Having issues with Character Names being recognized? Is Actor Highlight not working?

First, let's look at the Formatting.

The Actor Highlight feature uses an algorithm that recognizes the industry standard Character Name and Dialogue formatting. Since Scriptation deals with PDFs and doesn't receive Character / Dialogue metadata from the screenwriting program, the app analyzes the margins of the document and then applies the Actor Highlights.

If the script isn't formatted to the industry standard, errors can occur. Below is a screencap of one of Scriptation's sample scripts that shows the most traditional layout.

Notice that Character Names are indented (not centered), and that the Dialogue is immediately below the Character Name, without any blank line between them.



NOTE: Actor Highlight is a fully automated feature, and is not setup for manual entry of character names, or other keywords. However, we're currently developing a "tagging" feature that will utilize the functionality of Actor Highlight in a whole new way.

My script looks like that, why isn't it working? You may have a "flattened" PDF.

A "flattened" PDF is a file where the contents on the PDF are no longer recognizable as individual parts, so the Scriptation algorithm (or any PDF program) isn't going to be able to recognize ANY text in the file.

This often happens with scanned files, and with some watermarking programs.

How can I check if my PDF has been flattened?

An easy way to test if your file has been flattened is by trying to use the Text Highlight function.



If the Highlight function does not recognize any text, then the file unfortunately has been flattened. You may want to ask your production folks if they can distribute their files in a different way, to ensure everyone can go paperless!

What's Next?

Transferring Actor Highlights
Highlighting tool vs Highlighting with the Marker
What is Reader Mode?

Updated on: 25/02/2022