Script Wizard Software was founded in 1990 to develop and distribute desktop solutions for the motion picture industry. The company’s pioneering scriptwriting add-in for DOS Word*, The Warren Script Applications, had been released three years earlier and was quickly adopted by screenwriters and production companies making the transition to the computer-based office environment. But the release of the Windows operating system in 1989 had made DOS and its applications obsolete.
To ensure that clients could migrate to the new Windows desktop environment without loss, the company quickly upgraded the Applications and released Script Wizard®, the first and only full-service script writing add-in developed for Word for Windows and a solution that brought scriptwriting on a computer to new levels of power and versatility.
For the next 25 years, the company continued to upgrade Script Wizard and develop new add-ins, including custom applications for television production companies such as Cheers, General Hospital, Moisha, and Passions. Script Wizard Pro, released in 2005, included many of the production office features that were developed for those companies.
By 2010, facing another major upgrade of the Microsoft Office suite and with niche market revenues fractured by an influx of standalone products, the company ceased development and, in 2015, went on a hiatus that was extended due to the pandemic.
In 2024, following the release of Microsoft 365 and the expansion of the scriptwriting software niche to include independent content producers, the company turned on the lights again and began a new era in Word add-in development.
Stefani Warren, Owner/Developer
Stefani Warren was working in Hollywood as an information systems consultant when, in 1981, Microsoft launched the DOS operating system and the PC revolution came roaring into the motion picture industry. When the first version of Microsoft Word hit the market two years later, it was only a matter of time before the IBM Selectric would become obsolete and Warren would find herself pioneering software solutions for scriptwriters and production companies making the transition to computers.
Leveraging an early career in theatre and television that included both screenwriting and playwriting, in 1987 Warren developed The Warren Script Applications, an MS Word add-in to meet the needs of script writers and production typists. While other developers focused exclusively on the screenplay, The Warren Script Applications supported the drafting, formatting, printing, and production processing of screenplays, teleplays, stage plays and musicals, industrials and commercials, and radio scripts.
In 1990 she founded Script Wizard Software to develop her applications for the Windows environment and she would continue developing off-the-shelf products and custom applications for the next 20 years.
In 2000, Warren took a position with Nestlé, the Global Fortune 500 food company headquartered in Glendale, California. First as a software solutions specialist, then as technical program manager, she spent the next fourteen years managing a large digital platform portfolio and production support team, serving also as a consultant to executives, brand managers, interactive marketing agencies and managed services partners as Nestlé made the transition to data-driven, consumer relationship marketing.
She continues to own and operate Script Wizard Software and provide consulting services for businesses.
*Microsoft DOS, Office, Windows, and Word are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.