Highland Pro

FD crashed one too many times, decided to finally try another screenwriting program. Highland is interesting and has some definite advantages (like the shelf), but ultimately, it just doesn’t work for me. The big selling point in the provided how-to guide is that you won’t hit tab anymore to change script elements. That’s true, but now you’re holding down shift or hitting caps lock to activate character slugs, or typing >>> to get to transitions. Not a big deal, but not really an improvement over something I never had a problem with. I’m not a fan of the plain text screen you do all your writing in, you have to switch to the final view to see where your words actually land on the page. Finally, bolds and italics NEVER worked for me while in flow — inevitably I would have to go back and highlight as opposed to hitting command-I or B while actually writing. All of this was bearable for the first few months, but the recent Mac OS update has made the program as unstable as FD, and even slower too. I’m sure it will get patched, the Highland support team is great, but this just didn’t work for me. Encourage everyone to try it for themselves, but I’m back to the devil I know.

I really do think this is superior to FD, which is what I switched from. The problems arise when converting FD documents to highland and vise versa. For example, in FD, you might have written something like, “John’s” and when you convert to Highland it will look like “John**s.” There are weird bugs like this that you need to deal with that ultimately translates to more work in the editing process. However, most of these are mitigated when writing a script natively in Highland. I just really want the developers to drill down and work out all these bugs, especially since they moved to a subscription model. If you are going to be collaborating with others who use FD, I’m not sure I can recommend this as you will most likely run into these annoying issues. If you work solo and prefer what is admittedly an easier and more streamlined formatting process, you may enjoy this a lot. My next script will be written fully in Highland and then I’ll really decide if I’m going to stick with this app or move back. The last one was half-written in FD and then completed in Highland, and that was a bit of a pain.

As a writer, every day is filled with insecurity. What am I going to construct on the page today? Is it going to be any good? I can't over-examine what I write before I write—I have to dive in and just go. If I scrutinize, nothing will be good enough. What's really great about Highland is its invisibility. It's just me and my thoughts; the words appear where they should. Dialogue is dialogue, action is action, scene headers are scene headers—without tabbing or thinking about formatting. The magic of Highland is how it frees me from the burden of writing and formatting simultaneously, allowing my creativity to flow uninterrupted. For any writer who's felt their creative momentum broken by formatting concerns, Highland removes those barriers entirely. It's become an essential part of my writing process, and the scripts I've created with it are all the better for it. If you're looking to rediscover the joy of just writing, Highland is the companion you need.