Files
Importing Final Draft, PDF and Word
Bringing a screenplay in from a Final Draft file, a PDF or a Word document, and the notes that mark the lines worth a look.
On this page
reads a screenplay from another format and turns it into a Calmly Script screenplay:
Importing is not opening
An import makes a new screenplay. It has no file and no name yet: the
first time you save, Calmly Script asks where to put it, as a .fountain
file. The file you imported from is read once and never written to, and it
does not join the recent files. Your Final Draft file, PDF or Word document
stays exactly as it was.
The new screenplay takes the place of the one on screen, the way does, with the same question if that one has changes that are not saved. The file is read first, so if it turns out not to be a screenplay the app can read, you are told why and the screenplay on screen is still there.
Final Draft
A Final Draft file says what every line is, so most of a screenplay comes
across exactly: scene headings with their scene numbers, action, characters,
parentheticals, dialogue, transitions, lyrics, centred text, dual dialogue,
page breaks, bold, italic and underline, the title page, and Final Draft’s
script notes as Fountain notes ([[ ]]), each on the line it was attached to.
Scene headings and character names come across in capitals, as Final Draft
shows them. Where a line would not read back as the same element in Fountain,
the app adds the Fountain character that forces it (a full stop in front of a
scene heading that has no INT. or EXT., for instance), and only there.
An omitted scene keeps its OMITTED heading, as Final Draft prints it, and
the scene itself comes in right under it as boneyard (/* */): it does not
print, and deleting the two markers brings it back.
A file made with Final Draft’s Multi-Cam Sitcom, stage play or Text - Manuscript template comes in as a sitcom, stage play or manuscript, its acts or chapters as sections. Other templates add elements of their own, such as the act titles of a television template. Each comes in as what Final Draft lays it out as: a centred act title as centred text, starting a new page where Final Draft starts one. Final Draft 13’s Note element, which does not print there, comes in as a note.
The space between paragraphs comes across too. Where Final Draft leaves more room above a paragraph than that element is given, with extra space or with empty paragraphs, the screenplay gets the same number of blank lines; inside a speech the room becomes a pause (see Line breaks and spacing).
Final Draft’s outline comes across as Fountain’s. The Outline 1, 2 and 3
elements of Final Draft 13 become sections (#, ##, ###), and its
summaries become synopses (=). So does what a scene’s index card says,
its title and its summary: synopses under the scene heading. None of them
prints, in Final Draft or here (see
Sections and synopses).
The Beat Board comes across too, at the end of the screenplay: a section called Beat Board, a section under it for each card with the card’s title, and the card’s lines as synopses. The cards are in the order the board is read, column by column (or row by row, if that is how they are laid out). It does not print, the outline lists it, and exporting to Final Draft puts it back on the board. Where each card sat on the board does not come across.
A few things have no equivalent: a cast list, or an element that says nothing
about what it is. Those come in as action, and the notice below lists them.
So does a line with [[ typed in its words: Fountain reads that as the start
of a note, and what follows it would not print. Dialogue with no character
above it comes in as action, indented to where the dialogue printed.
PDF and Word
A PDF, or a screenplay typed in Word, says where each line sits on the page but not what it is. Calmly Script works that out the way a reader does: from the columns the lines are in, the capitals, the brackets and the right margin. It does not assume any particular program’s margins; it finds the columns in the document itself. What the printed page adds is taken back out: page numbers, CONTINUED, the running head a production script prints on every sheet, the revision asterisks in the margin, and the (MORE) and (CONT’D) of a speech split across two pages, whose halves are joined again. A scene number in the margin goes back onto its scene heading; a numbered line that reads as action stays action, without the number, and the notice says so. Dialogue set side by side comes in as dual dialogue, and dialogue with no character above it comes in as action, indented to where it printed.
The space between lines is read as well: where an element has more blank lines above it than the format gives it, they come in as blank lines, and a blank line inside a speech comes in as a pause.
What a Word document adds
A Word document is read the way Word prints it. An indent puts a line in the same place whether it was set with the ruler, set in a style, or typed with spaces or tabs. A paragraph style named for a screenplay element, such as Scene Heading, Character or Dialogue (or Personaje, Diálogo and so on), is taken as saying what the paragraph is.
- Bold, italic and underline you set on words come in as
**,*and_. The look of a style, such as an italic style for lyrics, does not. - Capitals set with Word’s All caps come in as capitals.
- A line break made with Shift+Enter stays a line break in action, dialogue, lyrics and centred text, and becomes a space anywhere else.
- Centred paragraphs come in as centred text.
- A page break or section break you typed comes in as a page break
(
===). If the first page ends on one and is not a scene, it becomes the title page. A document with no break after its first page has no title page. - Lists keep their numbers and bullets as text.
- A table comes in cell by cell. A two-column table with a character at the top of each cell, the way Calmly Script and Final Draft write dual dialogue, comes in as dual dialogue.
- A text box comes in once, as its own paragraph after the one it is attached to.
- Scene numbers typed on both sides of a heading go back onto the heading.
- Hidden text, deleted text and the old place of moved text are left out, as Word leaves them off the page.
- Symbols from the Symbol font come in as the same characters. From another symbol font, such as Wingdings, there is no character to bring in, and each one comes in as �.
- Characters Fountain treats as its own syntax still print: a
!you typed at the start of a line of action, or a/*anywhere, is kept. A line with[[in it gets a note, because Fountain reads that as the start of a note, and what follows it would not print.
Some files cannot be read:
- A scanned PDF, or a picture of a screenplay, has no text in it to read. The app says so rather than giving you an empty document. A scan that has already been through OCR (text recognition) does have text, and is imported, but every word in it is the recognition’s reading of the picture: the notice below says so before the screenplay opens.
- A password-protected PDF or Word document.
- A Word document in the old
.docformat, or.rtf: only.docxis read.
While a long PDF is being read, the app shows which page it has reached.
The lines worth a look
When the import could not be sure of some lines, a short notice says so before the screenplay opens, with how many lines and why, in plain terms: in capitals on its own — it could be a scene heading, a shot, or just action. Under the reasons is a tick box, Leave a note on each of those lines, ticked to begin with:
- Import with the box ticked puts a note at the end of each of those
lines, such as
[[Check: in capitals on its own — it could be a scene heading, a shot, or just action]]. Notes do not print, the Outline lists them, and Find with the word Check finds them all. Delete each one once you have looked at the line. - Import with the box unticked brings the screenplay in as it came, with no notes.
- Cancel: nothing is imported, and the screenplay on screen stays.
When the import has nothing to report, there is no notice: the screenplay simply opens. A scan read by OCR always gets the notice, even with nothing else in it, because nothing can check the words the recognition read.