Hello! While I appreciate Scrivener’s Screenwriting Mode, I am finding that I prefer to write scripts in Fountain. [I find fountain to be simple and universal. If I’m transferring back and forth between different word processing programs, which I often do, fountain gives me a single universal way to write scripts-- one that doesn’t require me to switch between (or custom set) different keyboard commands for different script elements.] Currently, if I wish to print or send a .pdf of script from a Scrivener fountain document, I have to export the script to a third-party app (Final Draft or Highland), then send the .pdf from there. I do a lot of short scripts (short films, corporate videos, and commercials). For these projects, I don’t need FD/Highland for anything other than the ability to turn my fountain doc into a .pdf. If Scrivener had the ability to compile a fountain text doc for .pdf output, it would save me the third party step. Thanks!
Not to detract from your wish, and I don’t have any experience with fountain, but a friend asked me the same question recently and I found this:
github.com/ifrost/afterwriting- … clients.md
This is a command-line utility that converts fountain to PDF, and thus you can easily automate the process. Automation could be triggered by a Folder Action, or Applescript, or a tool like Quicksilver or Alfred. Thus the problem with this is that you have to be comfortable to set this workflow up. It should be possible with a folder action to make it so you compile to .fountain to a particular folder, and the folder action automagically triggers the command-line tool.
Nevertheless, perhaps the improvements that Scrivener 3 may make to Compiling will make a native solution to fountain->PDF easier to implement. Fountain is a markdown variant, and therefore it may fit into the compile workflows for markdown like content?
Yes, there might be some interesting ways to improve this way of working in the next version of Scrivener, without the native features.
Another thing to consider is that Scrivener can already do this in the sense that it can convert a Fountain script into a formatted script and then print the result of that to PDF. I.e. you write using your preferred way of writing in the editor, compile using the plain-text option (or the MMD option if that works for you), then simply drop that compiled .fountain file into your Draft folder and compile only that part to PDF.
I’m not sure if a two-stage compile is any better than using another program for the second stage though. I’d rather prefer the latter, where the quality of the script is going to be slightly better in programs dedicated to printing scripts.
Nice Scrivener update! But I’m reposting this from last year because it is still a big wish list item for me…