Why is one of my characters missing from the Rename Character list?

The Character list is built from the cues at the top level of the script. A character who only ever speaks inside a dual dialogue block is not listed, because those cues sit inside the pair rather than in the script's own run of blocks. Put the cursor in the pair and press Dual Dialogue to split it back into ordinary speeches, rename, then make it dual again. Find and replace also reaches inside a dual dialogue block.

Does renaming a character change the name in scene headings too?

No. The rename touches character cues, and, if you tick the box, action, dialogue and parenthetical lines. Scene headings, transitions, shots, notes, outline and synopsis blocks, lyrics and the title page are left exactly as they were. A heading like INT. SARAH'S KITCHEN - NIGHT still says SARAH afterwards, so fix those with find and replace.

I renamed a character to a name that was already in the script. What now?

Storskarvia does not warn you, and the two characters are now one: every cue that said the old name says the existing name, and nothing records which speeches came from where. Press Undo once. The whole rename is a single edit, so one Undo puts every name back.

Chapter 18 · Formats

Renaming a Character Everywhere

A character called Sarah for ninety pages becomes Maria in the second draft, and now there are a hundred and forty places where the wrong name is sitting in your script. Rename Character changes the cues in one pass, and will change the mentions in your prose as well if you ask it to. It is precise about what it touches, which is the part worth knowing before you use it.

Where the button is

Open a screenplay, then the Script tab in the ribbon. Rename Character sits beside Dual Dialogue, in the group between the title page controls and the alternate dialogue buttons.

The Script tab only exists on a screenplay. A stage play and an audio drama get a tab called Elements in the same place, and a video script gets Timing; neither carries this button. The other formats below says what to do instead.

There is no keyboard shortcut for it. If the script has no character cues in it yet, the button answers with "No characters in the script yet." and nothing opens.

The dialog

The dialog is titled Rename character and has three controls.

Control	What it does
Character	A list of every character in the script, most talkative first. Names appear in capitals with any extension stripped, so `SARAH` covers `SARAH`, `SARAH (V.O.)` and `SARAH (CONT'D)` at once.
New name	Free text. Case does not matter here; the next two sections explain what is done with it.
Also update mentions in action & dialogue	Ticking it widens the rename from the cues to the words of the script. It is not reset between renames: it keeps whatever you left it at last time, so look at it before you press Rename.

Press Rename to do it, Cancel to leave. When it finishes, the chip beside your document title, the one that normally reads Saved, reads Renamed in 14 places for a moment. That count is cues and mentions added together, and it is the only confirmation you get, so it is worth a glance: a number far smaller than you expected usually means the name you typed in the script is not quite the name you picked from the list. Autosave then treats the rename like any other edit.

What happens to the cues

Every cue for the character you picked is rewritten, in capitals, whatever you typed. Type Maria, maria or MARIA and the cue reads MARIA.

Extensions survive the move. A speech marked SARAH (V.O.) becomes MARIA (V.O.), and SARAH (O.S.) becomes MARIA (O.S.). The match is made on the name in front of the bracket, so every variant of the character changes in the same pass and you do not have to run the rename once per extension. Chapter 16 covers extensions themselves.

Cues inside a dual dialogue pair are rewritten too, even though, as the next sections explain, such a character may not appear in the Character list to begin with.

Mentions in action and dialogue

With Also update mentions in action & dialogue ticked, the rename also sweeps three kinds of line: action, dialogue, and parentheticals. Matching there is whole-word and ignores case, so Sarah, SARAH and sarah are all found.

Replacements in those lines are written in title case rather than capitals, because they are prose. Type maria and the action line says Maria. Type a full name and every word of it is capitalised: maria delgado gives you Maria Delgado in the prose and MARIA DELGADO in the cues. Names with an interior capital come back flattened, so McCoy is written Mccoy in the prose while the cue reads MCCOY. If that matters, fix the handful of prose mentions afterwards with find and replace.

Think twice when the old name is also an ordinary word. WILL, ART, MAY, RUSTY, PATIENCE and their cousins match case-insensitively as whole words, so a character named WILL turns every "will" in your action lines into the new name. For a name like that, leave the box unticked, rename the cues, and then work through the prose with Chapter 11, using the case toggle marked Aa in the find bar so that Will and will stay apart.

What it does not touch

Everything below keeps the old name, deliberately, and you should expect to tidy it yourself:

Scene headings. INT. SARAH'S KITCHEN - NIGHT is untouched even with mentions ticked.
Transitions, shots, lyrics, notes, outline and synopsis blocks, and anything else that is not action, dialogue or a parenthetical.
The title page and the document title. Both are edited where they live; see Chapter 17.
The Codex. A character entry in your story bible is a record of its own, with its own name, aliases and portrait. Renaming in the script does not rewrite it, which is what you want the day a character is renamed for the third time and you still need the old names in the aliases. Part V covers the Codex.
Comments and their quoted text. A comment anchored to a renamed line stays anchored; the snippet it quotes still shows the old wording.
Files already written to your storage. The rename is an edit like any other, so the new text reaches your Dropbox, Drive or folder on the next save.

The Breakdown is the happy exception. It reads its cast off the character cues rather than from a list you maintain, so the stripboard and the Day Out of Days show the new name once the script has saved.

When it does less than you expected

What you see	Why
The dialog closes and nothing changed	The New name box was empty or held only spaces. A blank name is refused silently rather than deleting your cues.
A character is missing from the list	The list is built from the cues at the top level of the script. A character who only ever speaks inside a dual dialogue pair is not there. Put the cursor in the pair, press Dual Dialogue to split it, rename, then re-pair the speeches.
Two characters are now one	You renamed into a name the script already uses. Nothing warns you and nothing records which speeches came from where. Undo, below.
Ordinary words changed	Mentions were ticked and the old name is also a common word. Undo, then rename again with the box clear.
Some cues kept the old name	Those cues are not the element you think they are. A name typed into an action line looks like a cue on the page and is not one. Click the line and check the element in the ribbon.

Undo, and Suggest mode

The whole rename is a single edit, so ⌘Z reverses all of it in one step rather than one name at a time. That is the fastest way out of a rename that went wider than you meant, and it is why the count in the chip is worth reading before you carry on typing.

Turn Suggest off before you rename. With suggestion mode on, from the Review tab, the new names arrive as your tracked insertions and pile into the Changes rail, while the names they replaced are removed without being marked as deletions. Rejecting one of those insertions deletes the new name and does not bring the old one back. A rename is a structural edit to a draft, and it reads better to a collaborator as an accepted fact than as a hundred and forty suggestions. Part VII covers suggestion mode and the Changes rail properly.

The other formats

Novels, stage plays, audio dramas and video scripts have no Rename Character button. Use find and replace: open it with ⌘F, turn on the case toggle marked Aa, and run the replacement once per casing you use. In a stage play or an audio drama that means MARIA for the cues and Maria for the prose, which is two passes and no surprises, since a case-sensitive replacement will not touch the ordinary words that share the name.

The same two-pass habit is the safe way to rename anything else a script names repeatedly: a location in your sluglines, a ship, a company, a street.

Updated 2026-08-25 · Full contents · Something wrong or missing?

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