If you want to export your finished script, there are several formats that Final Draft 12 offers you to do that. Let’s have a look at each one of them.
Of course. This is Final Draft 12’s standard format. Many other screenwriting applications and online tools can use this format, since it has become very common in the film industry.
These are Final Draft 12 template files. If you export your script as a FDXT template files you can use it to save all your formatting and other settings in your document for another script.
RTF means rich text format. It is an interchangeable text format that can store formatting information. Almost any standard word processor can handle this file. If you want to export Final Draft 12 files to Microsoft Word, this is the format of your choice.
TXT files only store text. They don’t hold additional information for formatting or other settings. The advantage is that basically any device and any platform can read txt files, no matter how old or rare it is.
If you export as TXT without formatting all your text will be flush left. That means your character names will also be at the left side of the page.
If you want to export as TXT but with indentation for certain elements like character names, you need to use TXT with layout instead.
TXT with layout basically also is just text without any formatting or real layout. What Final Drat 11 will do is, it will export the indented elements with spaces at the beginning, so that the document appears to have indentations and is easier to read.
This option is useful if you want to read or display your script – or parts thereof – in a web browser.
FCF is a file converter file for Final Draft 4 and earlier versions, as well as FDAV. If you or someone you want to hand your script to still use one of those versions you can use this function.
This exports your script as a txt file that can be read by AVID editing systems.
Tab Delimited Dialogue exports your dialogue along with relevant character and other information for further use in spreadsheets and database applications
There is one important screenwriting format that is not mentioned here: Fountain.
If you don’t know what fountain is, a quick explanation. Fountain is a markdown syntax for screenwriting that makes it possible to write in simple plain text, with just very few easy rules so that a software that can interpret the markdown syntax can show it as a properly formatted screenplay page.
The nice thing is you don’t need a special software for it since it’s based on plain text with all the platform independence that comes with it.
There is a little trick you can apply to make Final Draft 12 export fountain although it’s not officially supported. If you want to see how it works go here:
If you want to export your script as a pdf file there is an extra menu entry in the file menu above the export option. Just go to File – Save as pdf and specify where you want to save the file.
If you want to check how your pdf or your print is going to look like you can use the print preview. Go to File – Print Preview. Check if you’re satisfied with the results and if not, play with the settings in the printing dialog.