BYTETOOLS

Screenplay Formatter

Convert Fountain-style plain text into an industry-formatted screenplay PDF with correct margins, page breaks, (MORE) and (CONT'D), plus a page count.

1
Script pages
1 min
Estimated runtime
2
Scenes
2
Speaking characters

Page 1 preview — Courier 12, 55 lines per page

                                                    FADE IN:

INT. NIGHT BUS - CONTINUOUS

Rain drums the roof. MAYA, 30s, coat still wet, watches the
window and the smeared orange lights beyond it. The bus is
almost empty.

                      MAYA
                (quietly)
          You're not supposed to be here.

DEREK, 40s, sits down across the aisle anyway, folding a
newspaper he has clearly not read.

                      DEREK
          Neither are you. That's rather the
          point of the arrangement, and I
          would have thought you of all
          people would remember it, given how
          much trouble it took to make.

                      MAYA
          I remember.

She does not look at him.

                                                     CUT TO:

EXT. DEPOT - LATER

The bus pulls away without either of them on it.

Scene headings and action sit at 1.5″ (60 characters wide), dialogue at 2.5″ (35 characters), parentheticals at 3.1″ and character cues at 3.7″; transitions are flush right. Characters: DEREK, MAYA.

The one-page-per-minute rule is a long-standing estimate, not a measurement: dialogue-heavy pages usually run faster and action-heavy pages slower. Everything is typeset in your browser with pdf-lib and nothing is uploaded. Courier is a WinAnsi font, so curly quotes and em dashes become their typewriter equivalents.

What is the Screenplay Formatter?

Screenplay Formatter reads Fountain-style plain text and typesets it to the industry standard: scene headings and action at 1.

  • Full industry margins in Courier 12 — 60-character action, 35-character dialogue
  • Automatic (MORE) and CHARACTER (CONT'D) when a speech splits across pages
  • Fountain subset: forced scene headings (.), forced characters (@), centred text (>…<) and === page breaks
  • Page count, scene count, speaking characters and a one-page-per-minute runtime estimate
  • Optional title page and page numbers from page two
  • Monospace preview of page one before you commit to the export

How to use the Screenplay Formatter

  1. 1

    Type or paste your script using Fountain conventions: INT./EXT. lines for scene headings, an ALL-CAPS line followed by text for a character cue, (…) for a parenthetical and a line ending TO: for a transition.

  2. 2

    Add the title and writer credit for the title page.

  3. 3

    Pick US Letter or A4 and decide whether you want a title page and page numbers.

  4. 4

    Check the page-one preview and the page count.

  5. 5

    Click “Download screenplay PDF”.

About the Screenplay Formatter

Screenplay Formatter reads Fountain-style plain text and typesets it to the industry standard: scene headings and action at 1.5 inches, dialogue indented to 2.5 inches and 35 characters wide, parentheticals at 3.1 inches, character cues at 3.7 inches and transitions flush right — all in Courier 12 at 55 lines a page.

It handles page breaks properly, so a speech that runs off the bottom of a page gets a (MORE) and the character name repeats with (CONT'D) at the top of the next. You get a live preview of page one, the page count, the scene count and the one-page-per-minute runtime estimate before you export.

The PDF is built in your browser with pdf-lib and downloaded straight to your device — your script is never uploaded.

Frequently asked questions

What are the standard screenplay margins?

Measured from the left edge of the page: action and scene headings at 1.5 inches, dialogue at 2.5 inches, parentheticals at 3.1 inches and character names at 3.7 inches, with a 1 inch right margin. In Courier 12 that is exactly 60 characters of action and 35 of dialogue.

Is one screenplay page really one minute of screen time?

It is a rule of thumb, not a measurement. Dialogue-heavy pages often play faster than a minute and action-heavy pages slower. It is accurate enough for a feature-length estimate and unreliable for any single scene.

What is Fountain?

Fountain is a plain-text markup convention for screenplays: you write normally and the formatting is inferred from context, so an ALL-CAPS line followed by text is a character cue. This tool supports the common subset and does not need any special software to write in.

When are (MORE) and (CONT'D) used?

When a single character's speech cannot fit on the rest of a page. (MORE) goes at the bottom under the last line of dialogue, and the character's name repeats at the top of the next page with (CONT'D) after it so the reader knows who is still talking.

How many lines are on a screenplay page?

Fifty-five lines of Courier 12, which is what this tool uses. That, plus the fixed margins, is what makes page count a usable proxy for running time across the whole industry.

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