This User Guide will provide a brief overview of Celtx along with a more in-depth look at the features of Celtx.

Overview

Script Writing
Use the celtx script editor to write and edit films scripts in the industry standard format. Celtx includes format intelligence that logically follows the standard film script format.

Production Breakdown
Perform departmental breakdowns of your script in celtx using the breakdown toolbar. Assign names, descriptions and photos to your breakdown items. Use these breakdowns to generate project reports and lists.

Web Services
Celtx Web Services extend the functionality of Celtx beyond the desktop client with features such as collaboration, off-site project storage and project central.

Use the Celtx Collaboration Web Service allows you to work with others on Celtx projects. Celtx Projects can be publicly shared, or privately shared with others over the internet. Script edits and breakdown information can shared with others using the Celtx collaboration tool.

Celtx also provides Off-site Storage and Backup Web Services. You can remotely access your projects after securely saving them to the Celtx Web Server.

Our Project Central Web Service allows you to share your Public projects online. Non-Celtx users can view your public published projects using any standard web browser.

In Depth

Script Writing

Script Editor The Script Editor allows scripts to be created from scratch. Celtx scripts adhere to the industry standard format. Scripts can be quickly written in Celtx with the built in format-intelligence. Celtx knows what logically comes next in a standard script, Sceneheading ->Action -> Character -> Dialog... The tab key will quickly switch from Character back to Action.

To create a new scene select Scene from the Script Element toolbar, or use the key-command 'ctrl + enter' on a PC or 'cmd + return' on a Mac.

Other standard keyboard short cuts are supported such as cut, copy, paste, and undo.

Shortcut	PC	Mac
cut	ctrl + x	cmd + x
copy	ctrl + c	cmd + c
paste	ctrl + v	cmd + v
undo	ctrl + z	cmd + z
new scene	ctrl + enter	cmd + return

At some point you will want to name your project. To do this, select File, then Properties from the main menu. A properties dialog will open where you can name your project and give it a description.

Script Formatting (Toolbar) Each of the standard script elements are found in the Script Element toolbar. Selecting one of these script elements will apply the appropriate formating to your text, conforming to the industry script standard. This tool bar is best used for formatting large portions of text.

Highlight the text you want to format with the cursor and apply the formatting by selecting the script element from the toolbar.

Script Notes Script notes can be added to the script by selecting Note from the Script Toolbar. Scripts notes can be questions or comments about a particular scene. The script note will be placed at the position of the cursor in the script. Script notes are also draggable, you can click and drag the script note to the desired portion of the script.

Clicking the Note icon in the script will display the contents of the script note. When viewing the note, you can select Edit in the lower right corner of the note to edit the notes contents.

Remove the note entirely by selecting the script note and selecting Remove from the toolbar.

Importing Scripts Celtx can import scripts generated by other script writing or word processing applications. Once a script is imported into Celtx it can then be further developed, edited and then broken down using the Production Breakdown features of Celtx.

To import a script into Celtx, select Import from the toolbar. A browse dialog will open. Select the script you wish to import and select Open. Celtx will display the script in the script window, and if the imported script was properly formatted, the scene headings will appear in the Resource Tree

Celtx allows you to import additional scenes into your existing script. When you import an additional script, or portion of a script, it will be appended to the end of your existing project script.

Currently Celtx only imports plain text script files, both of which can be created with either Final Draft Pro or Movie Magic Screen Writer 2000.

Users of Final Draft will want to save their scripts with the 'Text Only with Layout' found under 'File -> Save As'.

Users of Movie Magic Screen Writer will want to save their scripts using the 'Formatted ASCII' format found under 'File -> Save As'.

Multiple Projects Multiple project windows can be open at one time which allows cut, copy, paste between multiple projects.

Delete Project Delete unwanted projects from your project list. From the Open Project dialog, right-click (or ctrl-click for Mac users) the project you wish to delete and select Delete from the context menu. The project is now deleted from your projet list. You can now cancel the Open Project dialog, select another project to delete, or open a project to work on.

Printing Print your script using the report feature of Celtx. Under Reports, select script. The script is now displayed in its own window. From this window select Print.



Production Breakdown

Productions breakdowns generate lists of items that different departments will need once a project moves from pre-production to production (shooting). These lists help the departments track what items are needed and also help in the decision making process when items are being sourced.

These lists can be generated using the Reports feature of Celtx. Lists can be generated by scene, department, or combinations of both.

Marking up a script (Toolbar) Highlight the item in the script you wish to breakdown and choose the appropriate department. If it is a new item, Simply select the department you wish to assign the item to and fill out the information in the resource preview area. If item was already marked up previously, you can choose that item again from the drop down menu by selecting the drop down arrow next to the department name, then selecting the item. It will automatically associate the information to the breakdown item.

Items can also now be assigned to scenes, without being directly assigned to the text of that scene. Add markup to a scene by clicking the icon found in the upper right hand corner of each scene. Doing so will highlight the entire scene. You can now add markup to the scene as you would individual items, by selecting a department from the breakdown menu, then selecting new or a previously marked up item.

The Resource Tree The Resource Tree is an organized tree view of the Celtx project broken down by scene. Under each scene is the list of breakdown items.

When writing a script, the scenes in the Resource Tree will be added as they are created in the script.

When a script is imported, scenes will be automatically detected and placed in the resource tree.

The drop down arrow next to the scene in the Resource Tree will denote if there any breakdown items found within the scene. Click on the arrow to reveal the list of items marked up in that scene.

When a breakdown item is selected in the Resource Tree, that item is then highlighted in the script and the item appears in the Resource Preview Area. Context click the item will reveal the Goto feature which, when selected, will take you to that item in the script. Move quickly from scene to scene using the Goto feature.

Resource Preview The Resource Preview is the preview area for breakdown items found in the Resource Tree. Here you can add/edit the name and description of the item, as well as add/remove images to the breakdown item.

At the top of the Resource Preview are two tabs, Overview and Media. The Overview tab provides the Name and Description of the breakdown item, while the Media tab shows the media associated to the item.

To edit the information in the Overview, simply place your cursor in either the Name or Description text fields and make the appropriate changes.

Attach various media types to items in your resource tree. You can attach images, video, and sound files to your script.

To add media to an item, select the Media tab, then select the add media (+) button. A file browser will open to choose the media to assign to the item. To remove a media file from the item, select the image thumbnail and select the remove (-) button. The media file is no longer associated with the breakdown item.

Images, sound, and video files can now also be added to breakdown items via drag and drop. With the media tab selected for a particular item, simply drag and drop your media files to the resource preview area. The media will then be added to your project.

Use the Image search feature to search the internet for images associated with your item. The search feature will use the item Title as the search criteria for images. A number of sites are offered in the search feature, with Google Images being the default search service.

View all the media associated to the item by scrolling through the thumbnails. To view a particular media file, simple double click on the file you wish to view.

Breakdown Reports Various Breakdown Reports can be generated by Celtx, essentially lists of the breakdown items in their respective categories. All reports are printable.

With your project open, select Reports from the top menu and select an appropriate report. You can select the script, or breakdown reports of the various departments.

Also under reports you will find the PDF optiion which will create a PDF of your script. This file can then be viewed by any PDF reader, or sent to others as a non-editable form of your script. Creating a PDF of your script is password protected as it is a Web Service, the PDF is actually created on the Celtx server, then sent down to your PC.

Web Services

Update Notification The Celtx client now has an update notification function built into the client. When there is a new version available, an update notice will appear on the initial splash page as seen above.

Collaboration Celtx allows you and other users to collaborate on projects by accessing the celtx server. Here, you can share your project, download another user's project and cooperatively update each other's projects.

To collaborate, the author must create a project and then publish it to the server as shared. The names of those people whom you want to have access to your project are entered in the "shared by" field. You can select users to share your project list by selecting the User List once you select Share. You will be presented with a list of all Celtx users which you can select and add to your share list. The user list is now gettting a little long so you may want to use the search field under the Username list to quickly narrow down on the names you want to add to your project. These specified users can then download the project, make changes and then re-publish the project.

Currently, the Celtx server supports sequential, collaborative publishing, which means, once a user publishes changes to a project, the other users must download that latest version before they can make additional changes to it. If you try to publish to a project after it has already been updated by someone else, you will receive the following message: "The project cannot be published because a newer version already exists in the repository."

Stay tuned for the Concurrent Versioning System (CVS) which will make it easier for users to merge multiple changes to a project.

Off Site Storage / Backup Celtx also offers secure off site storage of projects. When a user publishes a project as 'Private', the project is then only accessible with the users username and password. Projects can then be retrieved from the server via internet.

Project Central Project Central is a hosting service for your "public" projects. When you publish a project as 'Public' to the Celtx server it will automatically appear on the Project Central website. For more information on Project Central, visit pc.celtx.com.