How to Convert FDX to Word (.docx) or Google Docs

To convert FDX to Word, either export the FDX to PDF and open the PDF in Word, or convert the FDX to Fountain plain text and paste it into a Courier document, or use Final Draft's own Save As if you have it. Every route turns screenplay elements into tabs and spaces, so treat the .docx as a copy for a specific reader and keep the FDX as the master.

Updated 2026-09-22 · About 8 sections · 5 answered questions

How to convert FDX to Word: the three routes

There is no clean one-click path from FDX to .docx, because the two formats disagree about what a document is. An FDX file stores screenplay elements — this paragraph is a character cue, that one is dialogue — and leaves the layout to the app. A Word file stores paragraphs with indents, fonts and tab stops, and has no idea what a character cue is. Every conversion therefore flattens meaning into formatting. Pick the route by what you have and what the recipient needs:

Route	Needs	Result
FDX → PDF → Word	Any browser	Looks like the script, page for page; edits poorly
FDX → Fountain / plain text → paste	Any browser, plus Word or Docs	Clean editable text; you re-indent it yourself
Final Draft's own export	A Final Draft licence	Formatted .docx or .rtf straight from the source

Whichever you choose, the .docx is an export, not a master. When the script changes, change the FDX and export again.

Why Word is a bad home for a screenplay

Word can be forced to produce a page that looks like a screenplay. What it cannot do is understand one, and the difference shows up the first time you edit.

No elements. In a screenwriting app, pressing Enter after a character cue moves you to dialogue, and Enter after dialogue moves you to a new cue or action. In Word, Enter gives you another paragraph in the same style. Every element change is a manual style switch or a run of tabs.
Pagination is wrong by default. Screenplay page breaks obey rules: never strand a scene heading at the foot of a page, never separate a cue from its dialogue, insert (MORE) and (CONT'D) when a speech spans pages. Word applies none of them, so a Word screenplay's page count does not mean one page per minute.
The formatting is fragile. The standard grid is Courier 12 on US Letter, 1.5" left margin, dialogue block starting 2.5" from the left edge, cues at 3.7", parentheticals at 3.1". Built from tabs and spaces, it collapses the moment someone changes a font, a margin or a paper size. The margins and font article explains the grid, and why readers notice a shifted one.
Nothing downstream reads it. Production breakdown, scheduling and revision tracking all start from FDX. A .docx has to be converted back, and converting a Word screenplay back to FDX is worse than converting a PDF because the positions are tab stops rather than measured columns.
Collaborators can wreck it silently. A producer who "just fixes a line" in Word can move a tab and re-indent forty pages without noticing.

So the honest advice is: if you want to edit the script, do not convert it to Word. Open the FDX in a screenwriting app — Zen Writer opens it on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android, and you can edit an FDX without Final Draft for free — and export whatever the other person needs from there.

Route 1: FDX to PDF to Word

Best when the Word file only has to look right — a professor who insists on .docx, an office that files everything in Word, a translator who needs the page layout as reference.

Convert the FDX to PDF. Drop it into the free FDX to PDF converter, or export a PDF from any app that opens FDX. Check the page count first; converting FDX to PDF has the checklist.
Open the PDF in Word. Recent versions of Word open a PDF directly and rebuild it as an editable document (File, Open, choose the PDF, accept the conversion prompt). Google Docs can do the same from Drive: upload the PDF, right-click, open with Google Docs.
Inspect the result. Word keeps the Courier and the positions, but it reproduces them as paragraph indents and, sometimes, as text boxes. Page breaks usually survive; line breaks inside dialogue often become hard returns.

What you get is a faithful picture that is awkward to edit. Fine for reading, filing and marking up with comments. Painful for rewriting.

Route 2: FDX to Fountain or plain text, then paste

Best when the recipient needs to work with the words — a translator, a script editor making notes, a dramaturg. Convert the FDX to plain text, paste it into a Courier document, and let the reader see clean text instead of a layout impersonation.

Convert with the free FDX to Fountain converter. Drop the .fdx in and download the .fountain. It is a plain text file.
Open the .fountain in any text editor and select all. Because Fountain syntax is designed to read as a screenplay, the text needs almost no cleanup: headings are in caps, cues are in caps, dialogue sits under the cue.
Paste into a new Word or Google Docs document set to Courier New 12, with 1" margins and the left margin at 1.5". Use paste-without-formatting so Word does not inherit the text editor's font.
Optionally indent. If the reader expects the screenplay silhouette, create three paragraph styles — Dialogue (left indent 1"), Parenthetical (1.6"), Character (2.2") — and apply them. Do not do it with the space bar.

A Fountain export of a short passage looks like this, and it is exactly what lands in the document:

INT. HARBOUR OFFICE - NIGHT

A single desk lamp. DEV counts cash into a tin, twice.

DEV
(not looking up)
You're late, and you're wet.

RUTH
Ferry's cancelled. Everything's cancelled.

> CUT TO:

The only Fountain marks a Word reader will see are a leading > on forced transitions, ^ after a dual-dialogue cue, and [[double brackets]] around notes. Delete them with find and replace, or leave them; most readers understand them at a glance.

Route 3: Final Draft's own export, if you have it

If you own Final Draft, use it. Its Save As dialog lists several formats besides FDX, including rich text and plain text, and depending on the version a Word format as well; check your own version's export menu rather than trusting a screenshot from a forum. The output carries the element indents as paragraph formatting, which is as good as a Word screenplay gets.

Two cautions. First, export a copy — never overwrite the FDX. Second, open the result in Word and scroll to a page break: Final Draft's (MORE) and (CONT'D) markers are written into the text at the positions of Final Draft's pagination, and Word will paginate differently, so some of them will now sit mid-page. Delete them, or accept them as noise.

If you do not own Final Draft, there is no need to buy it for this job. The two free routes above produce a usable .docx, and the app you already use to open the file probably exports plain text directly — Zen Writer, for example, exports plain text and Fountain from any imported FDX.

How to open an FDX in Google Docs

Google Docs cannot open an .fdx directly; upload one and Drive treats it as an unknown file, or shows raw XML. The route is the same as for Word:

Convert the FDX to PDF or Fountain with the free tools above.
For a PDF: upload to Drive, right-click, Open with Google Docs. Docs performs a text extraction that keeps Courier and rough positions.
For Fountain: open the .fountain in a text editor, copy, paste into a blank Doc set to Courier New 12.

If the goal is to read the script rather than have it in Docs, skip all of this: the free FDX viewer renders the file in the browser with correct formatting and a page count, and how to open an FDX file lists every other option.

Indentation warning: what breaks in Word

In an FDX, indentation does not exist. The paragraph says Type="Dialogue" and the app supplies the 2.5" indent. In Word, that indent has to be made of something, and what it is made of decides whether the document survives being edited:

Spaces. What most PDF-to-Word conversions produce. Looks right in Courier, wrong in any proportional font, and every edit to a line of dialogue shifts the wrap.
Tabs. What Final Draft's older text exports produce. Better, but a tab is a jump to the next tab stop, so a changed tab setting re-indents the whole script.
Paragraph styles with left indents. The only version that behaves. Nobody's automatic conversion produces it; you build the three styles yourself.

Also expect: hard line breaks inside dialogue where the source wrapped; character cues stuck to the previous action line if a blank line was dropped; (MORE) orphans; and, from PDF conversions, page numbers embedded as text at the top of each page. Search for them before you send the file on.

If all of this makes you want to give up on Word, that is the correct reaction. Open the FDX in Zen Writer's free online screenplay editor instead and it is already formatted, with Smart Enter moving between elements — and Word becomes the thing you export to when someone insists.

When converting FDX to Word is still the right call

A production office that lives in Word. Call sheets, breakdowns and memos are Word documents, and an assistant needs the script text in the same tool to pull character and location lists. Route 2 gives them clean text.
Translation. Translators work in Word or in translation software that ingests .docx. Send Fountain-derived text so each speech is a simple paragraph, and convert the translated text back to a screenplay afterwards. The foreign language dialogue article covers how the translated script should then be formatted.
A professor or a contest demanding .docx. Route 1 keeps the pages looking exactly like the script. Attach a PDF as well if the rules allow, so the reader has the real thing.
Track Changes. Some editors and executives will only give notes in Word's tracked changes. Send Route 2 text, accept the notes, and apply them to the FDX by hand.

In every one of those cases the FDX remains the master. The rest of the FDX guide covers the formats that do preserve the script — PDF for reading, Fountain for plain text — and FDX vs Fountain explains when each is the better carrier.

Frequently asked questions

Can Microsoft Word open an FDX file directly?

Not as a screenplay. Word will open the file as raw XML text, which is the FDX structure, not the script. Convert to PDF first and open that in Word, or convert to Fountain plain text and paste it into a Courier document.

Is there a free FDX to DOCX converter?

There is no single free tool that writes a properly styled .docx, but the free FDX to PDF and FDX to Fountain converters get you there in two steps, and Word and Google Docs both open a PDF. The paste route from Fountain gives the cleanest editable text.

Will the screenplay formatting survive in Word?

Partly. Courier and the visible indents survive as spaces, tabs or paragraph indents, but the element meaning does not, so Word cannot move you from a cue to dialogue or paginate to screenplay rules. Treat the .docx as a copy for a particular reader, not a working draft.

How do I convert a Word screenplay back to FDX?

Paste the text into the free plain text screenplay formatter, which classifies lines by case and context and outputs FDX, Fountain or PDF. Expect a check pass afterwards for headings, cues and parentheticals, especially if the Word file was indented with tabs.

Should I write my screenplay in Word to begin with?

No. Free screenwriting apps format every element automatically, paginate to industry rules and export FDX and PDF. Word makes you build all of that by hand and then breaks it when someone else opens the file. Use Word only for documents that are not screenplays.

Ready to turn this idea into a screenplay?

Zen Writer opens the FDX with every element already formatted and exports PDF, Fountain and plain text, so Word becomes a one-off export rather than the place your script lives.

Open the FDX in Zen Writer

Free on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android.

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FDX & Final Draft Files

How to Convert FDX to Word (.docx) or Google Docs

How to convert FDX to Word: the three routes

Why Word is a bad home for a screenplay

Route 1: FDX to PDF to Word

Route 2: FDX to Fountain or plain text, then paste

Route 3: Final Draft's own export, if you have it

How to open an FDX in Google Docs

Indentation warning: what breaks in Word

When converting FDX to Word is still the right call

Frequently asked questions

Ready to turn this idea into a screenplay?

Continue reading

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