Scarf Ace

A free, browser-based screenplay editor. No account, no server — scripts live in your browser.

• Formatting you can't get wrong. You choose an element type (Scene Heading, Action, Character, Parenthetical, Dialogue, Transition, Shot); margins, capitalization and spacing follow industry standard automatically.
• Real pagination. 54 lines per page in 12pt Courier, with scene headings never orphaned, action split only with ≥2 lines per page, and dialogue split with (MORE) / (CONT'D). Page breaks are shown live in the editor and match the PDF.
• PDF export with an optional title page, using the embedded Courier Prime font. Exporting first shows options: scene numbers (for shooting scripts) and automatic (CONT'D).
• Fountain import/export for interoperability with Trelby, Highland, Fade In, etc., without losing anything: notes [[…]] (boneyard /* */ becomes notes), sections #, synopses =, forced page breaks ===, centered text > <, dual dialogue ^ and scene numbers #12A# all round-trip. Copy/paste also speaks Fountain.
• Final Draft (.fdx) import and export. Anything that doesn't map one-to-one (sections, synopses, notes, act breaks, General paragraphs, scene numbers, the free-form title page) is listed in a dialog where you choose what happens to it; defaults keep content.
• Bold, italic, underline (Ctrl/⌘+B / I / U), stored as Fountain emphasis and printed in the PDF.
• Autocomplete for character names and extensions, scene headings (INT./EXT., known locations, times of day) and transitions. In action and dialogue, character names complete inline: type Ma and press Tab for Maya (or MA → MAYA for a first appearance).
• Dual dialogue side by side, on screen and in the PDF.
• Automatic (CONT'D) when a character speaks again after action in the same scene (setting).
• Find & replace (Ctrl/⌘+F, Ctrl+H / ⌘⌥F) that keeps capitalization: renaming Maya → Mia also turns the cue MAYA into MIA. Replace all is one undo.
• Script report: pages, estimated runtime, scene lengths in eighths of a page, and per-character speeches, words and scenes.
• Autosave to localStorage, with multiple scripts. If the same script is open in two tabs, the other tab pauses saving and asks which version to keep instead of silently overwriting.
• Dark mode. Follows the system setting by default; pick System / Light / Dark in the ⚙ settings menu, and the choice is remembered.
• Flexible scene sidebar. Drag its edge to resize (double-click to reset), hide it with the button in its header (a small button brings it back) or Ctrl+\. On screens too narrow for the sidebar and a full page, it becomes a drawer over the page.
• Zoom. Fit width (the page fills the writing area, edge to edge) or 75–200%, from the status bar. Line and page breaks never change, only the size.
• Focus mode. Ctrl+Shift+F (⌘⇧F) hides everything but the page; Esc returns (double Esc with Vim on).
• Installable and offline. Install it from the browser (Chrome/Edge: Help › Install as an app; Safari: Add to Dock / Home Screen) and it opens in its own window and works without internet.
• Built-in help. The ? menu (or F1 / Ctrl+/) explains everything; every control has a tooltip.
• Backup reminders. localStorage is easy to lose, so after you add a page or write for 30 active minutes, a card nudges you to download a Fountain backup (can be turned off in ⚙ Settings). Ctrl/⌘+S downloads one any time.

Keyboard

Key	Action
Enter	New element: Scene → Action, Character → Dialogue, Dialogue → Character, Transition → Scene…
Enter on an empty element	Turns it into Action
Tab	Action ⇄ Character, Dialogue ⇄ Parenthetical
Shift+Tab	Cycle element type backwards
Ctrl+Alt+1…7 (⌘⌥ on Mac)	Scene, Action, Character, Parenthetical, Dialogue, Transition, Shot
Ctrl+B / I / U (⌘ on Mac)	Bold / italic / underline
Ctrl+F / ⌘F, Ctrl+H / ⌘⌥F	Find, find & replace
Ctrl+S / ⌘S	Download a Fountain backup
Ctrl+\ / ⌘\	Show or hide the scenes sidebar
Ctrl+Shift+F / ⌘⇧F	Focus mode (Esc to leave; double Esc with Vim on)
( in empty dialogue	Starts a parenthetical; ) at its end returns to dialogue

Typing INT. / EXT. in an action line makes it a scene heading; CUT TO: makes a transition. Fountain shortcuts work too: === (page break), # (section), = (synopsis), > text < (centered), and ^ after a character name (dual dialogue).

Vim mode

Optional; turn on Vim keybindings in the ⚙ settings menu (remembered per browser). Each screenplay element is a "line", so j/k, dd, yy/p work on whole elements and keep their types.

• Modes: normal, insert, visual (v), visual-line (V); mode and pending keys show in the status bar
• Motions: h j k l w b e W B E 0 ^ $ gg G f F t T ; , with counts; [[ / ]] jump between scenes
• Screen rows (wrapped lines): gj gk, gh gl (row start/end, Helix-style) and g0 g^ g$; H M L for the top, middle and bottom visible rows
• Operators d c y with motions, dd cc yy, text objects iw aw i" a" i' a' i( a( i[ a[ i{ a{
• x X s S D C Y p P J r ~ u Ctrl-r . o O i a I A, Ctrl-d Ctrl-u zz
• o opens the next element in screenplay order (on a character name it opens dialogue)
• Search: / ? with incremental highlighting, n N * #, :noh. Smartcase (case-insensitive unless the pattern has a capital; \c / \C force it either way, and * # always ignore case); patterns are JS regexes, with \< \> as word boundaries
• :w downloads a Fountain backup
• Tab and Ctrl+Alt+1…7 still change the element type in any mode

Not supported: named registers, macros, marks, :s substitution, d/pattern, and most ex commands.

Development

npm install
npm run dev     # http://localhost:5173
npm test        # vitest: pagination, Fountain, editor commands
npm run build

Stack: Vue 3 + Vite + TypeScript, ProseMirror for editing, jsPDF for PDF.

Deployment

The app is static files only. .github/workflows/deploy.yml tests, builds and publishes it to GitHub Pages on every push to main (one-time setup: repository Settings → Pages → Source: "GitHub Actions"). The build uses relative paths (base: './' in vite.config.ts), so it works at https://<user>.github.io/<repo>/ or on a custom domain without changes.

VITE_SITE_URL in .env is the public address used for link previews (Open Graph), the canonical URL and sitemap.xml; change it if the site moves. Builds also generate sw.js (offline cache of exactly that build's files), robots.txt and sitemap.xml (see build/site-files.ts).

Scripts live in the browser's localStorage for the site's origin. Moving the app to another address (e.g. adding a custom domain later) starts with an empty library there, so users would need to re-import their Fountain backups.

Privacy

Scarf Ace collects no data: no analytics, no cookies, no third-party requests. Scripts and settings stay in the browser's localStorage and are never sent anywhere. The hosted version runs on GitHub Pages, which logs visitors' IP addresses for security (GitHub's privacy statement). Feedback and bug reports: GitHub issues.

License

MIT © 2026 Malte Ehrlen.

The Courier Prime font in public/fonts is © The Courier Prime Project Authors, licensed under the SIL Open Font License (public/fonts/OFL.txt).

Third-party libraries keep their own licenses (all permissive: MIT, plus Apache-2.0 for DOMPurify and MIT/Zlib for pako). Every build writes third-party-licenses.txt with the license text of each package in the bundle; the deployed app links to it from Help › About.

Final Draft is a trademark of its owner; Scarf Ace is not affiliated with or endorsed by it and only reads and writes the .fdx file format for compatibility.