Compare Scrivener vs. Trelby

Typewriter. Ring-binder. Scrapbook. With Scrivener, all the essential tools for crafting your first draft are at your fingertips, guiding you from the initial concept to the final punctuation. This powerful application serves as a favorite among writers across various domains, including best-selling authors, screenwriters, and researchers, as well as students, lawyers, journalists, and translators who utilize it daily. Rather than dictating your writing style, Scrivener equips you with everything necessary to begin and sustain your writing journey. Designed specifically for extensive writing endeavors, it alleviates the anxiety of a blank page by allowing you to organize your text in any sequence, whether in extensive sections or bite-sized pieces. Have an inspiring thought but unsure of its placement? You can jot it down whenever creativity strikes and determine its position later. Develop your manuscript organically, building it idea by idea, and whether you prefer a meticulous approach or an exploratory one, Scrivener adapts to your process: you can outline every detail before writing a single word or draft freely and adjust your structure afterward. Alternatively, you can blend these approaches to find what works best for you, ensuring that your writing experience is as fluid and adaptable as your imagination.

Trelby is a free, powerful screenwriting software that works on multiple platforms, offering a wealth of features to streamline the writing process. Its user-friendly interface is designed for speed and elegance, making it an excellent choice for both novice and seasoned screenwriters. The program is highly customizable, allowing users to tailor it to their specific needs. As an open-source project, Trelby encourages community contributions to enhance its functionality. Among its many features, the screenplay editor ensures adherence to proper formatting and pagination, while offering helpful tools like auto-completion and spell checking. It operates consistently across all platforms, producing identical output regardless of the system in use. Users can choose from various views, including draft, WYSIWYG mode, and fullscreen, catering to different writing preferences. The extensive character name database includes over 200,000 names from diverse cultures, which can inspire character creation. Trelby also provides detailed reporting capabilities for scenes, locations, characters, and dialogue, assisting writers in their organization. Additionally, the script comparison feature allows writers to track changes between versions, ensuring they remain aware of their revisions. The program supports importing scripts from multiple formats, including Final Draft XML and Celtx, as well as exporting to PDF, HTML, and other widely used formats, making it a versatile tool for any screenwriter. Overall, Trelby stands out as an invaluable asset for anyone looking to excel in screenwriting.