Saving and your browser

A script in Drafter is a file, a plain .fountain text file that any other screenwriting program can open. What Save does with that file depends on your browser. Behind it, Drafter also autosaves every script in this browser as you type, so a crash or a closed tab doesn’t cost you your work.

What Save does

In Chrome and Edge on a computer, Save writes straight back to the file you opened or saved before. The first Save of a new script asks where to put it and what to call it, like any desktop program. Save As (the arrow beside Save, or Ctrl+Shift+S; ⌘+Shift+S on a Mac) saves the script to a new file, and from then on Save writes to that one. To keep working on the file you have and save a copy beside it, choose Export, then Fountain (.fountain).

In Firefox, Safari, and Brave, and in every browser on a phone or tablet, a web page isn’t allowed to write to a file on your device. Save instead downloads a fresh, complete copy of the script. Each Save adds a new file to your Downloads folder, so repeated saves pile up as numbered copies (The Call.fountain, The Call (1).fountain, and so on). Every one is a whole script, so any of them is a full backup. (Brave ships with the feature that lets Chrome save in place turned off, which is why it saves by download.) Chrome and Edge on Android save by download too. On an iPhone or iPad, Chrome, Edge, and Firefox are all built on Safari’s engine, so every browser there behaves like Safari.

Either way, Drafter marks a script whose changes aren’t in its file yet: a dot in the tab’s title, a red dot on the tab’s icon, and a red dot with “Unsaved” after the script’s title at the top, which saves when you click it (on a phone, the dot alone). If you close the tab or leave the site with changes that aren’t saved, your browser asks first. That question is the browser’s own and doesn’t always appear on phones and tablets; autosave, below, is there for those times.

Browsers compared

Other Chromium-based browsers behave like Chrome unless they have turned this off, as Brave has. “Varies” means it depends on the version and your settings.

Keeping scripts in a synced folder

Drafter doesn’t sync anything itself, and it never talks to Dropbox, Google Drive, or iCloud. But a script is an ordinary file, so a folder that one of those services keeps in sync syncs your scripts like any other file.

• Dropbox, Google Drive, or iCloud Drive, in Chrome or Edge on a computer. Save the script into the service’s folder on your computer (the Dropbox, Google Drive, or iCloud Drive folder that its app made). From then on, Save writes back to that file, and the service’s own app carries the change to your other computers.
• On a Chromebook, Google Drive appears in the Save dialog itself.
• In Firefox, Safari, Brave, or any browser on a phone or tablet, each Save downloads a copy. Set the browser to download into the synced folder, or move the files there. Open the newest one when you return.

When the file changed somewhere else

With a synced folder, a script’s file can change on another computer while this browser’s copy stays as it was. Drafter checks the file before you type over it.

• When you open a script that has a file, Drafter reads the file first. If your browser has been told to allow that (Allow on every visit, in Chrome’s permission question), the check just happens. Otherwise a bar says the script is linked to that file and that your browser needs your OK, with a Check the file button. One click asks permission and checks. You can keep typing meanwhile: if the file turns out to have changed too, Drafter asks which version to keep, as below.
• If only the file changed, Drafter loads it and says “Updated from” and the file’s name.
• If the file changed and so did this browser’s copy, Drafter asks which to keep working on: Open the file or Keep this browser’s version. Whichever you choose, the other is kept as a separate script in this browser, so nothing is lost.
• If the file was moved, renamed, or deleted, or its drive isn’t there, Drafter says so, tells you the script is safe, and offers Save to a new file… or Keep working without the file. You can keep typing either way.

The same check runs when you come back to the window. In Firefox, Safari, and Brave there is no file to check, because Save downloads a copy. Opening a file with the same title as a script already in the browser asks whether to replace that script or open the file beside it.

Files from other apps

Open a file…, or dropping a file on the window, opens a Fountain script (.fountain), a Markdown file (.md or .markdown), or plain text (.txt) as itself, and Save saves it the way Save does in your browser. A file from another screenwriting app, a Final Draft (.fdx), Highland (.highland), or Fade In (.fadein) file, is opened a different way: its script comes in as a new one, and the file you opened is never changed.

Final Draft

Drafter opens a Final Draft file (.fdx) the way it opens any other: choose Open a file…, or drop it on the window. It comes in as a new script with its text turned into Fountain, and the .fdx itself is never changed. The new script has no file yet, so the first Save asks where to put it and saves a .fountain.

Scene headings, action, characters, parentheticals, dialogue, dual dialogue, transitions, shots, centered text, bold, italic, and underline, page breaks, scene numbers and summaries, and the title page all come across. A paragraph Drafter has no element for, such as a cast list or an act break, comes in as action with a note after it, like [[fdx: Cast List]], so nothing is dropped without a word. Drafter says how many came in that way, and the Problems tab lists each one, with a jump to it (Find, with fdx:, finds them too). Final Draft’s page layout, fonts, element settings, revisions, and other settings are left out.

To go the other way, choose Export, then Final Draft (.fdx). Drafter writes a .fdx file with the script’s elements as Final Draft names them. Sections, notes, synopses, and lyrics, which Final Draft has no element for, are marked so that opening the file in Drafter again brings them back.

Highland and Fade In

A Highland file (.highland) or a Fade In file (.fadein) opens the same way as a Final Draft file: choose Open a file…, or drop it on the window, or, in the desktop app, open it with Drafter from your file manager. Its script comes in as a new one, not saved yet, so the first Save asks where to put a .fountain, and the file you opened is never changed. History keeps the script as it came in.

• Highland already writes in Fountain, so its script comes in exactly as you wrote it. Anything else in the file, such as pictures, isn’t brought in, but one note at the end names it, like [[highland: Also in the file, not brought in: cover.png]].
• Fade In keeps its script in Open Screenplay Format, which Drafter reads as it reads a Final Draft file: scenes, speeches, dual dialogue, scene numbers, bold, italic, and underline, notes, and the title page all come across. A paragraph in a style Drafter has no element for comes in as action with a note, like [[osf: Cast List]]. Fade In’s page layout, fonts, and other settings are left out.

Drafter says how many notes came in, and the Problems tab lists each one. A file that isn’t one Drafter can read, such as a text file renamed .highland, is turned away with the reason, and nothing opens.

Markdown

A .md or .markdown file opens as a Markdown document: a page of notes, an outline, or a treatment, with a Preview beside it instead of script pages. Save saves it the way Save does in your browser.

If the Markdown file holds a screenplay you typed in Fountain, choose Open as screenplay… instead (in the palette, the toolbar’s File menu, or the desktop app’s File menu). It opens the file as a new screenplay with its text exactly as written. It isn’t saved yet, so Save asks where to put a .fountain, and the Markdown file is never changed.

If it holds an outline, open it as a Markdown document and choose New screenplay from this outline. Drafter makes a new screenplay from it: the # heading at the top, before any other text, is the title, the other headings become sections, each list item becomes a scene stub with a stand-in heading, and each paragraph a synopsis. The Problems tab lists the stubs that still need a real heading, and the outline itself stays as it was.

Files Drafter can’t open

A Word document, an RTF file, a PDF, an OpenDocument or Pages document, an older Final Draft file (.fdr), a Celtx project, a zip archive, a web page (an .html file), and an e-book (an .epub file) aren’t scripts Drafter can read, so Open turns them away, says what the file is, and says what to do instead: for most, save it as plain text or Fountain in the app that made it, then open that; for a web page, an e-book, or a PDF, open the script it was made from. The one exception is an HTML or EPUB file Drafter saved itself with Let Drafter reopen this file turned on. An RTF file, a PDF, a web page, or an e-book is known by what’s inside it even when its name ends in .txt. Nothing opens, and the script you have open is left alone. Any other file of plain text opens as a Fountain script.

Opening an HTML or EPUB export again

Drafter can only reopen HTML or EPUB files it saved itself, with Let Drafter reopen this file turned on in Export options. It can’t open HTML or EPUB files made by other apps or sites, or Drafter exports made with the option off. Those are turned away, with a message that says so.

Open such a file and the script inside it opens as a new script, exactly as you wrote it, notes and all. Like an import, it isn’t the file’s script: Save asks for a .fountain (or a .md), and the HTML or EPUB file is never written. Drafter reads the script as plain text and never runs anything in the file.

Export options

Export options…, at the end of the Export menu, sets how a script’s PDF, HTML page, EPUB, plain text, Final Draft file, and Markdown file come out. Scene numbers: None (the usual), As written (only the numbers you’ve written in the script, like #12A#), or Number every scene (a scene with a written number keeps it, and the rest are numbered by their place, so two scenes can share a number). Title page: Full, Title and author only (the title, the credit, the authors, and the source, without your contact details or the date), or None. Include notes (Markdown, HTML, and EPUB): Leave out (the usual) or Include, for the Markdown, HTML, and EPUB exports alone.

Let Drafter reopen this file (includes the full script, notes and all), for the HTML and EPUB exports: off unless you turn it on. When it is on, the file carries your whole script as you wrote it, so Drafter can open it again later. That means everything goes in, your notes and the boneyard too, even when Include notes leaves them off the page, and anyone you send the file to can read them. Leave it off for a file you send to someone. Drafter can only reopen HTML or EPUB files it saved itself, with this turned on: not files from other apps or sites, and not Drafter exports made with it off.

Each script keeps its own choices, in this browser, and the script itself never changes: they aren’t in its file, so another browser or computer starts with the usual ones. The export’s message names any choice that isn’t the usual one. A Final Draft file gets the title page you choose, and always keeps the scene numbers written in the script, since Final Draft decides whether to print them. A Markdown document has no scene numbers, title page, or notes to choose, so its Export options offers only Let Drafter reopen this file.

Export as Fountain

Export, then Fountain (.fountain), saves a copy of a screenplay or stage play exactly as Save would write it: the same text, line endings, and all. Unlike Save As, the script stays on its own file, so the copy is a snapshot to send or keep, and the next Save goes where it always did. Export options don’t change it: a Fountain file is the script itself, not a drawing of it.

Export as Markdown

Export, then Markdown (.md), saves a screenplay or stage play as a Markdown file: plain text that reads well anywhere, in a notes app, on a website, in any Markdown viewer, or pasted into an AI chat, which reads Markdown more easily than a PDF. The title is the top heading, scene headings are headings (numbered when your Scene numbers choice says so), a speech is the character’s name in bold with the dialogue under it, and your bold, italic, and underline come through. It follows your Scene numbers and Title page choices just as the PDF does.

Notes and synopses are left out, as in the PDF, unless Include notes is set to Include: then each note and synopsis is a quote where it stands, so a reader, or an AI, sees what you were thinking. The boneyard is always left out. Only the Markdown, HTML, EPUB, and Final Draft exports carry notes, and not all the same ones: Markdown carries every note and synopsis, Drafter’s own scene notes (colour, goal, setups and payoffs) included, while HTML and EPUB carry only the notes you wrote yourself, beside their place in the Reading view; a PDF or plain text never prints them. A Final Draft file carries every note and synopsis only when Include notes says Include, as [[…]] in the text, which Final Draft prints, so Drafter can read them back; with Leave out it has none. A Markdown document’s Markdown export is its own text, as it is.

Export as HTML

Export, then HTML (.html), saves one web page that you can send to anyone: it opens in any current browser, from an email, a USB stick, or a shared folder, with no internet connection, and it never fetches anything. Everything it needs, the Courier Prime font included, is inside the file. It opens dark, with a switch for light, and prints in light, one page to a sheet.

A screenplay’s or stage play’s page has two views, with a switch between them: Pages, the printed pages exactly as the PDF has them, and Reading, the same script reflowed for a screen, each character’s name in a color of its own. A band across the top links to each act or scene. It follows your Scene numbers and Title page choices, and with Include notes your notes appear in Reading, beside the text, never on the pages. A Markdown document’s page is the document as the Preview draws it, with its links working and its footnotes at the end. With JavaScript turned off the page still shows the script or the document; only the switches need it.

Export as EPUB

Export, then EPUB (.epub), saves an e-book, for reading a draft on an e-reader, a tablet, or a phone. Where a PDF keeps its pages, an e-book flows to the screen it is on: the reader picks the type size, and the device sets light or dark. A screenplay’s or stage play’s e-book is its Reading view, one chapter per act (the whole script as one when it has no acts), with a contents list of the acts and their scenes; each character’s name is in a color of its own where the screen shows color, and always printed. It follows your Scene numbers, Title page, and Include notes choices, as the HTML page does. A Markdown document’s e-book is the document, one chapter per # heading, with its links and its footnotes. Nothing in it runs or reaches the internet, and a script’s e-book carries its Courier Prime.

To read it, open the file with your e-reader’s or tablet’s own app, or send it there the way the device takes books: most can copy a file from a computer over USB, many have an app or a web page to upload one, and some fetch books from a cloud folder or an email address of their own. Its documentation says which.

Each script is one book to your e-reader, whatever you change in it: a new export replaces the old one on most e-readers, rather than sitting beside it as a second copy.

Export a manuscript

For a novel, Export, then Manuscript (PDF)… or Manuscript (Word)…, saves the book in standard manuscript format, to send to an agent, an editor, or a contest. A Manuscript details box comes first, asking for the title, byline, legal name, contact lines, the header’s surname and short title, and the font; every field is optional, and what you enter is saved in the book’s file, so the box opens with it next time. The PDF is named “<title> – manuscript.pdf” and the Word file “<title> – manuscript.docx”. Export options don’t apply: the manuscript has its own box, and your notes never go into it. The Novel page shows the layout and every field.

A browser saves the file as a download, or asks where to put it where it can. The desktop app opens its Save dialog, and writes a .docx only where that dialog chose one.

Autosave

Drafter autosaves every script in this browser’s own storage, whether or not the script has a file. It is written as you type, within a moment of a pause, and it is what brings your work back after a crash, a killed tab, or a closed window: open Drafter and each script is as you left it, unsaved changes included and still marked as unsaved.

It is a safety net, not a place to keep a script. Know its limits:

• It lives in this browser on this computer. Another browser, or another computer, doesn’t have it.
• Clearing the browser’s site data or cookies deletes it. So does removing a script with Remove from this browser; that never touches a file.
• A private or incognito window may not keep it past the window.
• Safari can clear a site’s data after about a week without a visit, unless Drafter is installed as an app.

Drafter tells you when autosave isn’t safe. If the browser hasn’t promised to keep it, the status bar says Autosave: not guaranteed, and a note says “Your browser might delete Drafter’s autosave” and suggests saving to a file or installing Drafter as an app. Nothing is wrong yet; it is a reminder. If the browser won’t let Drafter autosave at all, the status bar says Autosave: off and an alert says “Autosave isn’t working in this browser right now. Your changes are only in this page until you save the script to a file.” Take either as a reason to save now. A saved file is always the one copy you control.

History and snapshots

Besides autosave, Drafter keeps earlier versions of each script in this browser, called snapshots, so you can go back to one. It takes one after every 10 minutes of active writing, every time you save to a file, and when you open a file. It also takes one before Expand outline, Fix all, Revert to Saved, or loading a changed file over the script, and when a file from another app comes in, or a Markdown file opens as a screenplay. Samples keep none, and a snapshot that matches the newest is not taken again.

Open History… from the app menu (File, in the desktop app), the command palette, or the file’s name in the status bar. Each snapshot can be restored (one undo takes the restore back, after a snapshot of what it replaced), labeled, saved as a file, deleted, or compared with the script as it is now or with another snapshot. Take snapshot… keeps one on request, with a label if you like. Snapshots are thinned as they age: every labeled one stays, all of the last 24 hours stay, then one an hour for a week and one a day for 90 days, and the newest and the one from your last save always stay. They live in the same storage as the recovery copy, so they have the same limits, and they are not in your .fountain file.

Compare

Compare, from a snapshot in History, shows what changed between two versions. It opens on Changes: the script’s text, grouped under each scene’s heading, with an added line marked + in green and a removed one − in red, and the words you changed within a line underlined or struck through. Unchanged stretches fold away behind “Show 40 unchanged lines”. Where there is room, Side by side shows the two versions in columns. Pages shows the newer version as script pages, with an asterisk in the margin by each changed line. If red and green are hard to tell apart, choose Blue and orange under Colors for changes in Settings.

Drafts and Cuts

Snapshots come and go as they age; drafts and cuts are kept for good. Start new draft… keeps the script as it is now as a numbered draft (Draft 01, Draft 02, …) that you can read, compare, or restore at any time. Cuts… (in the app menu after History…, in History, or in the command palette, where “deleted scenes” finds it too) keeps everything you cut: a whole scene, chapter, or section, and a speech, a paragraph, or 12 words or more taken out of one, to read again for ideas, copy, insert at the cursor, or put back where it was. It replaces the Deleted scenes list of earlier versions. Both can be written as plain files next to your script. Drafts and cuts has the whole story.

Show changes

The Changes button at the top of the Script tab, beside Fit and 100%, marks the pages with what you have changed since you last saved: a changed or added line gets a colored band and a +, and where lines were taken out a thin rule with a button shows them. To compare with a snapshot instead, choose it from since, or use Show changes since this in History. The marks are only on the screen: they never print or export, and Show changes is off each time you open Drafter.

History of this scene

History of this scene (a scene’s menu in the Outline or the Cards, the Structure strip’s menu on a scene, or the command palette for the scene your cursor is in) lists every different version of one scene in your snapshots, newest first, and shows what changed against now or against the version before. Use this version puts the scene back as it was, after keeping a snapshot called “Before restoring a scene”; one undo brings back what it replaced.

Installing Drafter as an app

Installing gives Drafter a window and an icon of its own, and it opens without the browser’s toolbars. Drafter works offline after your first visit either way. In Safari, installing also makes the autosave durable.

• Chrome: choose the install button at the right end of the address bar, or open the menu and choose “Cast, save, and share”, then “Install page as app”.
• Edge: choose the install button in the address bar, or open the menu and choose “Apps”, then “Install this site as an app”.
• Safari on a Mac: choose File, then Add to Dock.
• Safari on an iPhone or iPad: choose Share, then Add to Home Screen.
• Firefox on a computer can’t install web apps.

Download the desktop app

Drafter also comes as a desktop app for Linux and Windows. It is the same editor as this site, in a window of its own, and it adds what a browser can’t promise everyone:

• Save writes back to the file you opened, whatever browser you would have used.
• Autosave lives in the app, where no browser can delete it.
• You can open a script by double-clicking a .fountain file.
• It has a menu bar.
• Drafter checks for a new version when it starts (you can turn this off), and whenever you choose Help → Check for Updates…, and never installs it by itself: it offers Restart once the new version is downloaded, or Get it, the release page, where it can’t update itself.
• It saves the same plain-text files as this site, so a script moves freely between the two. Each keeps its own autosave and recent scripts.

Download the latest release from GitHub. Each download is about 100 to 130 MB.

Linux

Two packages, for 64-bit Intel and AMD computers:

• The .deb is the one to use on Ubuntu 24.04 and later, and on other Debian-based systems. On Ubuntu 24.04 and later it is the only package that runs with no extra steps. A .fountain file opens in it with a double-click, and drafterdev script.fountain opens one from a terminal. It offers Get it when there is a new version.
• The AppImage is for other distributions. Make it executable and run it. It needs libfuse2, doesn’t register file types by itself, and updates itself with Restart. On Ubuntu 24.04 and later it may ask whether to continue without Chromium’s sandbox; the install guide says what to do.

The Linux install guide has the steps.

Windows

An installer for Windows 10 and 11 on 64-bit Intel or AMD PCs: …-windows-x64-setup.exe. There’s no Windows on Arm installer for now; on Windows 11 on Arm (a Snapdragon laptop, or Windows in a virtual machine on an Apple silicon Mac) the x64 installer runs under Windows’ own emulation. It installs for you alone, without asking for an administrator, adds Drafter to the Start menu, and opens .fountain files with a double-click. It updates itself with Restart.

The installer isn’t signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may stop it with “Windows protected your PC”. Choose More info, check that the app is Drafter’s installer, then Run anyway. The Windows install guide has the steps, and how to uninstall.

Mac

There is no macOS download yet: it needs Apple’s developer account to be signed. Until then you can build it on your Mac with one command; the guide says how. Drafter in your browser works on a Mac today, and can be installed as an app (above).

Everything here stays on your device. See Privacy, and the keyboard shortcuts for Save, Save As, and the rest.