Screenplay LaTeX

Industry-standard screenplay formatting for LaTeX, with full pre-production annotation support.

Write, annotate, and prepare screenplays entirely in LaTeX. Toggle between a clean shooting script and a fully annotated pre-production draft with a single document class option.

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Preview

Clean Script	Pre-Production Script
Standard shooting script with no annotations	Color-coded annotations for props, shots, lighting, and more
View PDF	View PDF

See it in action: Download example.tex and compile it yourself to explore every feature.

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Table of Contents

• Features
• Getting Started
• Project Structure
• Screenplay Elements
• Pre-Production Annotations
• Revision Support
• Scene Breakdown Table
• Formatting Standards
• Dependencies
• Tips and Tricks
• License

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Features

• Complete screenplay formatting -- title pages, scene headings, action, dialogue, parentheticals, transitions, and dual dialogue, all conforming to industry standards
• Pre-production toggle -- switch between a clean shooting script and an annotated production draft with one flag
• 8 annotation categories -- props, wardrobe, shots, camera, lighting, SFX, VFX, and set notes, each color-coded and tagged
• Inline annotations -- embed production notes directly inside action, dialogue, and parenthetical blocks
• Revision tracking -- margin asterisks for revised lines and colored revision pages following the standard color order
• Scene breakdown table -- auto-generated .breakdown file listing every annotation by scene, parseable by external tools
• Flexible scene numbering -- auto-increment, manual override, and revision inserts (e.g., Scene 14A)
• Multi-engine support -- works with pdfLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, and XeLaTeX

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

A working TeX Live (or MiKTeX) installation. All required packages ship with a standard full install.

Compile

# 1. Clone or download this repository
git clone https://github.com/your-username/screenplay-latex.git
cd screenplay-latex

# 2. Compile the example screenplay (run twice for the breakdown table)
pdflatex example.tex
pdflatex example.tex

Toggle Pre-Production Mode

\documentclass[preproduction]{screenplay}   % Annotations ON  (colored, tagged)
\documentclass{screenplay}                  % Annotations OFF (clean shooting script)

One option controls everything. No other changes required.

Note: For Courier Prime (the recommended production font), compile with LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX and enable fontspec -- see Tips and Tricks for details.

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Project Structure

screenplay-latex/
├── screenplay.cls            # Document class -- all formatting and annotation logic
├── example.tex               # Full sample screenplay demonstrating every feature
├── example.pdf               # Compiled output (pre-production mode)
├── example_clean.pdf         # Compiled output (clean shooting script)
├── example_preproduction.pdf # Compiled output (pre-production mode, reference)
├── example.breakdown         # Auto-generated scene breakdown data
└── README.md                 # This file

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Screenplay Elements

Title page

\screentitle{The Last Light}
\screenauthor{Jane Doe}
\screencontact{Jane Doe \\ 123 Sunset Blvd \\ jane@example.com}
\screendraftinfo{First Draft — February 2026}

\begin{document}
\maketitlepage

Scene headings (sluglines)

\slugline[1]{EXT.}{COASTAL HIGHWAY}{DAWN}       % Manual scene number
\slugline[14A]{INT.}{WAREHOUSE}{NIGHT}           % Revision insert (14A)
\slugline{INT.}{KITCHEN}{DAY}                    % Auto-numbered

Scene numbers appear in both margins, per industry standard.

Action

\action{Sarah enters the room. She looks around nervously.}

Character cue, dialogue, and parenthetical

\character{SARAH}
\paren{whispering}
\dialogue{I think someone's watching us.}

\character[V.O.]{NARRATOR}      % Voice-over extension
\dialogue{She had no idea how right she was.}

Supported extensions include V.O., O.S., CONT'D, and any custom string.

Transitions

\trans{CUT TO:}
\trans{FADE TO BLACK.}
\trans{SMASH CUT TO:}

Dual dialogue

\dualdia
  {SARAH}{I'm leaving tonight.}
  {MICHAEL}{You can't be serious.}

Renders both characters side by side on the same line.

---

Pre-Production Annotations

The toggle

\documentclass[preproduction]{screenplay}   % Annotations visible
\documentclass{screenplay}                  % Clean script (annotations hidden)

Annotation commands

All annotation commands are inline -- use them inside \action{}, \dialogue{}, \paren{}, or as standalone blocks between elements.

Command	Color	Tag	Clean Script Behavior
\prop{knife}	Yellow	P	Text preserved
\wardrobe{torn jacket}	Pink	W	Text preserved
\shot{CLOSE-UP}	Blue	S	Text removed
\cam{DOLLY IN}	Purple	C	Text removed
\lighting{low-key}	Orange	L	Text removed
\sfx{thunder}	Green	X	Text removed
\vfx{wire removal}	Red	V	Text removed
\setnote{cobwebs}	Teal	D	Text removed

Text-preserving commands (\prop, \wardrobe) leave their text in the clean script because they describe things visible in the story world. Text-removing commands vanish entirely in clean mode because they are purely technical production notes.

Usage examples

Inside action blocks:

\action{
  Sarah grabs a \prop{chef's knife} from the counter.
  \lighting{Warm amber key light from the window.}
  \cam{SLOW PUSH IN on her hands.}
}

Between blocks (standalone):

\shot{EXTREME CLOSE-UP}
\action{Her fingers tremble around the \prop{knife handle}.}

Inside dialogue and parentheticals:

\character{SARAH}
\paren{setting down the \prop{glass}}
\dialogue{I never asked for this. \sfx{distant sirens}}

Color-coded legend

Add \preprodlegend after \maketitlepage to print a color-coded legend page. Only visible in pre-production mode.

Script notes

\scriptnote{End of Act One. Estimated runtime: 25 minutes.
  Location scout needed for warehouse exterior.}

Renders as a boxed note. Only visible in pre-production mode.

---

Revision Support

Revision marks

Wrap revised text in \revised{} to place an asterisk (*) in the right margin:

\revised{
\character{SARAH}
\dialogue{This line was changed in revision.}
}

Colored revision pages

\revisioncolor{pink}                        % Set page background color
\revisioninfo{2nd Draft}{February 8, 2026}  % Print revision header

Available colors follow the standard industry revision order:

Draft	Color
Original	White
2nd	Blue
3rd	Pink
4th	Yellow
5th	Green
6th	Goldenrod
7th	Buff
8th	Salmon
9th	Cherry
10th	Tan

---

Scene Breakdown Table

Every annotation is automatically logged to a .breakdown file during compilation:

\breakdownentry{SCENE_NUMBER}{CATEGORY}{ITEM}

To render a formatted breakdown at the end of your script:

\printbreakdownraw    % Appends a simple text listing of all annotations by scene

Note: Compile twice -- the first pass writes the .breakdown file, the second reads it back in.

The .breakdown file is plain text and directly parseable by external tools (Python, spreadsheets, production management software) for generating call sheets, prop lists, and production schedules.

Parsing the breakdown file

Example Python parser:

import re
from collections import defaultdict

breakdown = defaultdict(lambda: defaultdict(list))

with open("example.breakdown") as f:
    for line in f:
        m = re.match(r'\\breakdownentry\{(.+?)\}\{(.+?)\}\{(.+)\}', line.strip())
        if m:
            scene, category, item = m.groups()
            breakdown[scene][category].append(item)

# Print prop list by scene
for scene in sorted(breakdown, key=lambda s: (s.replace('A','').replace('B',''), s)):
    props = breakdown[scene].get("PROP", [])
    if props:
        print(f"Scene {scene}: {', '.join(props)}")

---

Formatting Standards

The document class follows industry-standard screenplay formatting:

Element	Specification
Font	Courier 12pt (upgrade to Courier Prime via fontspec)
Margins	1.5 in left; 1 in top, right, and bottom
Spacing	Single-spaced, one blank line between elements
Page numbers	Top-right corner, followed by a period
Scene numbers	Both left and right margins
Character cues	Centered, uppercase
Dialogue	1 in left indent, 3.5 in wide
Parentheticals	1.5 in left indent, 2 in wide
Transitions	Right-aligned, uppercase

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Dependencies

All packages ship with a standard TeX Live or MiKTeX installation:

Category	Packages
Layout	geometry, fancyhdr, titlesec, setspace
Fonts	fontenc, courier
Color and styling	xcolor, marginnote
Tables	longtable, booktabs
Utilities	ifthen, xstring, etoolbox, enumitem, environ
Other	hyperref, paracol

Note: For Courier Prime (free from Google Fonts), replace the font setup in screenplay.cls with fontspec and compile with LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX.

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Tips and Tricks

• Revision inserts -- Use \slugline[14A] to insert new scenes between existing numbered scenes during revisions.
• Nested annotations -- Annotation commands can be placed inside any text-bearing command (\action, \dialogue, \paren).
• Reset breakdown data -- Delete the .breakdown file between compilations to start fresh.
• Track changes per draft -- Combine \revised{} with specific scene numbers to see exactly what changed in each revision.
• Use Courier Prime -- Replace the font setup block in screenplay.cls with:

\RequirePackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Courier Prime}

Then compile with lualatex or xelatex instead of pdflatex.

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License -- free for personal and commercial use.

See LICENSE for details.