DAN DOUMA REMEMBERED

It is with great sadness that we note the passing of Dan Douma, co-founder of The Writers Store in Los Angeles.  He died unexpectedly last June after a brief battle with cancer.

With uncanny entrepreneurial foresight, Dan and his partner, Gabriele Meiringer, started selling PC computers out of their westside apartment in Los Angeles before most writers even knew what a PC was.  But the genius wasn't so much in the timing as it was in Dan's ability to understand what the PC could do for screenwriters and to demonstrate it in compelling ways.  Once a writer saw Microsoft Word(r), Scriptor(tm), and some speed keys in action, they were sold, and more than happy to pay a premium for the package, training, and support that Dan and Gaby promised.

And Dan and Gaby didn't just promise - they delivered.  For the next ten years - day, night, weekends, holidays - they did more training and handholding that any writer had a right to expect.  By the time they moved the business out of their bedroom and into their first location in Westwood, they had defined the niche; and by the time they moved into the old Papa Bach's Bookstore location a few years later, they owned that niche.  They renamed their venture The Writers Store, outlasted and outperformed the competition, and evolved their business into an institution - absolutely THE place to go for software and services for the entertainment industry.

Dan's vision and their success paved the way for at least a dozen other small businesses, Script Wizard Software among them.  Without The Writers Store, there likely would never have been a Script Wizard, a Final Draft, any of the Screenplay Systems applications or the hundreds of "How To..." books that line their shelves today. 

Our condolences to Dan's two sons, Jesse and Lucas, his grandchildren, and to Gaby, his longtime partner in life as well as business.  Life is unfair.

WORD 2010-COMPATIBLE VERSIONS NOW AVAILABLE

We are pleased to announce the release of our Office 2010-compatible versions of Script Wizard® and ProsePro®.   They are available now in our online store and at our resellers.

Our 2010 packages are distributed in multi-version setup packages, including installation options for writers working in Word 2010, Word 2007 or Word 2003 and earlier, all in a single release.  All versions will install on all current versions of Windows, from XP through Windows 7, on both 32bit and 64bit PCs. 

Script Wizard 10 is a compatility upgrade only. 

ProsePro 10 offers enhanced cover page and page header management and expanded sectioning for academic and research papers.

See our Product Pages for details.

Prices remain the same for both versions and for the "Creative Writing Bundle" which include both packages at a discount.

Writers who have purchased and registered either product in the three months prior to September 1, 2010, will receive the 2010 version by September 30, 2010 automatically and without additional charge.

-- Script Wizard Software

WHAT'S NEW IN OFFICE 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 consolidates the changes Microsoft made to their premier suite of business applicatons (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, etal) in 2007, and takes the next big step toward offering Microsoft Office as a software service on the web.  

There are no big changes in Word 2010, but it does boast some impressive new collaboration features.  Writers working in Word 2010 can edit the same document at the same time, with each being notified when changes need to be synced between them  -- great for writing teams working in production offices and on network shares.

The Ribbon feature introduced in Word 2007 has been made more robust.  The bad news  - for those who didn't the like the Ribbon and wanted to go back to menus - is that the Ribbon is here to stay.  The good news is that Office 2010 allows users to create and customize their own ribbons without having to acquire developer skills.

For Script Wizard Software users:  In Word 2010, Microsoft has once again changed the basic document file format, which means that if you have scripts and manuscripts that you wrote in previous versions of Word, including Word 2007, you will have to import them into our 2010 add-ons when you move up.  As always, you can save scripts and manuscripts back into previous versions of Word using the Save As command option, and you can edit and print those documents, but they won't open automatically in our older add-ons, and if you or a partner need to use Script Wizard or ProsePro functionality, you will have to import those files into the appropriate version of Script Wizard or ProsePro first.