Fountain
Fountain is the open, plain-text screenplay format: readable in any editor, friendly to version control, and expressive enough for the full screenplay vocabulary.
What it carries
- every screenplay element type, including sections, synopses, notes and lyrics
- dual dialogue, forced elements, scene numbers and page breaks
- emphasis (bold, italic, underline) and title pages
What it can't represent
- no revision colors or production metadata (those live in FDX)
- plain text means layout is conventional, not absolute
Where it came from
Created in 2012 by John August and Stu Maschwitz as a common denominator syntax so screenwriters could write in any text editor and move between tools without lock-in.