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Screenplay formatting

How Nabu turns what you type into proper screenplay format — without you having to think about margins, indents, or where a line is supposed to sit.

A screenplay is built from a small set of line types: scene headings, action, character names, dialogue, and a few others. In most writing software you have to remember the exact indents and capitalization for each one. In Nabu you don't. You type the way the scene plays in your head, and the page formats itself — putting a scene heading flush left, centering a character's name above their line, indenting their dialogue, and so on. This page explains what those line types are, how Nabu picks the right one for you, and how to choose one by hand when you want to.

Tip: The fastest way to learn this is to just start typing. Type INT. to begin a scene, type a name in ALL CAPS to start a character speaking, and watch the page take care of the rest.

The building blocks

Every line in your script is one of these element types. You rarely have to name them — Nabu usually figures it out — but it helps to know what they are:

  • Scene Heading — the slugline that opens a scene, like INT. KITCHEN - DAY. It tells the reader where and when you are.
  • Action — what's happening on screen. Plain description, flush to the left margin. This is the default for most lines.
  • Character — the name of whoever is about to speak, centered above their line and in capitals (like MAYA).
  • Dialogue — the words a character says, indented under their name.
  • Parenthetical — a short (beat) or (whispering) tucked between a character's name and their line, telling the actor how to play it.
  • Transition — a cut between scenes, like CUT TO: or DISSOLVE TO:, sitting at the right margin.
  • Note — a non-printing annotation you leave for yourself. Notes show up in the editor but never appear in your exported PDF. See the editor and your script notes for more.

There are a few more specialized kinds — centered text, song lyrics, section headings, and synopsis lines — that Nabu recognizes when you type them, but the seven above are the ones you'll use constantly.

Writing a scene, step by step

To get a feel for how the formatting flows, here's the rhythm of writing a short scene by hand:

  1. Start the scene. Type INT. or EXT. at the start of a fresh line. The moment you do, Nabu turns that line into a Scene Heading and helps you finish it — offering the interior/exterior prefix, your existing locations, and a time of day. (See The editor for how scene-heading completion works.)
  2. Describe the action. Press Enter. Nabu drops you onto an Action line. Write what's happening: Maya stares at the cold coffee.
  3. Bring in a character. Type a name in ALL CAPS — MAYA — and Nabu recognizes it as a Character cue and centers it. (If Maya already exists in your script, Nabu suggests her name as you type.)
  4. Write the line. Press Enter. Nabu moves you to a Dialogue line, indented under Maya's name. Type what she says.
  5. Add a beat if you want one. Need a (beat) or (softly)? Press Tab from the character's name to drop into a Parenthetical, type it, and press Enter to land back on Dialogue.
  6. Keep going. Press Enter after a line of dialogue to write another, or Enter on an empty dialogue line to step back out to Action for the next bit of business.

That's the whole loop: heading, action, character, dialogue. Nabu handles the look; you handle the story.

How Nabu picks the element for you

As you type, Nabu watches the line and converts it to the right element automatically. You almost never have to set a type by hand:

  • Typing INT., EXT., INT./EXT., INT/EXT, or I/E at the start of an action line turns it into a Scene Heading.
  • Typing a line in ALL CAPS (two or more letters) inside an action block turns it into a Character cue.
  • Typing a standard transition like CUT TO: or DISSOLVE TO: turns the line into a Transition.
  • Typing an opening ( at the start of a dialogue line turns it into a Parenthetical.

This means your most common moves — start a scene, name a speaker, cut away — just happen as you type. You can always override the type if Nabu guesses wrong; see the next two sections.

Note: Character detection only kicks in on ALL-CAPS text that isn't a scene-heading prefix and isn't a known transition. If you type a real character name in capitals, Nabu treats it as a cue.

Moving between elements with Enter and Tab

Two keys do most of the work of navigating screenplay format.

Enter moves you to the next element in the natural flow of a script:

  • From a Scene Heading, Enter drops you into Action.
  • From a Character cue, Enter moves you to Dialogue.
  • From a Parenthetical, Enter moves you to Dialogue.
  • From a Transition, Enter starts a new Scene Heading.
  • From a line of Dialogue, Enter starts another line of dialogue — unless the line is empty, in which case it steps back out to Action.
  • From a line of Action, Enter starts another action line — unless it's empty.

Tab cycles the type of the current line, so you can reach for a different element without leaving the keyboard:

  • On an Action line, Tab turns it into a Character cue.
  • On a Character cue, Tab moves you to a Parenthetical.
  • On a Dialogue line, Tab jumps to a new Character cue (your next speaker).
  • On a Parenthetical, Tab moves to Dialogue.
  • On a Transition, Tab starts a Scene Heading.

Holding Shift while you press Tab cycles the other way. On a Scene Heading, Tab behaves a little differently — instead of leaving the heading, it walks you through the prefix, location, and time-of-day menus until the heading is complete, then lets you move on.

Tip: Tab on an empty line just changes that line's type in place. Tab on a line that already has text splits it and starts a new line of the type you're cycling to, below.

The double-Enter element picker

When you want to choose an element from a short menu — and you're sitting on a blank line — there's a quick picker built right in.

Press Enter twice in a row on an empty action line and a small popup appears. Type a single letter to choose what comes next:

  • s — Scene Heading
  • c — Character
  • d — Dialogue
  • p — Parenthetical
  • t — Transition
  • n — Note

You can also use the ↑ and ↓ arrow keys to move through the list and Enter to pick, or press Esc to dismiss it. Type any other letter and the popup closes and your typing goes straight onto the line.

Note: This double-Enter popup is how you insert an element by hand in Nabu. There is no "/" slash menu in the editor — if you've used other apps that pop up a menu when you type a slash, that's not how Nabu works. Reach for the double-Enter picker, the Tab cycle, or the toolbar buttons instead.

Automatic uppercasing

Some parts of a screenplay are always in capitals, and Nabu handles that for you:

  • Character cues are uppercased automatically. Type maya in a cue and it becomes MAYA.
  • Locations in scene headings are uppercased the same way.

So you can type quickly in whatever case is comfortable — Nabu makes cues and locations look right.

If you ever want to flip a heading or cue between caps and lowercase yourself, select the text (or just put your cursor in the line) and press Cmd+K (or Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux). That toggles the line or selection between ALL CAPS and lowercase.

Note: Nabu does not do "smart quotes" or other typographic auto-replacement. Your straight quotes stay straight, your dashes stay as you type them. Capitalization of cues and locations is the only automatic text change, plus the Cmd+K toggle you trigger yourself.

Nabu speaks Fountain — you don't have to

Under the hood, Nabu stores your script in a plain-text screenplay format called Fountain — a widely-used standard for writing scripts in readable text. This is what lets you export your work, hand it to other tools, and lets Nisaba (your AI writing partner) read and revise it.

The good news: you never have to learn it. The visual editor is the format. You type into a properly-laid-out page, Nabu keeps the Fountain version in sync behind the scenes, and that's the file your exports and backups are built from. If you happen to know Fountain shorthand it will often work, but nothing in this manual asks you to — the page handles formatting for you.

Good to know

  • The page paginates for real. Page breaks aren't guessed at fixed intervals — Nabu measures your script the way a printed page would, so what you see matches your PDF. Page one never shows a page number, by screenplay convention.
  • Pasting cleans itself up. The editor only accepts screenplay element types, so if you paste from somewhere with its own styling, the formatting is stripped and the text lands as clean screenplay lines.
  • The element buttons are in the toolbar too. If you'd rather click than type, the toolbar across the top of the editor has buttons for Scene Heading, Action, Character, Dialogue, Parenthetical, and Transition. Click one to set the current line's type; the active type is highlighted.
  • Notes don't print. Anything you mark as a note stays visible to you in the editor but is left out of the exported PDF.