The short answer.
A screenplay is set in 12 point Courier on US Letter paper, with a 1.5 inch left margin and 1 inch margins on the other three sides. Scene headings and action run the full width of the page; character names, dialogue and parentheticals are indented to fixed positions; transitions sit at the right. Set this way, a page runs about a minute on screen.
On this page
The page
Every screenplay starts from the same page: US Letter, 8.5 by 11 inches, set in 12 point Courier. The left margin is 1.5 inches, to leave room for brads, and the top, bottom and right margins are 1 inch. That leaves a text area 6 inches wide.
Courier matters because it is fixed width: every character takes the same space, ten to the inch, six lines to the inch. That regularity is why a properly formatted page runs about a minute on screen, and why readers can tell a script’s length from its page count. First Page sets 54 lines to a page.
Where every element sits
A screenplay is built from a handful of elements, each with a fixed position measured from the left edge of the paper. These are the positions First Page formats to.
| Element | Starts at | Width | Style |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scene heading | 1.5 in | 6 in | Capitals, flush left |
| Action | 1.5 in | 6 in | Flush left, sentence case |
| Character cue | 3.5 in | 3.75 in | Capitals |
| Parenthetical | 3 in | 2.5 in | Opening bracket hangs left |
| Dialogue | 2.5 in | 3.5 in | Directly under the cue |
| Transition | Right aligned | 1.6 in | Capitals |
INT. ROUTE 9 DINER - NIGHT
Rain on the windows. One booth lit. JUNE, sixties, refills a coffee nobody ordered and slides it across the counter.
JUNE
Last bus left at eleven.
THEO
I know. I watched it go.
JUNE
(beat)
You could have been on it.
Scene headings
A scene heading, or slug line, starts every scene. It says whether the scene is inside or outside, where it is, and when: INT. ROUTE 9 DINER - NIGHT. It is written in capitals and sits flush left, with extra space above it so each new scene is easy to find. How to write a scene heading covers locations, sub-locations and times of day.
Action
Action describes what we see and hear, in the present tense, across the full width of the page. Keep paragraphs short: three or four lines is plenty, and white space reads fast. A character’s name goes in capitals the first time they appear, with a few words about them: JUNE, sixties, refills a coffee nobody ordered.
Character cues, dialogue and parentheticals
The character cue is the speaker’s name, in capitals, above their lines. Dialogue sits in a narrower column beneath it, and a parenthetical, kept short and in lower case, sits between the two to say how a line is delivered. Extensions such as (V.O.) and (O.S.) follow the name. Formatting dialogue and parentheticals goes through each.
Transitions
Transitions such as CUT TO: and FADE OUT. sit at the right of the page, in capitals. Modern scripts use them sparingly: a new scene heading already tells the reader the scene has changed. Most scripts open with FADE IN: and many end with FADE OUT.
Page numbers and length
Page numbers sit in the top right corner, from page two on; the title page and first page are not numbered. Because a page runs about a minute, a feature is usually 90 to 120 pages. Screenplay page count explains what changes it.
Formatting as you write
None of this needs to be set by hand. In First Page, Return moves to the element that usually comes next: after a scene heading or a line of dialogue you are writing action, after a character cue you are writing dialogue, and after a transition you are on a new scene heading. Tab changes the element. Scene headings, character cues and transitions are capitalised for you.
Questions
- What font is a screenplay written in?
- 12 point Courier or a Courier-style font such as Courier Prime. A fixed-width font is what makes a page run about a minute on screen, so readers and producers expect it.
- What are the margins for a screenplay?
- 1.5 inches on the left, to leave room for binding, and 1 inch at the top, bottom and right, on US Letter paper.
- How far is dialogue indented in a screenplay?
- Dialogue starts 2.5 inches from the left edge of the page and runs about 3.5 inches wide. The character name above it starts at 3.5 inches, and parentheticals at 3 inches.
- Do I need to set these margins by hand?
- Not in screenwriting software. First Page sets every element to these positions as you type: Return moves to the element that usually comes next, and Tab changes it.
