Screenplay Importer

The screenplay importer turns a script into a Prewrite story, with its scenes, characters and acts. It reads your script, shows you what it found, and lets you fix it before anything is saved. For the steps in short, see Import a Screenplay.

What You Can Import

• A screenplay file: PDF (.pdf), Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain (.fountain), or a plain text file (.txt) written in Fountain.
• A pasted script: plain text copied from any app. See Paste a Script.
• A scanned PDF: a PDF with no text in it, only pictures of the pages. Prewrite reads it with text recognition. See Scanned Scripts.

Prewrite finds scenes by their headings, so each scene must start with a heading that begins with INT., EXT. or I/E.

Open the Importer

1. In My Stories, click New Story.
2. At the bottom of the dialog, click Import File.
3. Drop your file onto the dashed area, or click Browse files and pick it.

You can also drop a file anywhere on the New Story dialog without clicking Import File first.

Once the script is read, its lines race past as Prewrite sorts each one into a type (scene heading, action, dialogue and so on), and then the review opens. While Prewrite is still reading or recognizing a script, the dialog can't be closed.

A free account can keep one story. If you already have one, the importer offers upgrade options instead (see Plans and Billing).

Paste a Script

Under the drop zone, click paste a script. Paste your script into the box, then click Parse script. The button turns on once there's enough text for a script.

Pasted text doesn't need any special formatting: Prewrite works out which lines are headings, character names and dialogue. If it can't find any scenes, it says so above the box and keeps your text, so you can fix it and try again. Cancel takes you back to the drop zone.

Scanned Scripts

When a PDF has no text to read, Prewrite runs text recognition on it by itself. It shows Recognizing your script… and counts the pages as it goes. Recognition takes a moment per page and works best on clean scans.

Click Cancel to stop and pick another file. When recognition finishes, the review's import notes say the script was recognized, with a confidence score. Read the Breakdown carefully: recognized text can have mistakes.

When a File Won't Import

If Prewrite can't import a file, the upload page says why, above the drop zone:

• The file type isn't one it reads.
• The file couldn't be read: it may be damaged, or not a screenplay.
• No scenes were found: scene headings need to start with INT., EXT. or I/E.

Review the Import

Once the script is read, the review opens. Nothing is saved yet: the story is only made when you click Finish Upload.

The path at the top reads New Story › Import File › your story's name. Click Import File there to go back and pick a different file.

Story Name

Story name is filled in from the script's title page, or from the file's name when there isn't one. Change it here or later. Finish Upload stays off while the name is empty.

Act Structure

Act structure decides the acts your scenes are split into. Prewrite picks one for you from the script:

• If the script marks its acts (TEASER, COLD OPEN, ACT ONE and so on), it picks the TV or film structure those markers match. A TEASER suggests a one-hour drama; a COLD OPEN, a half-hour sitcom.
• Otherwise it goes by length: around 30 pages suggests a sitcom, around 60 a one-hour drama, and feature length the film structures.

The menu lists the best matches first, each with its number of acts. Structures you've customized in your own stories are listed under Custom structures.

Scenes go into acts where the script's act markers put them. Without markers, they're split by page position. If the script marks a different number of acts than the structure has, a note under the menu says what will happen: extra marked acts join the final act, or the acts left over are filled by page position. An act that gets no scenes starts with one empty scene.

You can change the structure later, in the story's Advanced Settings.

Detect Tone

Detect Tone is on to start with. It scores each scene's emotional value from the feeling words in it, such as happy, afraid, smiles or cries, and fills in the scene's Tone -/+ value (see Tone -/+). Words for what happens, such as kill or rescue, don't count: whether they're good or bad depends on who they happen to. The protagonist's feelings count more than anyone else's; the protagonist is the character who speaks most often. Turn it off to leave tone empty and set it yourself.

Insights

Beside the settings, a row of tiles gives the script's numbers at a glance: Scenes, Characters, Pages, Est. runtime and Locations. When the scene headings say INT. or EXT. and DAY or NIGHT, Interior and Daytime show how many of the scenes are inside and in daylight.

Breakdown

The Breakdown is your script the way Prewrite read it. Each line is colored by its text type, with a key at the top: Scene heading, Action, Character, Dialogue, Parenthetical, Transition, Shot and General.

Each scene starts with a Scene N label above its heading line, using the script's own scene number when it has one. Page numbers mark where each page begins, and act markers show where the acts break.

Fix a Line

If a line was read as the wrong type, point at it. Two small controls appear at its right:

• The type menu (Change text type): choose the line's right type.
• The bin (Remove line): leave the line out of the story. It stays in the Breakdown, dimmed; click the arrow in its place (Restore line) to bring it back.

These changes only apply when you click Finish Upload. The import notes count how many lines you've removed or retyped.

Top Cast and Import Notes

Beside the Breakdown:

• Top cast lists up to five characters: the ones with the most lines, with their number of lines and scenes. Every character in the script becomes a character in your story, not just these five.
• Import notes says what Prewrite found and fixed on the way: act markers, scene numbers taken off headings, OMITTED scenes skipped, repeated page headers and footers removed, cover pages skipped, speeches joined back together across page breaks, and the lines you've changed.

Finish the Import

Click Finish Upload. Prewrite makes the story and opens it. It has:

• your scenes, in their acts, with the script text of each;
• your characters, with their names in ordinary capitalization (MURRAY in the script becomes Murray on the character), though the script still shows them in capitals;
• scene notes and summaries, from Final Draft's script notes and summaries, or Fountain's notes and synopses;
• a tone for each scene, if Detect Tone was on.

If you opened New Story inside one of your folders, the story is saved in that folder. From here it's a story like any other: everything can be changed.

Imports Started in the Previous Prewrite

In the previous version of Prewrite, you could save a screenplay import halfway through. When you open one of those stories, Prewrite asks whether to finish importing it. Finish Import builds its scenes and characters, and keeps everything you added during the old review. Not now leaves it as it is, and you stay in My Stories: the story doesn't open until it's finished.