Free screenwriting tool
PDF to Fountain Converter for Screenplays
Drop a screenplay PDF, Final Draft, Word or text file and get it back as Fountain, the plain text format almost every screenwriting app opens. Scene headings, characters, parentheticals, dialogue, transitions and action are each written the way Fountain expects. Copy the text, or download a .fountain or .fdx file.
Written and reviewed by ScriptLix Editorial
How to use it
- 1
Drop a PDF, Final Draft, Word or text file anywhere on the page, or paste the text.
- 2
Check the preview. Lines broken at the edge of the page are joined back into whole paragraphs.
- 3
Copy the text or download it as .fountain. Choose .fdx if you are moving into Final Draft.
How does Fountain mark each element?
Most of a Fountain script is just the script. A line starting INT. or EXT. is a scene heading, a line in capitals with dialogue under it is a character, and a capitals line ending in TO: is a transition. When a line would be read as the wrong thing, Fountain adds one mark in front: a full stop forces a scene heading, @ forces a character, > forces a transition and ! forces action.
The converter only adds a mark when the plain line would be misread, like a character called McCOY, a scene heading without INT., or FADE OUT. as a transition.
What does a PDF lose on the way?
A PDF keeps where words sit on the page, not what they are, so the converter reads the layout to work out each element. Clean PDFs exported from screenwriting software convert well. Scanned pages are images, not text, and will not convert at all.
Title pages, scene numbers, revision marks and page breaks are left out, so you get the story text ready to edit. Paragraph breaks inside long action blocks are a best guess from where sentences end.
Questions writers ask
Which apps open a .fountain file?
Highland, Slugline, Fade In, WriterSolo and Beat all open Fountain, and Final Draft imports it. Any text editor can open it too, since it is plain text.
Is my script stored?
No. The file is sent to our server only to read the pages, and nothing is kept. The Fountain and FDX files are built in your browser.
Why is one line marked as the wrong element?
Unusual layouts can confuse the reader, like dialogue set at the left margin or two scenes on one line. Fix it in the Fountain text: add @ in front of a character name or ! in front of action, and it will be read the right way.
Can I convert a scanned script?
No. A scanned page is a picture of text, not text, so there is nothing to read. Export a fresh PDF from the app it was written in, or run the scan through OCR first.