in this topic. It always gets updated to show either where the blinking cursor is or the element at the start of a selection range.

If we were to choose New Act in this case, a brand new New Act element would be added after the dialogue, which happens to cause a jump to a new page (part of the default settings for New Act elements):

And, you can use Ctrl key keyboard combinations for this

In the dropdown menu you will notice each element has a keyboard shortcuts, which you can memorize and use to do the same thing as selecting an element in the dropdown.