I recently had feedback on one of my scripts which criticised the page formatting of the PDF. Despite an industry standard bottom margin in Final Draft 12, the reader pointed out that the text sat right at the bottom of the PDF page and exclaimed "This absolutely must be fixed!"
I immediately checked my original, and the PDF, and came to the conclusion that when a PDF is created from Final Draft it drops the bottom margin from the page, resulting in this truncated formatting.
Has anyone else had this issue, and if so, can you help me to fix it?
Many thanks, Ingrid
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I've never had this happen. That said, *Final Draft* can be customized. In the top menu go to *Document* and click *Page Layout* where you can tweak the *Header* and *Footer* both of which should be at 0.500"
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Ingrid Wren that's a frustrating one, Final Draft's PDF export can definitely be inconsistent with margins depending on the print settings used at export, sometimes reprinting to PDF via "File > Print > Save as PDF" instead of the direct export option preserves the margins better. Worth double-checking your page layout settings too, just in case the margin default reset. Hope that helps get it sorted!
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Find someone new to provide feedback.
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I can guess the explanation. There are different paper sizes. Letter size is the normal paper size in USA. Most other countries have A4 as the standard size. i was reminded about the problem when I translated a script from Swedish to English.
So perhaps you have chosen one paper size in Final Draft and put another paper size in the printer.
According to your profile, you are in Australia, so you presumably have your program set to A4. If you then send a pdf to someone in USA, and that person prints it with letter size papers, the text will go right down to the bottom of the page.
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That’s a good point. I used to have that issue with Celtx — always defaulting to A4.
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I had a similar problem. Instead of "Save as PDF" try printing to PDF.
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I checked all my settings, including margins, and A4 was selected in Final Draft. GJ Harvey your solution worked a treat. I was beginning to think I was imaging things! Thank you all.
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Print to PDF also checks for errors.