How pages are counted

A screenplay page is a unit of time: one page is roughly one minute on screen. That only holds if every script is set the same way, which is why screenplays are typed in Courier at 12 points in fixed columns, and why a production cares where the pages break. Calmly Script decides the breaks itself, by the rules below, and every page you see is the same everywhere: in the Preview, in the page count at the foot of the window, in the PDF and in the Word export.

This page describes the screenplay. The other document types change the columns and some of the rules, and say so there.

The page

• Courier, 12 points, ten characters to the inch. Because every character is the same width, the number of characters on a line is exact, not an estimate.
• 54 lines of text to a page, with an inch above and below on US Letter. On A4 the text is the same and only the margins change (see Paper size).
• Fixed columns. Action, scene headings and transitions use the full column, about sixty characters; dialogue is a narrower column in the middle, about 34 characters; parentheticals narrower still, and character names start further in.
• Every space counts. Two spaces after a full stop take two characters of the line, as they do on the printed page.

What does not print takes no room: sections (#), synopses (=), notes ([[ ]]) and boneyard text (/* */). A script full of notes has the same pages as the same script without them. Neither do the Fountain characters that mark bold, italics or underline: they are left out before the lines are measured.

The rules

1. A page break you typed (===, or Format › More elements › Page break) ends the page where it is. See Page breaks.
2. A character’s name stays with their speech. The name, the parentheticals and the dialogue under it are placed together.
3. A long speech or paragraph of action can break across two pages, between two sentences, never inside one (unless a single sentence is longer than the page, which is then broken between two words); a speech can also break between its lines of dialogue and its parentheticals. The page is filled to its last line.
4. At least two lines on each side. A break leaves at least two lines of the speech under the character’s name, and takes at least two to the next page; otherwise the whole of it moves on. So a paragraph of three lines never breaks, and a name never ends a page above a single line.
5. (MORE) and (CONT’D) go in the margins. The first page ends with (MORE) straight under the speech, and the next page repeats the character’s name with (CONT’D) above its first line. Neither takes a line of the page.
6. A scene heading never ends a page. It stays at the foot only if what follows it starts there too, whole or as the first part of a break; otherwise the heading moves to the next page with it. A heading alone at the foot of a page reads as a scene with nothing in it.
7. A transition never starts a page. When a CUT TO: does not fit at the foot, the end of what comes before it moves to the next page with it.

A stage play, a sitcom and a manuscript follow the same rules, with one exception, also Final Draft’s: in a manuscript, a paragraph of prose can break between any two of its lines, even inside a sentence, and one line on either side is enough.

A stage play and a manuscript print no (MORE) and no (CONT’D): a speech that runs over the page simply goes on.

(MORE) and (CONT’D) are written in the language of the screenplay, or in the one chosen in Settings › Printing. In Spanish, for example, they are (SIGUE) and (CONT.). See Other languages.

Other things on the page

• The title page is a page of its own, first, and it is never numbered and never counted: a script’s length has never included its cover. A script with no title page gets no cover page.
• Page numbers. The first page of the script has none; every page after it has its number at the top right, followed by a full stop.
• Scene numbers written at the end of a heading (#12#) print in both margins beside the heading, where a production reads them, and take no room in the line.
• Dual dialogue (two characters speaking at once) prints in two columns side by side. The pair is as tall as the longer of the two speeches, and it is never split across pages. See Dual dialogue.

Compared with Final Draft

The rules above are Final Draft’s, measured in Final Draft itself, and Calmly Script’s page is the same size as Final Draft’s: 54 lines. A screenplay you export to Final Draft keeps its columns there, so it breaks its pages where Calmly Script does. A script typed in Final Draft can still come out a page or two different: Final Draft squeezes Courier very slightly, so it fits one more character on some lines, and its templates differ from one another in the width of the dialogue column.