An open-source screenwriting app: free, native on macOS, Windows and Linux, and your script is an
open file you own (Open Screenplay Format by default, Fountain one choice away).
Download: the latest release,
or from methodstoryteller.com.
- Write without thinking about formatting. Tab and Enter move between scene heading, action,
character, parenthetical, dialogue and transition the way screenwriting apps have always worked.
Character, location and time-of-day autocomplete.
- Industry pagination. Courier Prime 12 pt, standard margins, 54 lines a page,
(MORE) and
(CONT'D) at page breaks, scene headings that never strand at the bottom of a page.
- Open formats, your choice. New scripts are a
.mstory package: one ZIP file holding the
script as Open Screenplay Format (structured XML that keeps production detail) and its
production data beside it. Plain Open Screenplay Format and Fountain (plain text,
diff-friendly) are fully supported and one choice away (File > Save New Scripts as…). Opens and saves .fdx, and Open Screenplay Format in a ZIP
archive; exports PDF.
- Television structure. File > New TV Script lays out a one-hour, half-hour or
multi-camera script in acts (a multi-camera one with lettered scenes, each scene's characters
under its heading, double-spaced dialogue and action in capitals); New Act and End of Act lines start each act on a new page, and carry over in
.fdx,
Open Screenplay Format and Fountain.
- Title page, scene navigator and scene numbers.
- Scriptable. Every action is a named command, every widget has an automation id, and a
JSON-lines control channel drives the app or a headless engine.
Yours to keep
- Free, and open source under MIT OR Apache-2.0.
- No account, and it works offline.
- Your script is a
.mstory package: a ZIP file any unzip tool opens, holding the script as
Open Screenplay Format, open structured XML that keeps production detail. Prefer plain text? Choose Fountain (File > Save New
Scripts as Fountain), which any text editor opens, now and in 20 years.
Status
Status: early alpha. The first release, 0.2.0, came out on 2026-10-19. See
docs/spec.md for what is in and out, and
docs/architecture.md for how it fits together.
| Platform | Download | Signed | Tested |
|---|
| macOS 11 or later (Apple silicon and Intel, one app) | .dmg | Yes, and notarized | Every release build; the release tested by hand (Intel under Rosetta) |
| Windows 10 or later (x64) | Setup .exe | Not signed, and no certificate is planned: Windows warns that the publisher is unknown before it opens | Weekly full build |
| Linux (x86_64) | .deb, AppImage | No (as usual for both) | Weekly full build |
The app updates itself on a Mac; on Windows and Linux, download each new version.
Not there yet: printing from the app and side-by-side editing of dual dialogue.
Run it
cargo run --release -p method-storyteller -- path/to/script.fountain
The command line tool method-storyteller converts, paginates and exports without a window
(the GUI binary is method-storyteller-app):
cargo run -p storyteller-cli -- pdf script.fountain script.pdf
cargo run -p storyteller-cli -- convert script.fdx script.fountain
cargo run -p storyteller-cli -- paginate script.fountain --text
The CLI used to be called mst. That name still works as an alias (it prints a one-line note on
stderr) and will be removed in a future release.
Keyboard
| Key | Does |
|---|
| Enter | End the element and start the next one (Scene heading → Action, Character → Dialogue, Dialogue → Action …) |
| Enter on an empty element | Open the element picker: S, A, C, P, D, T, H … or the arrows |
| Tab | On an empty element, change its type (Action → Character, Character → Transition …); after text, start the next one (a parenthetical after a cue or a speech) |
| ⌘1 … ⌘7 | Start a Scene heading, Action, Character, Parenthetical, Dialogue, Transition or Shot |
| ⌘⌥1 … ⌘⌥7 (Ctrl+Shift on Windows and Linux) | Change the current element to that type |
| Shift-Enter | Line break inside an action or dialogue paragraph |
| Backspace at the start | Join with the previous element |
| ⌘⌥G (Ctrl+Shift+G on Windows and Linux) | Go to a scene (by its number), a page or an act |
| ⌘F, then Enter / Shift-Enter (⌘G / ⇧⌘G; F3 / Shift+F3 on Windows and Linux) | Find, next and previous; the find bar also replaces one match or all (one Undo) |
| Drag across paragraphs, Shift-click, or Shift and the arrows | Select across paragraphs; Cut and Copy keep each element's type when pasted back here, and typing replaces the selection. ⌘A selects the whole script |
| Drag a scene in the navigator | Move it, with everything in it, as one Undo |
| Edit > Copy Scene | The scene as screenplay text; paste it back here as the same elements, or into any other app. Pasting several paragraphs of screenplay text makes elements |
| ⌘W | Close the script (File > Close); an empty one takes its place. File > Open Recent brings it back |
| ⌘B, ⌘I, ⌘U | Bold, italic or underline the selection, or the word the caret is in; again to take it off |
| ⌘; | Spelling: step through words not in the dictionary, with suggestions; Change, Ignore (kept with the script) or Learn (yours, in every script). Misspelled words are underlined as you type (View > Check Spelling While Typing). US or UK English: Edit > US English Spelling, UK English Spelling |
The status bar always shows what Tab and Enter will do next.
(Ctrl instead of ⌘ on Windows and Linux.)
Automation
cargo run -p method-storyteller -- script.fountain --control 9876
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
