Using Libre Office for writing screenplays

English
#1

Does LibreOffice have a template for writing screenplays on a Mac?

1 Like
#3

If you expect decent answers, you should edit your question (don’t add comments so that all needed information is at the same place; otherwise, tracking through discussions → TL;DR) to describe which standards are followed or give an example.


Basically, I’d say it is a matter of defining several styles (page for global layout, paragraph form main elements, character for “local” enhancement) and applying it.


@Hrbrgr mentions an existing template but it doesn’t seem to have been updated for 10 years. In addition, I wouldn’t trust it fully as most of these “specialised” formatting utilities usually operate through macros and direct formatting. Direct formatting is your worst enemy when you have to abide by precise layout constraints and creates a nightmarish situation when you review your text. According to a sentence about high sensitivity to a font metrics, I’d bet that vertical spacing is done with empty paragraphs, which is a major error when you’re looking for formatting stability. Remember that LO has far superior power than the old mechanical typewriter and can cope automatically with many corner-case situations, provided you don’t insist to use it as a mechanical typewriter.

I think a similar question has been asked recently with a sample file attached and it appeared that such a document is technically very simple.

Anyway, most of us are not familiar with screenplays and, if we were, I bet that the standard(s) is(are) different from country to country. Thus give maximum information so that you are pointed into the right direction.

1 Like
#4

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Joe Malgeri

1 Like
#2

Yes, they can:

https://extensions.libreoffice.org/en/extensions/show/screenwright-r-screenplay-formatting-templat

3 Likes
#5

hi,

I’m aware that this question was asked in 2022, but people seeking the answer will still land here, today as well as in the near future, till something changes perhaps.

My short answer is don’t. Don’t use Libreoffice Writer for screen writing.
Cause, suppose you have written one, with LO Writer you can’t export your script in Final Draft format, nor in Fountain format, the latter being the free and open source standard.

But don’t just take my words :slight_smile: Any application should be tested before use. So, test it! Test your screen writer application candidate! :slight_smile:
The test should go like this:

  1. Import a script from Final Draft or Fountain format. Both must work flawlessly.
  2. Edit it. Editing must be easy and under full control.
  3. Export it. Exporting it must result in the exact same format as the original.
  4. Then ask 3 friends of yours to install LO Writer and open what you have exported, edit it, export it, and send it back to you.

If your test result is “A+”, cool and perfect, then you can think about taking that workflow.
Otherwise, keep it simple and open…open source. Use markdown, use Fountain. It is not very easy either, as of 09/Mar/2026/07:06 :slight_smile: But it works. It passes the test with an A at least :slight_smile:

PS:

As to using a template:
That template thing, as a concept, is worse than anything one can imagine. For it is fragile. I mean, if you write something today, you want tit to be readable even 20 years from now, not to mention next year. Templates can change, meaning the Final Draft document’s data structure can change, and any free tool like Writer is an enemy for such a big software monopoly, so, templates will change. Á la anything that can break will break :slight_smile:
So, I say, never trust a template :slight_smile:

Nevertheless, LO Writer is absolutely capable of formatting a movie script!
It only takes handling but a few styles. Piece of cake! As ajlittoz pointed it out.
Writer really is much-much bigger than that.
Bigger than screenwriting.
But this is also a problem.

For you need to be able to export your script in the Final Draft format too, as well as in the Fountain format, which is cool markdown – the good future :slight_smile:
And you want to allow zero non-professionalism for yourself.

Without being able to export to a form in which it is editable, you script is not a movie script, cause a movie involves lots of people working together even in the preparation period, even in the case of a 10 minute low-key, independent film, shot on video (digital).

LO Writer can’t do that yet.
It doesn’t speak markdown to start with, and its HTML is not “native” either, it comes from a monstre XML format.
Writer could be perfect one day. But it should first speak Markdown, including Fountain.

#6

From the release notes for 26.2

Markdown

If there is something else needed to work with Fountain then consider submitting a feature request

2 Likes
#7

Guy Rolands is a former TV producer and screen writer in addition to novel author. He was confronted with the steep learning curve of Writer from common author’s point of view. He streamlined down his experience to a simple minimum for people desiring a quick start with the tool. This is book Boring but Essential. One chapter is dedicated to screenplays.

The book is not a complete Writer tutorial. It targets only the specialised domains of novels and screenplays.

This might be an answer to OP and an argumentative refutation for @jepe1 .

2 Likes
#8

hi!

I have just downloaded Writer 26.2

I didn’t expect to find Markdown export possibilities!!!
But it was there!!

Incredibly great news!

The next second I was here to correct what I wrote about Writer…

But you already did!

so, YES! LO Writer does speak Markdown!

This opens up new perspectives!

I have also tested it (opened the exported md file in Geany, and it looks good!)

great news, indeed!

EDIT:
Writer can now also import Markdown text!

EDIT 2
I have made an additional feature request :slight_smile:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=171250

#10

As to the Fountain compatibility, I’m not sure, cause Fountain seems to be
a set of rules for people, like, how to write :slight_smile:
Add a new line after scene heading, but don’t add after Character name…

I mean: no markup, actually.
Only additional markup “forcing” stuff… like a dot at the beginning of a line forcing the “Action” type of paragraph…

I’m not deep in it yet anyway. But sure I will check what feature could make Writer even more usable for writing screenplays.
THANKS!!

#9

So, basically, if I was to write a screenplay now, I would use LO WRITER.
Why? What changed?

// note:
I was writing an article about screenwriting applications…
Its title and the mean thesis was that Writer is the thing to use.
I was writing happily… until I ran into the line: okay, you can’t export to Final draft or Markdown (from where you can export to Final Draft using a python script, Screenplain) …
So, my article stopped there, as well as my thoughts. But now everything has changed, thanks to V 26.2 :slight_smile:

The problem with LO Writer was exporting.
Its HTML output is html4… with font tags. Very bad.
It can be cleaned up relatively easily, but it takes some tinkering skill, therefore it is no good route.

BUT the sizzling new export to Markdown functionality changes everything!
Now you can easily share what you have cooked up.
You have a professional PDF export… PLUS an export to Markdown ! :slight_smile:

from now, Writer is a great tool for writing movie scripts, cause:

It has pagination. You can setup A4 and other formats easily and precisely.

It has styles. You can create as many paragraph styles as you want.
Nevertheless, you only need a few, like 5…

You can precisely set up these styles.
You can easily apply these styles, using short keys, too.
You can easily modify these styles, before, during, after.

AND… you can export it to Markdown.
From Markdown you can get to Final Draft easily.

Oh, one more thing:
Writer now can import markdown!!! It works perfectly!!!

Markdown editors are great! But less than Writer, cause:

The usual Markdown editor preview is shown in another window.
Tangent is a great exception. Marktext v0.18.6 (Tkaixiang fork) likewise.
However, even with the excellent live preview MD editors you have
limitations. Cause they are for markdown, not screen writing.

LO Writer, however, offers a very robust and flexible working space.
While with Markdown editors it is a great problem to add a line break within a paragraph, LO Writer can easily do that.

(This sounds like a tiny problem, but it is not… The usual way to do that is add two or more spaces to the end of the line… which totally sucks, as text editors can easily strip trailing spaces anytime, and if / when that happens, your formatting has partially gone… )

Let’s say you have a dialogue… a character named LISA speaks…
Let’s say it is a longish monologue…
Sure you want new lines, even new paragraphs …
within her text…

But with Writer it is very easy to do that.
Even a whole 2 page long monologue, with intermittent sections of actions…
can be easily selected and given the dialogue style…
That means Flexibility and FULL CONTROL :slight_smile:

add to this that

Writer offers a live preview all the time…
and While markdown editors won’t show you dialogue paragraphs in the
narrow format (which makes the script’s pages equal to one minute each),
Writer easily can.
While markdown editors don’t show you page breaks, Writer works like that by default…
The document flows page-by-page (unless you want the web view).

and an extra thing to Writer’s compatibility:

ANYBODY can install Writer!
It is also part of an OFFICE suite… meaning that
spreadsheets and databases can be used… in a team-work environment…

plus one word on the Final Draft format

Film scripts are sketches. If they are masterpieces, the movie won’t be good.
Okay, a film like Titanic needs an extreme level of planning, and a perfect script.
But a Jim Jarmusch film, even though the end product is perfect, doesn’t :slight_smile:
The final draft format is industry standard.
But we don’t necessarily need industry :slight_smile:

Markdown represents a breaking out from the industry cage, which now with LO Writer can come true. People shoot with video cameras, in totally different circumstances than Hollywood movies of the past. Screenwriting can also take an evolutionary leap :slight_smile:
And Writer is here for us! Writer is free, and liberating :slight_smile:
With writer we can choose or make up any format for our movie scripts, and it
offers a perfect workflow.

1 Like
#11

That’s great. I’ve been using markdown for years, and writing screenplays for longer than that. But not together.

Where are the actuall instructions for this? Markdown doesn’t have styles like Action, Scene, Character, etc, so how do I get all that to work?

1 Like
#12

EDIT / rewrite: 26/Apr/2026/21:04

hi,

I’m editing this post, to make it short, Plus, to answer your perfect question:

plus edit:
the film_script workflow in Writer
https://artreboot.eu/film_script/workflow_in_libreoffice_writer/

So, the goal is:

to write screenplays freely (using FOSS and writing with ease in a distraction-free mode)

this principal goal involves two practical goals:

  1. to be able to write screenplays using a simple text editor
  2. to be able to write / edit / etc. a screenplay in Libreoffice Writer

Being able to write and edit also involves exporting to Fountain format (which has become a standard format, thanks to Celtx).

film_script – a Fountain-like formatting “system”

(a set of formatting rules)

Wanting to achieve practical goal no.1, I have thought up a good “system” (of formatting), which I named film_script, and can be read about here: https://artreboot.eu/film_script

Then I heard that Writer, since version 26, is able to “export” (save document as) in Markdown format. Since film_script is about markdown, I was thinking how to use Writer’s new talent :slight_smile: Well, it wasn’t that hard to figure out.

So, basically, film_script, as a screenwriting method, using some formatting rules, now has two variant, one using a simple text editor, and one using Writer! :slight_smile:

The one that can be used with any simple text editor is indentation-based.
Inspiration: Python !! :slight_smile:
It could be referred to as the film_scipt_i format.

The other, with Writer, is heading-based (heading-level, to be more precise).
I refer to it as the film_script_h format.

the formatting rules:

film_script_i:

|- - - - - 5 tabs 🡨 character name (dialogue)
|- - - - 4 tabs  🡨 parenthetical
|- - - 3 tabs 🡨 dialogue
|- -  2 tabs 🡨 no meaning :) could be used later
|- 1 tab 🡨 action description
|0 tab 🡨 scene heading

“>” -> cut / dissolve / more, etc

film_script_h:

Heading 1 -> (reserved for chapter / section titles)
Heading 2 -> scene heading
h3 -> CHARACTER (dialogue)
h4 -> dialogue
h5 -> parenthetical
h6 -> more / dissolve / cut .. etc.
body text -> action description

To these, native shortkeys are available:
CTRL+1 -> h1, CTRL +2 ->h2, CTRL + 0 -> body text`

When exported to (saved as) markdown, these will translate like this:

h1 -> #
h2 ->  ##
h3 - h6 -> ###...
body text -> nothing (1 indent can be added at conversion)

additional NOTES:

Writing a screenplay is a process with stages…
It starts with just writing… it will be the “first draft”…
For this stage, using a simple text editor is perfect!

The film_script formatting rule-set is robust enough to function all the way to the stage of shooting, too. However, at one point Writer will sure come up as a common platform, as well as a sophisticated WSIWYG editor with pagination, and really a lot more!

So, I imagine Writer to be the tool for the second and later stages.

exporting / conversion:

parsers and exporters

I imagine little Python scripts. I have made one which works very well already.
Using a python script is simple:

You open a terminal window, and type:

python3 fsc-parse.py filename

the parser / converter development happens here:
https://github.com/peterjosvai/film_script/tree/main

Note: I’ve never had a github project before.

#13

LibreOffice supports Python.
If the structure of the target file is known, we can include an export script (in Python or Basic) in the source template.

#14

so far I cannot find any char of the mentioned fsc-parse.py

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