Open an FDX File Online: Final Draft Import and Export
EnsembleWriter opens Final Draft files in your browser and writes them back out again. Import a .fdx file, edit it alone or with a co-writer, then export a new .fdx for Final Draft or a PDF for everyone else. You do not need Final Draft installed, you do not need an account, and it is free.
What Is an FDX File
An FDX file is a screenplay saved by Final Draft. Inside it is plain XML: every paragraph of the script is tagged with its element (Scene Heading, Action, Character, Parenthetical, Dialogue, Transition and so on), followed by the title page and a long run of settings for fonts, margins, revisions and the SmartType lists.
Because Final Draft is what most of the industry uses, .fdx is the file producers, coverage readers and script supervisors usually ask for. Fade In, WriterDuet and Highland read it too. If someone sent you an .fdx and you do not own Final Draft, this is the quickest way to read it, edit it and send it back.
How to Open an FDX File
- Open the EnsembleWriter editor. No sign-up needed.
- Click Projects at the top of the left sidebar.
- Click Import and choose Import Final Draft (.fdx).
- Pick the
.fdxfile from your computer.
The script opens as a new project, named after its title page (or after the file, if it has none), with the title page fields filled in. From there it is an ordinary EnsembleWriter script: auto-formatting, comments, real-time collaboration, Read Aloud and the shot list all work on it.
What Carries Over
Every paragraph keeps its text and its element. Where Final Draft has an element EnsembleWriter does not, it lands on the closest one:
| In Final Draft | In EnsembleWriter |
|---|---|
| Scene Heading, Action, Character, Parenthetical, Dialogue, Transition | The same element |
| Shot | Action (an all-caps line such as ANGLE ON THE DOOR stays action, not a character cue) |
| General, Cast List, New Act, End of Act | Action |
| Lyrics | Dialogue |
| Dual dialogue | The two speeches, one after the other |
| Title page | Title, author, contact, draft date and revision fields; anything else goes to Notes |
EnsembleWriter formats most lines from the text itself: a line starting with INT. is a scene heading, a name in capitals over a line of speech is a cue. When Final Draft says a paragraph is something the text alone would not tell you (a scene heading that reads LATER, a transition such as FADE OUT., a cue typed in lower case), the import keeps Final Draft's element as a manual override on that paragraph. Everything else stays automatic, so the script keeps formatting itself as you edit it.
What Is Left Behind
A few things in an FDX file have nowhere to go in EnsembleWriter, so the import leaves them out:
- Bold, italic and underline. The words stay, the styling goes. The editor has no inline styles, as with a Fountain import.
- ScriptNotes. Use comments for notes on a passage instead.
- Scene numbers, revision colours and marks, locked pages, scene properties (summaries, colours, story beats) and Final Draft's element settings.
- Side-by-side dual dialogue. Both speeches come in, one under the other.
Two layouts come in slightly differently. A line of speech wrapped entirely in brackets, such as (laughs) no (really), reads as a parenthetical, since brackets are how EnsembleWriter tells the two apart. A parenthetical with no character name above it gets a blank line between it and the speech under it.
The title page is read from its layout, since Final Draft stores it as free lines rather than fields. After an import, check the title page fields in Project Settings, especially the draft date and revision.
Exporting to Final Draft
To hand a script back as an FDX file, click Export at the bottom of the right sidebar and choose Final Draft (.fdx). The file downloads with your script's title as its name. Export is free on every plan and works signed out.
The file has:
- One paragraph per element, each tagged with its Final Draft type.
- Your title page: title, "Written by" and the author in the middle, notes above the foot, and the contact block, revision and draft date at the bottom left.
- Element settings with EnsembleWriter's margins (Courier 12, a 1.5 inch left margin, dialogue at 2.5 inches), so the script opens looking like the PDF rather than like the opening app's default template.
- The cast list in SmartType, so Final Draft suggests your characters' names as you type a cue.
Open the downloaded file in Final Draft with File > Open, or import it into Fade In, WriterDuet or Highland the way you would any .fdx. A (CONT'D) or (MORE) you typed stays as text; Final Draft's own automatic More and Continueds setting is left for you to turn on.
Converting FDX to PDF
To turn a Final Draft file into a PDF without Final Draft, import the .fdx as above, then click Export and choose PDF. The PDF has a title page and the industry-standard layout: Courier 12, standard margins, page numbers from page two. See How to Export Your Screenplay for more on each format, or Fountain to PDF if your script is a .fountain file.
Questions
Is it free? Yes. Importing and exporting FDX files is free on every plan, signed in or not.
What about a long script? An import is never cut short. On the free plan you can read, edit, export and share every page of it; writing past the plan's page limit needs Pro.
Does it work with files from WriterDuet, Fade In or Highland? Yes. Those apps export the same FDX format, and the import reads only the parts of the file every app writes: the paragraphs, their elements and the title page.
Can my co-writer keep using Final Draft? Yes, by passing files: export an .fdx for them, and import the one they send back as a new project. To write in the same script at the same time, invite them to the project instead (see How Collaboration Works).