Last updated: · 10 min read
Moving scripts between Final Draft, Fountain, PDF, and Inkwell Plot without losing structure — and what to expect on the edges.
FDX is Final Draft's XML format — the lingua franca many production offices expect. Inkwell imports and exports FDX so you can write in Fountain-native Plot and hand off to coordinators who live in Final Draft.
Open Plot → Import / Export → Final Draft (.fdx). Inkwell parses scene headings, cues, and dialogue into structured Fountain data. Review import warnings before continuing if metadata cannot map one-to-one.
Use the same menu for PDF (reading copies) and FDX (systems). PDF uses industry margins; FDX preserves structure for round-trip. Export after save points so you know which version left the building.
Inkwell ships WGA revision colour sequencing and production-draft locking today on Pro and above. Printed locked-page numbering and A-pages in exported PDFs are still maturing — the editor colour ledger tracks each pass while document exports render the current pages. See Plot and the production FAQ for what is live versus still landing.
No — Fountain is the in-editor source format; FDX is an export/import handoff. You are not trapped in plain text for production.
Standard Fountain and FDX elements map into Plot's sixteen element types. Edge cases surface as import warnings rather than silent drops.
FDX
Final Draft’s native XML format — still the file many coordinators, studios, ...
Fountain
An open, plain-text markup for screenplays. Light conventions — scene heading...
Locked script
A shooting draft whose page and scene numbers are frozen so every department ...
Revision colours
The WGA colour sequence (white, blue, pink, yellow, and onward) used to mark ...
