Disclaimer: Please note, this article includes affiliate links, which may provide a small compensation at no cost to you. However, these are the best screenwriting tools I have tested this year. You can read my affiliate disclosure in my privacy policy.

Final Draft is a multi-award winning screenwriting software, initially released in With its wide range of features, Final Draft 11 is best suited for those looking to use the same industry-standard screenwriting software that major television shows and motion pictures use. They also offer a day free trial to test it out. Celtx is a cross-platform, cloud-based screenwriting and media pre-production software.

With 6 million global users, it is one of the best screenwriting apps in the market. From script to shoot, this software provides you with tools that help you create better content quickly.

The fact that it is a cloud-based software makes it easy for you to access your accounts from anywhere you want. Celtx is best for screenwriters. It helps to turn simple, scattered ideas into full-fledged plans quite easily. It is also quite useful for playwrights and novelists. You can also obtain educational discounts by contacting the customer support to get an estimate. WriterDuet is an excellent screenwriting software for writing and editing screenplays and other forms of mass media.

It caters to a wide range of requirements and, apart from screenwriting, can be used in case of video editing and gaming as well. The USP of the software is that it allows real-time collaboration of writers from remote locations and writing from different devices. Although it is not a free software tool, it allows three free scripts upon signing up.

WriterDuet is best for screenwriters and professional writers who require real-time collaboration to write down their ideas. It is also useful for educational tutorials. With WriterDuet, you get three free scripts. After that, you need to upgrade to a paid plan. As of now, it operates on both Windows and Linux platforms and is currently available on Github.

Licensed under GPL, Trelby welcomes developers and screenwriters to collaborate and make the platform even better. Moreover, it comes with a built-in, highly configurable PDF generator. Trelby is perfect for screenwriters and individual writers who are on a budget since the software is entirely free of cost. It is also suitable for educational purposes, demonstrations, and tutorials.

It is an open-source software tool and comes entirely free of cost. The codes are available on Github. Initially released in , Scrivener is one of the best screenwriting software tools for authors and novelists.

One of the best screenwriting software in the market right now, it offers a wide range of activities, including organizing notes, drag-and-drop features, and editing multiple documents at one go. The best part is that you can use it as a project management tool as well.

On top of that, it can mimic a typewriter, ring-binder, and a scrapbook. Scrivener comes with features like footnote support, MathType integration, and the ability to refer to a research library. Thus, it is an excellent screenwriting software for historical, fictional, and non-fictional authors. Templates for writing general and academic non-fiction are also available. The price varies depending upon the platform you will use it on. You can also access some student discounts.

First released in , Fade In is one of the best screenwriting software tools available in the market currently. It is widely used in the film industry and is compatible with multiple platforms like Mac, Windows, Android, Linux, and iOS.

It is also one of the most affordable software tools on the market, offering great features. Boasting of attributes like support for multiple languages, action-to-dialogue calculator, and well-rounded functionality for rewrites and revisions, it is becoming very popular as the new industry standard. Best for screenwriters who want seamless integration between their thoughts and the software they use. You can also tag transcriptions with speaker labels, smart formatting, and timestamps, as well as apply global editing for technical words or phrases, acronyms, and for number use.

As with other cloud services Watson Speech to Text allows for easy deployment both in the cloud and on-premises behind your own firewall to ensure security is maintained.

If you already have an Android mobile device, then if it's not already installed then download Google Keyboard from the Google Play store and you'll have an instant text-to-speech app. Although it's primarily designed as a keyboard for physical input, it also has a speech input option which is directly available. And because all the power of Google's hardware is behind it, it's a powerful and responsive tool.

If that's not enough then there are additional features. Aside from physical input ones such as swiping, you can also trigger images in your text using voice commands. Additionally, it can also work with Google Translate, and is advertised as providing support for over 60 languages.

Even though Google Keyboard isn't a dedicated transcription tool, as there are no shortcut commands or text editing directly integrated, it does everything you need from a basic transcription tool.

And as it's a keyboard, it means should be able to work with any software you can run on your Android smartphone, so you can text edit, save, and export using that.

Even better, it's free and there are no adverts to get in the way of you using it. When it comes to recording notes, all you have to do is press one button, and you get unlimited recording time. However, the really great thing about this app is that it also offers a powerful transcription service. Through it, you can quickly and easily turn speech into searchable text.

Another nice feature is punctuation command recognition, ensuring that your transcriptions are free from typos. This app is underpinned by cloud technology, meaning you can access notes from any device which is online. Speechnotes is yet another easy to use dictation app.

The app is powered by Google voice recognition tech. To make things even easier, you can quickly add names, signatures, greetings and other frequently used text by using a set of custom keys on the built-in keyboard.

When it comes to customizing notes, you can access a plethora of fonts and text sizes. The app is free to download from the Google Play Store , but you can make in-app purchases to access premium features there's also a browser version for Chrome. It lets you make high quality transcriptions by just hitting a button. The app can transcribe any video or voice memo automatically, while supporting over 80 languages from across the world.

While you can easily create notes with Transcribe, you can also import files from services such as Dropbox. Transcribe is only available on iOS , though. This speech recognition capability is actually in previous versions of Windows as well, although Microsoft has honed it more with the latest OS. The company has been busy boasting about its advances in terms of voice recognition powered by deep neural networks, and Microsoft is certainly priming us to expect impressive things in the future.

The likely end-goal aim is for Cortana to do everything eventually, from voice commands to taking dictation. Aside from what has already been covered above, there are an increasing number of apps available across all mobile devices for working with speech to text, not least because Google's speech recognition technology is available for use. Not only does it aim to translate different languages you hear into text for your own language, it also works to translate images such as photos you might take of signs in a foreign country and get a translation for them.

In that way, iTranslate is a very different app, that takes the idea of speech-to-text in a novel direction, and by all accounts, does it well. ListNote Speech-to-Text Notes is another speech-to-text app that uses Google's speech recognition software, but this time does a more comprehensive job of integrating it with a note-taking program than many other apps. Additionally there is a password protection option, which encrypts notes after the first 20 characters so that the beginning of the notes are searchable by you.

There's also an organizer feature for your notes, using category or assigned color. The app is free on Android, but includes ads. Voice Notes is a simple app that aims to convert speech to text for making notes.

This is refreshing, as it mixes Google's speech recognition technology with a simple note-taking app, so there are more features to play with here. SpeechTexter is another speech-to-text app that aims to do more than just record your voice to a text file.

This app is built specifically to work with social media, so that rather than sending messages, emails, Tweets, and similar, you can record your voice directly to the social media sites and send. There are also a number of language packs you can download for offline working if you want to use more than just English, which is handy.

Brian has over 30 years publishing experience as a writer and editor across a range of computing and technology titles, and has been interviewed multiple times for BBC News and BBC Radio. He is also a science fiction and fantasy author, writing as Brian G Turner.

North America. Included in this guide: 1. The best speech-to-text software makes it simple and easy to convert speech into text, and can be available for both desktop and mobile devices. Click the links below to go to the provider's website: 1. Dragon Anywhere 2. This script writing software can handle most of the tasks involved with preparing for a production. Because Celtx is web-based, all your scripts are stored on the cloud rather than a hard drive. This makes adding collaborators and writing partners easy, as well as storage.

WriterDuet is another web-based, free screenwriting software, which prides itself on its intuitive keystrokes to help your stories flow from your brain to your fingers, and to the screen. WriterDuet has fewer production capabilities. It's more specialized for script writing rather than expanding into other production needs. It's also on the web and has built-in collaboration features for you and your writing partners.

Both WriterDuet and Celtx are great script writing software for beginning writers who want to learn how to write their movie script without the entry costs of script writing programs like Final Draft.

And they expect you to pay for it. So how did Final Draft get to be the most widely used scriptwriting software? Nearly every show and studio uses Final Draft. While it's also the most buggy, it has the easiest user interface to navigate.

They also are constantly updating the software with new features. Relatively new, and more efficient than Final Draft, Fade In is the script writing software becoming preferred by those who don't have to bend to the standards of studios and networks.

Fade In has fewer bugs and crashes less than most of its competitors and a lot more features. Check out their screenwriting software comparison sheet below. The archaic monolith of Hollywood is so averse to change, though, that Final Draft still has such a strong foothold as the standard.

Still, there are plenty of pros who have made the switch to Fade In. While Movie Magic has the capability of syncing with a production planning software, it is NOT free, and it requires a different purchase from your actual production planning software, which leaves something to be desired. If you want something more advanced, but with fewer bugs and crashes than Final Draft, Movie Magic Screenwriter is the script writing software for you.

While it may not have the popularity, it's still more prevalent in the industry than the others, such as Fade In or Highland. You have a script idea ready to write, and you want to begin as soon as possible. No need to wait, because we have a free screenwriting feature waiting for you.