Importing Scripts

Already have scripts in another format? Premiere.Studio can import them so you can pick up right where you left off.

Supported import formats

Premiere.Studio supports importing from:

Fountain (.fountain): an open plain-text screenwriting format
Final Draft (.fdx): the industry-standard XML format
Plain text (.txt): read using Fountain's conventions
PDF (.pdf)

Files can be up to 10 MB.

How to import

There are two ways to bring a script into Premiere:

Into the script you have open: choose More > Import… > Screenplay in the editor toolbar, or search the command palette (Cmd+K) for "Import a screenplay". This replaces the open script. Premiere saves your current draft to version history first, so you can go back to it.
As a new project from the Dashboard: choose New Project > Import a Script. This creates a new project and leaves everything you already have untouched.

Either way, the import window opens. Drop a file onto it or click to browse. Premiere reads the file and shows you what it found before anything is saved.

Importing from Fountain

Fountain is an open plain-text format where formatting is expressed through simple conventions. If you've been writing in Highland, WriterSolo, or any Fountain-compatible editor, your files import cleanly into Premiere. All your scene headings, action, dialogue, characters, and transitions come through as expected.

Importing from Final Draft

Final Draft's .fdx format is the most widely used professional screenwriting format. You can import your Final Draft files into Premiere to continue working on them here.

What gets imported

All screenplay elements: scene headings, action, dialogue, character names, parentheticals, transitions
Scene numbers
ScriptNotes, which come in as script notes
Title page details, where the file stores them as labelled lines (Title:, Author: and so on). A title page laid out freely in Final Draft may need re-entering in Project Properties.

What may not transfer

Some specialized Final Draft features don't have equivalents in Premiere:

Character highlighting
Custom element types or styles (their text comes in as action)

Your text and standard formatting will come through. Only some metadata and advanced features may not carry over.

Importing from PDF

A PDF goes through the same window. A PDF holds no structure, so Premiere works out scene headings, action and dialogue from where the text sits on the page. Check what it found before you confirm. If a PDF doesn't read well, you can still bring the words in as plain action lines and set the element types yourself. A scanned PDF (pictures of pages rather than text) can't be read.

Review after importing

After importing a script, take a moment to scroll through it and make sure everything looks right. If you imported over an open script and something seems off, your previous draft is in version history.

Starting fresh vs. importing

You don't have to import to get started. You can always create a blank project and start writing from scratch. Importing is just a way to bring existing work into Premiere without retyping anything.