Open your screenplay in Google Docs.

Drop in a PDF, a Final Draft file or a Fountain file. You get back a document that opens in Google Docs already formatted, with every scene heading, character cue and line of dialogue in the right place. It runs on your computer and your script is never uploaded.

Drop your screenplay here

You can also pick a file from your computer.

PDF, Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain (.fountain, .spmd) and plain text. Nothing is uploaded.

How it reads your script

A Final Draft or Fountain file

Both formats record what each paragraph is, so nothing has to be guessed. The converter keeps your title page, drops the cast lists and act markers that belong to Final Draft rather than to the script, and puts two dialogue blocks written side by side one under the other, because Google Docs cannot show two columns of dialogue.

A PDF

A PDF only knows where the ink sits on the page. That turns out to be enough, because screenplay format is a geometry: the converter measures the columns your script actually uses, then reads dialogue, action, parentheticals and character cues off them. It removes page numbers and CONTINUED marks, strips scene numbers, and rejoins a line of dialogue that a page break had cut in half.

What it will not do

A scanned script is an image, not text, so there is nothing to read and the converter says so instead of producing nonsense. A PDF that was never laid out as a screenplay gets read from its words alone, and the page tells you when that happens so you can check the result. Dual dialogue becomes two ordinary blocks. Bold and italic disappear, because screenplay format does not use them.

Now write in it.

Screenplay Editor formats your script while you type in Google Docs. Enter and Tab move you between a character, a line of dialogue and the next scene, the way Final Draft does. It is free to start.

Install it
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Questions about converting

I write my own films in Google Docs, so I built the tools I kept wishing existed.

Ask me something
Can I convert a Final Draft (.fdx) file to Google Docs?
Yes. A .fdx file already records the type of every paragraph, so nothing has to be guessed. Your scene headings, characters, parentheticals, dialogue and transitions land exactly where Final Draft put them, and your title page comes along.
Can I convert a PDF screenplay to Google Docs?
Yes, and this is the case the tool was really built for. A PDF does not label its paragraphs, so the converter measures the columns your script uses and reads the format back out of them. It also removes page numbers, strips scene numbers, and rejoins a speech that a page break had split in two.
Does it work with Fountain?
Yes, including forced elements, the title page, notes and the boneyard. Sections and synopses are left out, since they are your working notes and not part of the script.
Is my script uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything happens inside this page, on your own computer. Your file never leaves the browser, nothing is stored, and there is no account to create.
Will the formatting survive in Google Docs?
Yes. The document carries the exact margins and indents of the industry standard, the same ones Screenplay Editor applies while you write. That is why the add-on and the Chrome extension recognise every paragraph the moment you open the file.
Why do I download a file instead of getting a Google Doc directly?
Creating a document in your Drive would mean asking you to sign in and give access to your files, for a tool you are trying out. Dragging the file into Drive takes about ten seconds and asks nothing of you.
Can I go back to Final Draft afterwards?
Not from here yet. This converter goes one way, into Google Docs. Once your script is formatted there, the add-on exports it to PDF and to Fountain.

The other free tools

Check your format before you send it

The notes a reader would write, before a reader writes them.

Turn your script into a breakdown sheet

Every scene, its location, its time of day and its cast, in a coloured spreadsheet.

Lay out your beats and start writing

Fifteen beats at their real page numbers, in a document already divided.

Make a title page that looks right

Four fields, and the title page a reader expects.

How long does your script run?

A real estimate, and where the time actually goes.

See who carries your script

Who speaks, how much, in how many scenes, from which page to which.