DraftLine features

Writing & formatting

Every line is a screenplay element, and two keys move you through them: Tab and Enter. The status bar always shows where each one goes next.

• Scene headings, action, character, dialogue, parentheticals, transitions, centered text and dual dialogue.
• Autocomplete for character names, locations and times of day.
• Bold, italic, underline and strikethrough; private margin notes; find & replace.
• A title page, Focus mode that hides everything but the page, and dark or light themes.

Hollywood pagination

Pages break the way a production reads them: 54 lines a page in 12-point Courier Prime, with (MORE) and (CONT'D) when a speech crosses a page, and headings never left alone at the bottom of a page. One page stays about one minute of screen time, and the page count matches the PDF.

Final Draft, Fountain & PDF

• Open and save Final Draft (.fdx) and Fountain (.fountain) files, margin notes included.
• Import from PDF, Word and Google Docs.
• Export a PDF with the same page breaks as the editor, or print.
• Back up a whole project (script, Scene Board, Story Bible, characters, snapshots) as one .draftline file.

Scene Board

Plan the story on index cards in four acts (Setup, Escalation to Midpoint, Fall & Crisis, Climax & Resolution) or three. Write a card per beat, drag cards between acts, or build cards from the scenes you've already written and see each act's length against its target. Work beside the script in Split view, and export the outline as Fountain or Markdown.

Format Doctor

Checks the script against spec-script conventions and fixes what it can in one click, or all at once: mistagged elements, cues with no dialogue, dangling or unclosed parentheticals, split speeches, scene-heading style, missing times of day, character introductions not in capitals and more. Anything it can't fix for you, it explains. A separate Density check flags action paragraphs that run too long.

Dialogue Tuner

Pick a character and see every line they speak, in order, with scene and page. Edit lines in place, see the line before each speech for context, and read their totals: lines, words, scenes, monologues and cadence (fast banter, balanced or expository).

Character bios

A card per character with role, age or ages across a timeline, traits and backstory. Populate Bio fills in age and description from each character's introduction in your action lines, and Rename across script changes a name everywhere at once. Hover a character cue in the script to see their bio.

Story Bible

Everything about the story that isn't the script: the story's DNA (its spine, genre, theme, conflict and plot devices), notes, a synopsis and treatment, and a glossary of screenwriting terms you can rewrite in your own words.

Snapshots & compare

Save the whole project as a named checkpoint whenever you like. Compare any snapshot with the current draft, inline or side by side, with deletions and additions marked, and restore it in one step.

Breakdowns, stripboard & reports

Switch from Write to Plan when the script is ready to shoot. DraftLine works these out from the script itself:

• Breakdowns: a card per scene with INT/EXT, day/night, length in eighths and speaking cast, plus lists for extras, props, wardrobe, effects and vehicles. Export as CSV.
• Stripboard: one colour-coded strip per scene.
• Reports: scenes, characters, locations and script totals, each sortable and downloadable as CSV.

Storage, sync & offline

Scripts save automatically in your browser, on your device. In Chrome or Edge on a computer you can also link a folder, including a Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive folder, and every script is kept there as a file that follows you to your other computers. Install DraftLine from the address bar and it opens in its own window and works fully offline after the first visit.

One writer at a time: there's no live co-writing, and when two computers edit the same script the most recent save wins.

Privacy

No account, no subscription, and DraftLine never uploads your scripts. The website counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics (no cookies) and uses Google Tag Manager to measure ads; visitors in the EU, the UK and Switzerland are asked first. Your writing is never part of either.