Chapter 53 · Getting Work In and Out
Exporting Word, Final Draft, Fountain, and Text
A PDF is for reading. The files in this chapter are for somebody who will go on working: a producer opening the script in Final Draft, an editor tracking changes in Word, a writing partner who lives in a Fountain app. Each format keeps different things, and the choice matters more than it looks.
Which file for whom
| They use | Send | Offered for |
|---|---|---|
| Final Draft | Final Draft (.fdx) | Screenplays |
| A Fountain app, or Movie Magic | Fountain · Movie Magic (.fountain) | Screenplays |
| Word, or anything that opens Word files | Word (.docx) | Every format |
| LibreOffice | OpenDocument (.odt) | Every format |
| Anything at all | Plain text (.txt) | Every format |
"Screenplays" here means any document written in screenplay format, television and series episodes included. A stage play, audio drama or video script does not list Final Draft or Fountain, and neither does a prose document such as a series bible that sits inside a screenplay project.
The two Export menus
The full list lives in the editor, under Export ▾ at the top right. A screenplay also has an Export FDX button on its ribbon, which does the same thing as the menu entry. Each entry in this chapter saves first: the status bar reads Saving…, your latest edit reaches the server, and only then is the file written from it. The download is named after the document.
The project page has a shorter menu on each document's row, ⭳ Export. It offers Word (.docx), PDF (.pdf), Final Draft (.fdx) and Fountain (.fountain) for screenplays, Markdown (.md) for novels, and Plain text (.txt). These are the same writers the editor uses, so the same document gives the same file from either menu. The one difference is timing: the project page does not save anything first, because nothing is open to save. It hands over the copy the server already holds.
Word, and its cousins
Word (.docx) follows the document's format:
- A novel keeps headings, bold, italic, underline, lists, images, tables and footnotes. Chapter 14 has the full table, and the short version is that Word is the export that carries all of them. Novels also get Manuscript for submission (.docx), the same standard manuscript format as the PDF described in Chapter 50.
- A screenplay is set in 12pt Courier New with the standard margins and indents, capitals where the format wants them, and the title page first if you saved one with Title Page. Each line is plain text: scene headings print bold, and bold, italic or underline inside a line do not survive. Dual dialogue arrives as two speeches one after the other.
- A stage play uses the stage-play layout from Chapter 19.
- A video script becomes a real two-column Word table, pictures on the left and sound on the right.
- An audio drama goes through the prose writer, as it does for PDF.
Rich text (.rtf), OpenDocument (.odt) and Web page (.html) sit beside Word in the editor menu. All three lay a screenplay out in its element positions and keep bold and italic, which Word's screenplay file does not. Footnotes and images are not carried.
Final Draft
Final Draft (.fdx) is the richest way out for a screenplay, because each element travels as Final Draft's own element rather than as indented text. It keeps:
- every element type, scene headings through transitions;
- bold, italic and underline, run by run;
- dual dialogue, as Final Draft's own side-by-side pair;
- summaries, outline beats and notes, as Final Draft's Summary, Outline and Note elements;
- locked scene numbers, the same ones the PDF prints, inserts included;
- the title page's Title, Written by and Draft date. The Contact block is not written into the file.
Alternate takes of a line ride in a section of the file that Final Draft ignores and Storskarvia reads, so a script that goes to Final Draft and comes back through Chapter 48's import keeps them.
If someone's Final Draft cannot open an .fdx, it can still import formatted rich
text: send Rich text (.rtf), which keeps the layout and the emphasis and loses
the element types.
Fountain
Fountain is a plain text file whose shape carries the formatting, so any text editor can open
it and any Fountain app can typeset it. Storskarvia writes it defensively. A line that a
Fountain app might read as the wrong element is forced to the right one: a scene heading that
does not begin INT or EXT gets a leading full stop, an action line in capitals or one beginning
with ... gets a leading !, and a cue that would not be recognised gets
an @. Those marks look odd in a text editor and disappear when the file is
typeset.
A Fountain export keeps bold, italic and underline as **, * and
_. It marks the second speaker of dual dialogue with ^, writes outline
beats as # sections, summaries as = synopses and notes inside
[[ ]]. The title page goes at the top, including the Contact block,
which Final Draft's file leaves out. Page breaks become ===. Scene numbers are not
written.
Plain text and Markdown
Plain text (.txt) is for pasting, searching and archiving. Paragraphs are
separated by a blank line. A screenplay's headings, cues and transitions come out in capitals, a
stage play labels its Setting: and At Rise: lines, and an audio drama prefixes
SFX: and MUSIC:. A video script puts [VISUAL] before each picture
line. Lists keep their numbers and bullets, a table prints one row per line, and an image becomes
[Image: and its alt text ]. There is no emphasis, because there is
nowhere to put it.
Markdown (.md) is on the project page's menu for novels. The document title
becomes the top heading, chapters become the headings under it, a scene break becomes
***, and lists and block quotes keep their Markdown marks.
What every file leaves out
An export is the text as it would read once the open suggestions were accepted. Text struck through by a suggestion is left out of every file on this page, and wording proposed to replace it goes in. Resolve the pass first if you want the recipient to see the choice; Chapter 44 covers how.
Notes, summaries and outline beats go into Final Draft and Fountain files only. Every other format drops them. In a novel, a note is the only one of these that exists, and it is dropped from all of them.
When it goes wrong
| What you see | What happened |
|---|---|
| Not exported, your last change has not reached the server | The save before the export failed, so no file was made rather than one missing your last edit. Check the connection and export again. |
| Not exported, your title page or layout change has not reached the server | A change to the title page or the multi-camera layout did not save, and the file would carry the old one. Make the change again, let it save, and export. |
| Not exported: Nothing to export yet | The server holds no text for this document. Write something, let it save, and try again. |
| Not exported: no connection | The request never reached Storskarvia. Try again once you are back online. |
| A page of plain text instead of a download, from the project page | The project page's menu is a plain link, so an error opens as a page with the reason in it. Go back and read the reason. It is usually Nothing to export yet. |
| The project page's file is missing your last few words | It hands over the server's copy. If the editor is open in another tab with an unsaved edit, let that tab save, or export from the editor instead. |
| Final Draft opens the file but the Contact block is blank | The .fdx
does not carry it. Add it in Final Draft, or send Fountain or the PDF, which do. |
That closes Part VIII. Part IX, on your plan, your data and leaving with everything you brought, follows it.
Updated 2026-09-29 · Full contents · Something wrong or missing?