.. for those who won't read the whole manual!

So you want to quickly jump into writing screenplays with Trelby. Here's a few quick tips, tricks and pointers that will make your writing experience better

1. Elements are first letter shortcuts.

Want to change the current line to a Dialog? Press Alt + D. Or change it to Action? Press Alt + A. Same goes for the other elements. Or you can right-click on the element with the mouse to get a menu of all possible element types.

Trelby also allows you to change the shortcuts to whatever you want (File/Settings/Change).

2. Move between scenes.

Press Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down to goto the next or previous scene.

3. Typing intelligence.

  • Typing ext. or int. will automatically change the element to Scene.
  • Trelby will automatically change the case of "i" to "I" as you type.
  • The first letter of every sentence is automatically set to uppercase.
  • When you are in an empty Dialogue element and type (, the element automatically changes to a Parenthetical with () text and cursor in the middle.
  • When you switch a Parenthetical element to another type, and it contains nothing but (), it becomes empty.

4. Dual mouse + keyboard selection

Trelby's selection was written with the keyboard in mind. Say you've made a selection with your mouse. The end of the selection can still be moved with the keyboard using the arrow keys/Page up/down/etc. This allows for easy and accurate selection over multiple scenes and pages. You can cancel the selection by pressing Esc at any time.

5. Script Errors

Trelby can find certain errors in your scripts (Script/Find next error, or CTRL+E):

  • An empty line, or a parenthetical element containing only '()'.
  • A character element that is not followed by a parenthetical or a dialogue element.
  • A parenthetical element that does not follow a character or a dialogue element.
  • A dialogue element that does not follow a character or a parenthetical element.

6. Control of pages, headers, and element types.

Trelby allows you to control all aspects of how a script looks. From the page size and margins, to the indentation and width of the different element types, to their look (bold/italic/etc).

See Script/Settings for these options.

7. PDF capabilities

Trelby is tuned to generating very compact PDFs.

By default it does not embed the font (and will pick up the default courier on whatever system it is viewed). You can however choose to embed a font of your choice. We recommend the Courier font linked on the download page.

8. Fullscreen mode

Trelby features a no-distraction fullscreen writing mode. Simply press F11 to enter and exit this mode.