Final Draft (.fdx) vs Fountain: which screenplay file format?

Fountain: plain text that reads like a script

Fountain is a plain-text format. A scene heading is just a line in capitals; a character cue is a name in capitals with a blank line above it. You can open a .fountain file in any text editor and read it. That simplicity is its strength - it will still open in fifty years, and almost every screenwriting tool imports it. The tradeoff is that anything beyond the basics (revision colors, locked pages, dual dialogue nuances) is thin or absent.

Final Draft (.fdx): the industry interchange

The .fdx format is XML under the hood and is what most professional productions expect to receive. It carries the details Fountain can't: dual dialogue, revision marks, scene numbers, and act structure survive the round trip. When a production company, an agent, or a collaborator using Final Draft asks for your script, they almost always mean an .fdx.

Which one to use

Drafting and sharing casually, or archiving something you want readable forever? Fountain. Delivering to the industry or collaborating with someone in Final Draft? Export .fdx. The healthiest workflow is to write in one tool that speaks both, so you never hand-convert.

In One More Draft, Fountain export is free on every plan, and Final Draft (.fdx) export is included with Pro on both web and the desktop app - so a Fountain draft and a delivery-ready .fdx come from the same document, no reformatting in between.