There is, I suppose, a larger question that I could ask. That being, 'do you need ANY kind of scriptwriting software?'
The answer to that one is 'yes'.
I didn't ask it because, quite frankly, if you're into scriptwriting enough to be seeking out information on a site like this, then you probably already know the importance of a well-formatted screenplay, and you already know the difficulty in creating one without any formatting software.
My first several screenplays were written in Microsoft Word, without templates and without macros (truth be told, my first three screenplays were written on a Brother word processor). I was vaguely aware that there were scriptwriting programs out there, but I never saw the need to adopt them. I mean, you only really need four tab settings, right? You have your left margin and then it's just a tab for your character name, another for parentheticals, a third for dialogue and a fourth for transitions. Who needs to spend $250? I was able to write quite efficiently during those several poor to mediocre scripts.
After a while, I graduated to macro-enabled Word programs. There's a couple of good ones out there, but I primarily used Simply Screenplay (you can it, as well as many other useful freeware downloads here). It was free and it took care of many of the formatting problems I ran into with simply Word (pagination for one, which was a biggie!).
For my last few screenplays, I made the jump to Final Draft. And quite frankly, if you take yourself at all seriously as a screenwriter, then you should, too. There have been several times when a producer has asked me for an .fdr file and if I had to explain that I had written the script as a Word document, then my credibility would have suffered.
There are a few other industry standard programs out there, among them Movie Magic and Dramatica. But Final Draft is absolutely the preferred app.
At least by me.
