Used with permission.

Screenplay Template Maker

by Jeff. S Miholer


This is provided in response to the questions of many poor souls asking the writers of misc.writing.screenplays about the number of expensive screenplay formatting templates available on the market. It is the opinion of the present webfellow that much of what's commercially available (at great cost) can be replicated by the end user. This is an in-progress work, so any comments are welcomed -- positive, negative or otherwise.

Please send comments, feedback and questions to: Jeff S. Miholer, miholer@gladstone.uoregon.edu.


The following set of instructions, for use within your normal word processing program, will set up a blank document with a title page, page number, standard screenplay font, and macros that allow you switch between dialogue margins and action margins. It will not help you create a story, type character names, or add "continueds" or page breaks. These things you have to do yourself.

You will need to be on good terms with your software or have access to help documentation to pull this off. Before you start, play around with your software to figure out how to use all of the features required here. If you jump right in, you could be discouraged as learning these features takes far longer than using them.

Turning Your Word Processing Program into a Screenplay Template

  1. The first order of business is to figure out how to make a template. Your software may call it a template, stationary, or form. These allow you to call up what you're about to make. If you don't have these options available, you can simply save a blank original as a normal file and make copies for use as you need them. Once you've figured out the procedure for this, create a blank version.

  2. Set the font for the whole document to Courier 12 point. It's not a pretty font, but it is the industry standard. Use of a different font is discouraged. (Courier 12 point is the same as Courier 10 cpi, for those curious about that option.)

  3. Set margins as follows (in inches): 1.5 left; 1.0 top; 1.0 bottom; 0.5 right (the right margin will be 8.0 inches from the left edge of the paper). Note: You may want to condense the bottom margin a line or two to allow you use that space to squeeze in the last bit of the occasional lengthy paragraph, though excessive use of this area will look like squeezing.

  4. If you can, set the ruler bar to tenths of an inch, alternately referred to as 10 divisions per inch. This is not necessary, but it will make it easier to set appropriate tabs. Insert regular left tabs at 3.1 and 3.7 inches. Clear all other tabs. (If you cannot set in tenths of an inch, go ahead and use the nearest fraction you can set.)

  5. Pages will need to be numbered. To create a space for this, make a header at the top of the first page. The top of the header should be about 0.5 inch from the top of the page. You may or may not need to adjust the margins you set earlier. Put two blank lines in the header.

  6. On the top line of the header, insert the automatic page number command. After the auto-entry space for the page number, put in a period. Justify or tab the number and period to the right margin.

  7. Put all of the header in Courier 12. Get out of the header and back into the main text. Make a few blank pages, using a hard-page or page break command, to ensure that this will repeat in the upper right hand of all pages.

  8. Create a title page. Some programs have a command for this. Other times, you can number the first page "0" and suppress the header on the first page only. This will allow the second page to be page 1. You may have to simply have the title page as a separate file.

  9. On the title page, drop down 16 or 18 lines and make a note: "PUT TITLE HERE." Two lines under that, put the appropriate "written by" or "adapted from" information. Center all of this. Then, at the bottom of the page, in the lower right corner, type in your contact information.

  10. Save what you've got, if you haven't.

  11. Create a macro for dialogue. I use the "D" key in conjunction with modifier keys to represent this. This macro will take you from the end of an action paragraph, down two lines, set the margin for dialogue, and put the cursor in the spot where the speaker's name begins. Start with the margins at the points created earlier -- 1.5 and 0.5 inches on the left and right, respectively.
    1. Begin recording
    2. Insert 2 lines
    3. Adjust margins to 2.5 inches on each side (the right margin will be 6.0 inches in from the left edge of the paper)
    4. Press Tab 2 times
    5. Finish/stop macro recording

  12. Create a macro to go from dialogue margins to action margins. I use the "A" key to play this macro. This macro will take you from the end of a dialogue paragraph, down two lines, and set the margins back to full-width. Begin at the end of a dialogue paragraph (make one up if you need to).
    1. Begin recording
    2. Insert 2 lines
    3. Adjust margins the original 1.5 and 0.5 inches on the left and right sides, respectively (the right margin will be 8.0 inches in from the left edge of the paper)
    4. Finish/stop macro recording

Later, you may wish to use an orphan command (if available) to help you keep paragraphs together.

That is all.

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SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting 8/97