How to Convert FDX to PDF

Why you send a PDF and keep the FDX

The two files do different jobs, and that is the whole reason both exist:

• The PDF is a rendering. It carries its own fonts and its own page layout, so it looks identical on a producer's Mac, a reader's iPad and a contest portal's preview. Nobody needs Final Draft to open it, and nobody can reflow your script by accident.
• The FDX is the master. It stores which paragraph is a scene heading and which is dialogue, along with scene numbers, revision metadata and dual dialogue. It is the only version you can revise, repaginate and export again.

So the rule is simple: the PDF is what leaves your machine, the FDX is what stays. If you ever send the FDX and keep the PDF, you have inverted it — the recipient can reformat your script in whatever template their software uses, and you have nothing left that re-paginates when you cut four pages out of the second act.

Check the submission rules before you assume PDF is right. Most contests and fellowships accept a PDF, many also accept FDX, and a few ask for FDX specifically because they want to check formatting in a readable structure. The rule is whatever the organisation writes down, not whatever is most convenient.

Converting FDX to PDF in the browser

The free FDX to PDF Converter reads a Final Draft XML file and returns a printable PDF laid out on the standard screenplay template. No account, nothing to install.

1. Open /tools/fdx-to-pdf/.
2. Drop the .fdx in. The tool parses the XML — element types, not page positions, so what comes out is a properly formatted screenplay rather than a picture of one.
3. Download the PDF. It is paginated at Courier 12pt on US Letter with the standard margins.
4. Compare the page count to the FDX before you send it anywhere, and read the last page. If the FDX was built on a non-standard template, the export will reflow it and your page count will move.

The tool's page states that uploaded FDX files are stored by Zen Writer. Treat that like any other upload service if the script is under an NDA, and export from desktop software instead.

If you are exporting from Final Draft itself, save as PDF from the File menu rather than printing to a PDF driver. A print driver can substitute fonts and silently change your line breaks, which is exactly the failure this section is about to describe.

How screenplay PDF pagination works

A screenplay PDF is not a generic document with a nice font. Its page geometry is a standard, and the standard exists so that a page count means something:

• Paper: US Letter, 8.5" x 11". A4 is accepted for UK and European submissions, but it holds slightly different line counts, so the page-per-minute calibration drifts a little.
• Font: Courier 12pt, a monospaced typeface at 10 characters per inch. A standard screenplay uses exactly one font, in one size, in one style.
• Margins: 1.5" on the left, 1" on the right, 1" top and bottom. That gives a 6" text column in a 9" page depth.
• Line grid: 12pt Courier sits on a 12pt line, six lines to the inch. Nine inches of text is about 54 lines, which is why the trade figure is roughly 55 lines per page.
• Calibration: one page is about one minute of screen time, so a 110-page script runs about 110 minutes. This is a convention rather than a law — an action-heavy script reads faster, a dialogue-heavy one slower — but it is why a reader's first reaction to a 160-page spec is a wince, not admiration.

Page numbers sit at the top right. By convention the first page of the script is not numbered — numbering effectively begins at 2 — and the title page is never numbered. If your PDF shows a number on page 1, a template has been left in an unusual state and worth checking before it goes out.

Two markers exist for the one place pagination genuinely breaks a scene. When a speech runs past the bottom of a page, the bottom of that page carries a right-aligned (MORE), and the character's name is repeated at the top of the next page with (CONT'D):

MARCUS
You said the doors would be open. You said
nobody else knew about the shipment. You
                                        (MORE)

--- page break ---

MARCUS (CONT'D)
said you handled it yourself.

This is the marker set still in use. The older convention of CONTINUED: at the bottom of every page and (CONTINUED) at the top of every page is largely retired from spec scripts — it wastes two lines a page and dates the draft. Some production drafts keep it because the pages are physically separated during a shoot.

Two layout rules follow from the same logic. A scene heading should never be the last line on a page: the reader turns the page, sees INT. WAREHOUSE - NIGHT and has no action to picture. And a character cue should not be stranded at the bottom of a page with its dialogue overleaf. Final Draft and most apps call this keep with next; if your PDF has either problem, fix it in the FDX and export again rather than sending it.

What to check before the PDF goes out

Run this list on the actual PDF, not on your editor — an editor's settings and the rendered page are not the same thing:

1. Title page. Title, a credit line (Written by or by), the author's name in mixed case, and a contact block at the bottom left or bottom centre when you are submitting to a producer or manager. For a contest that reads blind, strip your name and contact details exactly as the rules require. The Title Page Generator builds the standard layout if you would rather not hand-place it.
2. Scene numbers. Off for a spec script. Turn them off in the app and then confirm in the PDF — numbered scenes on a spec read as a production draft.
3. Revision colours. Nothing should be blue, pink, yellow, green, goldenrod, buff or salmon. Revision colour belongs to a shooting script, and it must print black in the PDF you send, or the reader gets a rainbow that means nothing to them.
4. Page count and last page. Confirm the total and check the final page is a real page, not a two-line orphan.
5. Orphans and widows. Flip to each page break and look for a stranded slugline or a lone line of dialogue.
6. Fonts. Every page should be Courier. If the PDF's font list shows a proportional font, a substitution has happened and the pagination is no longer standard.
7. File size. A text-only screenplay PDF is a few hundred kilobytes. If yours is tens of megabytes, fonts or an image layer are inflated; contest portals usually cap uploads, and big files read badly on phones.
8. File name. Title_Draft2.pdf or Title_YourName.pdf. Portals sort by filename and producers download hundreds of them.
9. A phone test. Open it on a phone before sending. A growing share of first reads happen on a handset, and that is where a bad margin or a missing page number is most obvious.

Spec PDF vs shooting-script PDF

Both files end in .pdf and both are standard formatted screenplays. They are not the same document, and sending a shooting script to a contest or a spec script to a production office is a visible error.

The page count row is the one that matters most. Once a script is in production its pagination is locked: adding material does not renumber the script, it creates an A-page or a coloured revision page so that the schedule, the call sheets and the day-out-of-days all still refer to the same page numbers. That is why revision metadata exists in an FDX at all, and why it has to survive until the shooting draft is final.

What the PDF leaves behind

A PDF is a printout. Whatever it takes to render the page correctly is in the file; everything else stays in the FDX. What does not travel:

• Element types as data. The PDF has positions, not semantics. That is why converting a PDF back to FDX means re-inferring every paragraph.
• Scene-number lock. Numbers printed in a PDF are text in a margin; in the FDX they are attributes attached to scenes.
• Revision metadata. Which lines were revised in which colour, and when, exists only in the working file.
• The dual-dialogue flag. Side-by-side speeches can be rendered into a PDF, but the flag that keeps them side by side lives in the document model.
• Editability and re-pagination. Add three pages to act two and the PDF has no idea what to do; the FDX reflows and renumbers.

None of that is a defect. A PDF that cannot be edited is exactly what you want to send, because it guarantees the reader sees the page breaks you intended. The mistake is treating the PDF as the archive — keep the editable file, and the PDF becomes reproducible at any time.

Frequently asked questions

Continue reading

More in fdx & final draft files

• What Is an FDX File? Final Draft XML Explained
• How to Open an FDX File (With or Without Final Draft)
• How to Edit an FDX File Without Final Draft
• How to Open an FDX File on iPhone
• How to Open an FDX File on iPad
• How to Open an FDX File on Mac
• How to Convert a PDF to FDX
• FDX vs Fountain: Which Screenplay Format Should You Use?
• Final Draft Alternatives for iPhone
• Final Draft Alternatives for iPad
• Final Draft Alternatives for Mac