Formatting

Bold, italic, underline, fonts, and text styling.

Text Styling

You can apply text styles to selected text using keyboard shortcuts or the toolbar:

Style	Shortcut	Toolbar	Usage
Bold	⌘B	B button	Emphasize important text in action lines
Italic	⌘I	I button	Sounds, foreign words, titles of works
Underline	⌘U	U button	Emphasis (used sparingly in screenwriting)

To apply a style:

1. Select the text you want to format.
2. Press the keyboard shortcut, or click the style button in the toolbar.
3. To remove a style, select the text and press the same shortcut again (toggle).

Fonts

Screenplays traditionally use a Courier font at 12pt size, and that remains the default. When you want something else, the font picker offers a full library — type in the search box at the top to filter it, and every entry is drawn in its own typeface so you can see what you are choosing.

• Custom Fonts — TrueType and OpenType files you have installed yourself (see below).
• Screenplay Standard — Courier Prime (the default: a modern, highly readable Courier designed for screenwriters), Courier New, Courier, Arial, and the Couriers that Final Draft installs.
• Typewriter — Special Elite, Cutive Mono, Xanh Mono and other typed-page faces.
• Serif — Times New Roman, Georgia, Garamond, EB Garamond, Merriweather, Playfair Display, Libre Baskerville and more.
• Sans Serif — Helvetica, Calibri, Segoe UI, Verdana, Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat, Inter and more.
• Monospace — Consolas, Menlo, Roboto Mono, IBM Plex Mono, JetBrains Mono and more.
• Display & Titles — Bebas Neue, Cinzel, Abril Fatface, Orbitron, Rye, Bangers and other decorative faces for title pages and anything outside standard screenplay formatting.
• Handwriting — Caveat, Permanent Marker, Great Vibes, Rock Salt and more.
• Latin Extended, Indic, Arabic & Hebrew, CJK and more — Noto families covering most writing systems, downloaded on demand.
• On This Device — fonts OpenDraft found already installed on your computer or tablet.

Faces that come from your operating system are checked before they are offered: one this platform hasn’t got is greyed out and marked not installed, so you are never left wondering why a font looks like Courier.

Any font used by a document you import is listed too, under From This Document.

Adding Your Own Fonts

Choose Format → Fonts… (or Add or manage fonts… at the bottom of the font picker), then pick or drop .ttf, .otf, .woff or .woff2 files. OpenDraft reads the family name out of the font file itself, so all the weights of a family group together — add each weight as its own file to get real bold and italic rather than the browser’s synthesised ones.

Installed fonts stay on that device and survive restarts. Because OpenDraft holds the actual font file, a font you install is embedded in exported PDFs — a title page set in your own typeface comes out of the PDF looking exactly as it does on screen.

The same dialog can list the fonts already installed on your machine, so you can write in anything you own without installing it twice. On a computer running Chrome or Edge, OpenDraft can ask for the whole font book at once. On an iPad, iPhone or Android device — and in Safari — there is no way for an app to list installed fonts, so OpenDraft looks for the ones it knows about, and you can type the name of any other font you have installed. It is added if the device can actually render it, and the name is remembered.

Fonts Across Devices

A script records the name of the font each piece of text is set in. Open it on another computer, tablet or phone and it keeps that choice: where the font is installed you see the font, and where it isn’t OpenDraft substitutes the closest match of the same kind — a typewriter face for a typewriter face, a serif for a serif, a display face for a display face — rather than dropping everything to Courier. The original name is never lost, so the font comes back the moment you open the script somewhere it exists.

Changing the Font

The font and size dropdowns style the text you have selected, leaving the rest of the script alone. Picking the document’s own font again clears the override, so that text goes back to following the page.

Unstyled text renders in the document font — Courier Prime for a new script, or whatever typeface came with a file you imported. Final Draft, Fade In and Open Screenplay Format files all bring their own font across.

Your choices survive export: PDF, Word and Final Draft all carry the document font and any per-selection font you applied.

Font Size

The standard screenplay font size is 12pt. You can adjust font size from 8pt to 96pt using the size dropdown in the toolbar. Keep in mind that changing from 12pt will affect page count accuracy (1 page = ~1 minute is based on 12pt Courier).

Format Panel

For more detailed formatting control, open the Format Panel by right-clicking in the editor and selecting Format Panel. This dialog provides a live preview of formatting changes and lets you adjust:

• Element-specific font and size
• Text alignment
• Margins and spacing

Formatting Templates

A formatting template defines the formatting rules for every screenplay element type — fonts, sizes, margins, indentation, alignment, text styles, and more. Templates let you enforce consistent formatting across your screenplay or customize it to your needs.

Open the template manager via Format > Formatting Template.

Industry Standard Template

OpenDraft ships with a built-in Industry Standard template that follows Final Draft's formatting conventions. This is the default template for all new screenplays. It is read-only — you cannot edit it directly, but you can duplicate it to create an editable copy.

The Industry Standard template defines:

• Scene Heading — Bold, UPPERCASE, 12pt top margin
• Character — UPPERCASE, indented to 3.5"
• Dialogue — Indented 2.5" left, 6.0" right
• Parenthetical — Indented 3.0" left, 5.5" right
• Transition — UPPERCASE, right-aligned, indented to 5.5"
• And standard rules for Action, Shot, Lyrics, Act breaks, and more.

Creating a Custom Template

The Industry Standard template is read-only, but you can duplicate it (or any other template) and customize the copy. Each screenplay remembers which template it’s using, and your custom templates are available across every project.

1. Open Format > Formatting Template… from the menu bar.
2. In the template manager, either click + Create Template to start from a copy of Industry Standard, or select an existing template and click Duplicate to fork it.
3. Enter a name and description for your template.
4. Choose a mode: Enforce or Override (see below).
5. For each element type — Scene Heading, Action, Character, Dialogue, etc. — adjust font, size, margins, indents, alignment, text style, and the Tab/Enter flow. The editor shows a live preview as you change values.
6. Optionally add custom element types via + Add Custom Element (for example, a Stage Direction element in a stage play template).
7. Click Save. Click Apply to use the new template in the current script.

New templates start as a copy of the Industry Standard, so you only need to change what’s different.

Configurable Attributes

For each element type, you can configure:

Category	Attributes
Font	Font family (serif, sans-serif, monospace, display, handwriting) and font size (8–48pt)
Text Style	Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough (toggles)
Text Transform	None, UPPERCASE, or lowercase
Alignment	Left, center, right, or justify
Colors	Text color and background color
Layout	Top margin, left indent, and right indent (in inches)
Element Flow	Which element type to switch to on Enter or Tab
Placeholder	Custom placeholder text shown when the element is empty
Pagination	Starts on a new page — every instance of this element begins at the top of a fresh page

The template editor shows a live preview of each element's formatting as you adjust settings.

Element Numbering

Scene headings are not the only thing a script can number. A template can number any element — every line of dialogue in a podcast, so a recording session can say “pick up from line 41”; every sound effect; every shot. The number appears in the left margin beside the element, on screen, in print, and in PDF, Word and Final Draft exports.

Select an element in the template editor and tick Number this element. Then choose:

• Restart numbering at — the elements that start the count again at 1. Tick Scene Heading to number the dialogue of each scene on its own, tick several to restart at any of them (a Scene Heading or a New Act), or tick none to count through the whole script.
• Prefix — text before the number, such as FX for FX 1, FX 2, FX 3.
• Start at — the first number after each restart.
• Style — Plain (3) or With scene number (12.3). The second needs scene numbers to be showing and falls back to plain numbers where there is none.

Each numbered element keeps its own count, so dialogue can restart every scene while sound effects count through the whole script. A count restarts only at elements, never at a page break: pages break in different places on screen, in the PDF and in Word, and a number tied to them would give the same line a different number in each.

The numbers are worked out from the order of the script, so adding or removing a line renumbers everything after it. They are not part of the text: you cannot type over them, and they never change where a page breaks. To hide them for a reading draft without changing the template, turn off Tools > Production > Show Element Numbers. Tools > Production > Element Numbering… opens the template manager.

The built-in Podcast format comes with numbering already on: every line of dialogue is numbered through the whole script, and sound effects and music cues are numbered on their own as FX 1, FX 2… and MX 1, MX 2…. To change any of it, duplicate the format and edit the copy.

Enforce vs. Override Mode

Every template operates in one of two modes:

Mode	Behavior	Best for
Enforce	Formatting is locked. Users cannot change element-level styling. The template's rules are applied as non-negotiable defaults.	Production scripts, studio-mandated formats, team consistency
Override	Formatting sets defaults. Users can override any attribute on a per-instance basis using the toolbar or keyboard shortcuts.	Development drafts, flexible personal workflows

Allow Format Override (Enforce Mode)

In Enforce mode, each element type has an Allow Format Override checkbox:

• Checked (default) — Users can apply inline formatting (bold, italic, etc.) that overrides the template defaults for specific text selections. The template still controls the base styling.
• Unchecked — All formatting is locked for this element type. Users cannot apply any inline marks. Every instance of this element uses exactly the template's formatting with no exceptions.

Including and Excluding Elements

Each element type in the template editor has an enable/disable checkbox:

• Enabled (checked) — The element type is available in the editor. Writers can insert it using the Element menu or keyboard shortcuts.
• Disabled (unchecked) — The element type is removed from the Element menu and cannot be inserted. Existing instances in the document will need to be converted.

This is useful when your project doesn't need certain element types. For example, a feature film script might disable Show/Episode and Cast List elements, while a TV script might keep them enabled.

What Happens to Existing Content

If you apply a template that disables an element type already present in your document, OpenDraft shows a conflict resolution dialog:

1. The dialog lists each disabled element type and how many instances exist in your document.
2. For each disabled type, choose a replacement element type from the dropdown (only enabled types are shown).
3. Click Resolve & Apply to convert all instances and apply the template.

Conflict Resolution

When applying a template to a document that already has content, OpenDraft checks for two types of conflicts:

1. Disabled element types — Elements in the document that the template disables (see above).
2. Formatting conflicts (Enforce mode only) — Elements with inline formatting that conflicts with the template's locked rules. For example, if the template enforces bold on Scene Headings and a heading has additional italic markup, that's a conflict.

The conflict dialog gives you three options:

• Cancel — Don't apply the template. Your document stays unchanged.
• Apply Without Resolving — Apply the template but keep conflicting formatting and element types as-is.
• Resolve & Apply — Convert disabled elements and strip conflicting inline marks, then apply the template.

Custom Elements

In addition to the 13 built-in element types, you can create custom elements within a template:

1. In the template editor, click + Add Custom Element.
2. Give it a label (e.g., “V.O. Insert” or “Flashback”).
3. Configure its formatting attributes like any other element.

Custom elements appear in the Element menu alongside built-in types and can be assigned their own keyboard shortcut flow via the Next on Enter and Next on Tab settings.

Managing Templates

In the template manager (Format > Formatting Template), each template supports these actions:

• Apply — Set this template as the active template for the current document.
• Make default — The format the New Screenplay picker opens on. See below.
• Edit — Open the template editor to modify settings (user templates only).
• Duplicate — Create an editable copy. This is how you customize the read-only Industry Standard template.
• Delete — Remove the template from your library (user templates only).

Templates are applied per document. Different screenplays in the same project can use different templates.

Your Default Template

Any template — a built-in script format or one of your own — can be the one a new script starts on. Click Make default beside it in the template manager, or open Format > Script Format Preferences… and click Make default on its card. Your own templates are listed there under Your templates, alongside the built-in formats.

When you create a new script, the format picker still appears — keeping several formats selected means the next script could be any of them. The default is simply the one it opens on: listed first, marked default, and already selected, so pressing Enter takes it. Any other format is still one click away.

If you keep only one format selected in Script Format Preferences, new scripts use it directly and the picker never appears at all.

Click Default ✓ again to clear the default. It is remembered on this device; the templates themselves travel with your account, so on another device you choose the default again there.

Inserting Images

You can add images anywhere in your script — and on the title page — using any of these methods:

• From the menu: Format > Insert Image...
• Paste an image directly from the clipboard
• Drag & drop an image file into the editor

Once placed, drag the corner handle to resize an image, and use the alignment controls to position it left, center, or right. Images are stored with the screenplay, so they travel with your document.

Inserted images are included when you export to PDF and Word (.docx), rendered at the size and alignment you set.

Mores & Continueds

When a block of dialogue is split across a page break, professional screenplays mark the break with (MORE) at the bottom of the first page and (CONT'D) next to the character name at the top of the next page. OpenDraft handles this automatically.

Open Format > Mores & Continueds... to control the behavior:

• Automatic character (CONT'D) — adds (CONT'D) after a character name when the same character speaks again without interruption.
• (MORE) / (CONT'D) at page breaks — inserts the markers when dialogue spans a page boundary.
• Custom marker text — change the exact text used for the (MORE) and (CONT'D) markers to match your house style.

The automatic (CONT'D) is scene-aware: it is not carried across a new scene heading, and if you delete it at a particular cue, OpenDraft remembers that choice. A (CONT'D) you type manually is always left untouched.

Page Breaks

Sometimes an element has to open a page of its own — most often a new act. OpenDraft offers two ways to arrange that, and both are honoured on screen and in PDF and Word exports.

One element at a time

Put the cursor in the element you want to push down, then choose Format > Start On New Page. A tick appears next to the menu item while the element is flagged; choose it again to remove the break. The element immediately jumps to the top of a fresh page, and everything after it reflows.

This flag travels with the script: it survives save and reload, exports to Final Draft (.fdx) and Fountain (as the === marker), and is read back in from .fdx, .osf, and .fountain files you import.

Every act, automatically

If you want every act to start on a new page, set the rule once in the template instead of flagging acts one by one. In the template editor, select the New Act element and tick Starts on a new page.

The One-Hour Drama, Multi-Cam Sitcom, and Stage Play templates already break before every act (the sitcom template also breaks before every scene heading, as that format requires). The Industry Standard film template does not, since feature screenplays traditionally run acts continuously — if you want the behaviour there, duplicate the template and tick the box on your copy.

Zoom

Adjust the editor zoom level using the zoom control in the toolbar, or pinch on a touch screen. The range is 50% to 300%. This affects only the on-screen display, not print output. Zoomed in past the width of the window, the page scrolls sideways to both of its edges. Zooming keeps your place: a pinch holds the line under your fingers still, and the toolbar or menu holds the middle of the screen.

Phone View

On a phone, OpenDraft shows the script in Phone View: the text runs the width of the screen at full size, so you can read and write without zooming in. Indents are narrowed to fit — dialogue and parentheticals still sit in from the action, character names are centred, and transitions stay on the right — and each page break is a thin line marked Page 2, Page 3 and so on.

• Same pages. Phone View changes only how the script is drawn. Page breaks fall on exactly the same lines as on the printed page, the page count in the status bar is the same, and print, PDF and every export are unchanged.
• Text size. Pinch, or use the zoom control, to make the text bigger or smaller — the lines rewrap to fit, so nothing runs off the side. Phone View remembers its own zoom.
• Switching. Choose View → Layout → Page to see the real page, with its headers, footers, footnotes and (MORE)/(CONT’D), and View → Layout → Phone to go back. Your choice is remembered. Phone View is available on any device; a phone (Android or iPhone, in the app or in a mobile browser) starts in it.