Textplay is a simple command-line script that converts screenplays written in Fountain formatted plain-text to HTML, XML, and FDX (Final Draft).
Textplay has been rigorously tested against fountain documents, but it is not perfect, if you encounter a problem please open a github issue.
- This script requires Ruby, ensure your system has it.
- Clone this repo somewhere convenient,
cdinto that directory,- run
make install.
This will place a symbolic link to textplay in /usr/local/bin/.
This symbolic link can be removed with make uninstall.
Textplay was built using Mac OS 10.10 and Ruby 2.0. Oliver Taylor had only tested it in this environment; I have tested it in Linux, and it seems to work quite well
textplay [options] -h, --help Display the help text -s, --snippet Do not include document headers/footers -f, --fdx Convert to Final Draft .fdx -x, --xml Output as the internal raw XML -d, --diff Assume input is a diff, generate revision marks -w, --wrap Wrap action and dialogue paragraphs
Texplay is designed to be a Unix tool, thus it always reads from STDIN and writes to STDOUT. To make a file use standard Unix redirection. For example:
textplay < screenplay.fountain > screenplay.html textplay -f < screenplay.fountain > screenplay.fdx
As another example, textplay has been tested extensively with PrinceXML. To make a PDF from a fountain document, use this:
textplay < screenplay.fountain | prince - -o screenplay.pdf
NOTE: that for both of these examples, the greater than and less than symbols are not stand-ins, but are part of the text. e.g.:
textplay -f < toomuch_final.fountain > toomuch.fdx
Want to customize how textplay interprets your screenplay? Want to change the layout of your screenplay?
Using Fountain's key:value title-page syntax,
you can control how textplay interprets your screenplay.
See --help for info.
| Key | Default Value |
|---|---|
| title | "A Screenplay" |
| goldman_sluglines | on |
| screenbundle_comments | off |
| font | "Courier Prime" |
| slugline_spacing (number of 12pt lines) | 1 |
| bold_sluglines | on |
| underlined_sluglines | off |
| wrap_paragraphs | off |
| header | (empty by default) |
| footer | (empty by default) |
It is possible to create a screenplay with revision marks via Textplay.
You'll have to know how to use diff and pass the output to Textplay.
See --help for instructions.
How does Textplay interpret text differently from the Fountain spec?
- An action line that contains no lower-case letters is converted to a slugline, a "Goldman Slugline". This can be switched off.
- Textplay is smart about what constitutes a transition. Usually, there's no need to escape transitions, but you can.
- In some cases Textplay does not assume that every whitespace character you type (newlines, spaces, and tabs) is intentional. For example, if you type one space on the line immediately below an all-caps line, Fountain assumes you'd like a Character saying “ ”. Textplay assumes you accidentally typed a space.
- Textplay collapses multiple blank lines between elements to a single blank line.
What parts of the Fountain spec are not supported?
- Title Pages.
- Scene Numbers.
- In fact, if you do add scene numbers, they will appear next to the scene as #1#, #2#, etc.
- Empty lines in dialogue-blocks.