Guide
Writing in Fountain and printing a standard screenplay
Screenplays have one of the strictest formats in writing. Readers, producers and competitions expect Courier 12, fixed margins and elements in fixed positions, because one page of a properly formatted script runs about a minute on screen. Fountain, a plain-text format created by John August and Stu Maschwitz, lets you write that structure with ordinary typing. This editor reads Fountain, shows the formatted pages and saves a standard PDF.
The elements and how to type them
A scene heading begins with INT., EXT., EST. or INT./EXT. after a blank line: INT. TRAIN CARRIAGE - NIGHT. Action is ordinary paragraphs. A character name is a line in capitals with dialogue directly beneath it; extensions such as (V.O.) and (O.S.) go after the name. A line in brackets under the name is a parenthetical. Transitions are capital lines ending in TO:, such as CUT TO:. Text between > and < is centred, === forces a new page, and ~ marks lyrics.
Forcing an element
When the rules guess wrong, a prefix decides: a leading full stop makes a scene heading, @ makes a character (for names with lower-case letters, like @McCLANE), ! keeps a capitalised line as action, and > makes any line a transition. Notes in [[double brackets]], text between /* and */, # section headings and = synopses help you plan but are never printed.
The page layout
Pages are US Letter with a 1.5-inch left margin for binding and Courier 12, which prints ten characters to the inch and six lines to the inch. Dialogue starts 2.5 inches from the left edge and runs 3.5 inches wide; character names sit at 3.7 inches; parentheticals at about 3.1 inches; transitions are flush right. Each page holds 55 lines, and page numbers appear at the top right from page 2.
Page breaks done properly
A scene heading is never left alone at the bottom of a page; it moves to the next page with its first lines. A long speech that crosses a page break ends with (MORE) and continues under the name with (CONT’D), the convention readers expect. If fewer than three lines would fit, the whole speech moves over.
Title page and scene numbers
Title, Credit, Author, Source, Draft date and Contact at the top of the file become a centred title page with contact details at the bottom left and the draft date at the right. Scene numbers are for shooting scripts; switch them on and every heading is numbered in both margins, keeping any number you set with #12#.
What the page count tells you
The statistics show pages, an estimate of screen time, the number of scenes and each speaking part ranked by words of dialogue. Feature scripts usually run 90 to 120 pages; TV dramas around 55 to 65 for an hour. The sample, two short scenes on a train platform and in a carriage, fills one page with three speaking parts, and its PDF has a title page plus that page.
Your script stays yours
The text is stored only in this browser and the PDF is made on your device. Download the .fountain file to keep a copy you can open in Highland, WriterSolo, Final Draft or any text editor.
Related tools
Plan the structure first with the Story Beat Planner, write comics with the Comic Script Formatter, rehearse lines with the Online Teleprompter, or count words in a draft with the Word Counter.
Checked against the current version of the Fountain Screenplay Editor & PDF on .