A screenwriting application that keeps the script on the writer's machine.
No account. No eDraft server. No connection needed to write, open or save.
Download on the App Store · edraft.xyz
eDraft is on the App Store for iPhone and Mac, as one app. It is free, no account is required, iPhone version 1.0 was approved by Apple on 15 October 2026, and the Mac version (1.0.1) has been available since 10 October 2026.
A screenplay is not only writing. Once a production starts it becomes a shared document with addresses in it — scene numbers, page numbers, revision colours — and those addresses are what the rest of the department works from.
Most tools lose the parts of a file they cannot model. eDraft does not. Opening a file and saving it without edits returns the original bytes; editing one line changes that line and leaves everything else alone, including production data the application has no interface for yet.
The product overview sets out the problem and the approach in full.
- Writing — A screenplay editor that formats as you type: scene headings, action, character cues, dialogue, parentheticals, transitions.
- Local files — Scripts stay ordinary files on your machine, in formats other software can open.
- Interchange — Reads and writes the formats used in screenwriting and production, including Final Draft documents and Fountain, with import from common word-processor and plain-text sources.
- Notes — Notes stay attached to the text they refer to, and survive a round trip through supported software.
- Production data — Scene numbering, revisions and omitted scenes are production concepts the application knows about, so they survive editing and interchange.
| Direction | Formats |
|---|---|
| Write and read | Final Draft documents (.fdx), Fountain, eDraft's own document format |
| Export | PDF, Final Draft, Fountain, Word (.docx), plain text |
| Import | Final Draft, Fountain, Word (.docx), plain text, PDF produced by eDraft |
| Read back | A PDF eDraft produced carries its script with it, and reopens exactly |
Interchange is a design requirement rather than an export menu: a script passing between eDraft and other software should arrive intact in both directions.
| Status | Platforms |
|---|---|
| On the App Store (preview) | iPhone and Mac |
| In development | iPadOS, Apple Watch, Web, Chrome extension |
| Planned | Windows, Linux, Android |
See the roadmap for current and planned work.
eDraft for macOS is on the App Store as a preview, and it is free. It requires macOS 26 or later.
The other platforms are in development, and the application is not distributed from this repository. edraft.xyz is the product page.
Screenwriting professionals, educators, researchers and developers interested in a research licence or in collaborating are welcome to get in touch: edraft@ysr.design.
The examples/ directory holds a short original scene in two
formats:
demo-scene.fdx— Final Draft format, including a note and an omitted scene.demo-scene.fountain— the same scene in Fountain. Fountain has no equivalent representation for an omitted scene, so scene 2 is absent while the numbering keeps the gap.
Both files, as they stand in this repository:
30cca645c69f9f5f59eaff3b62543b4ff9b1ffaf4463d0bfc1c412f791d09b86 demo-scene.fdx
153160c3cbdd8319e9641b487dda7b1d957a59f45457f58c88a90437edb0eaf3 demo-scene.fountain
Open demo-scene.fdx in the Mac app, save it without making changes, and the
checksum should match.
Nine principles decide arguments in this project: when a principle and a convenient implementation disagree, the principle wins. Three of them:
- Nothing is lost silently. When something cannot be preserved, the application says so. A loss the writer is told about is a decision they can make; a loss they discover later is a defect.
- The writer's text is theirs. The application does not rewrite a writer's words to suit its own model.
- Measure; do not assume. Where behaviour has to match another application's, it is established by examining what that application actually produces, not by reasoning about what it probably does.
The design principles carry all nine.
- Product overview — what eDraft is, and who it is for
- Design principles — the rules the work follows, and why they decide arguments
- Roadmap — what works, what is in progress, what is planned
- FAQ — common questions
- Development record — what was built and what was decided, phase by phase
- A bug, or something wrong in these documents — open an issue using the bug report form.
- A question, or an idea — Discussions
- A security issue — please report it privately. See SECURITY.md.
- Anything else, including research licences — edraft@ysr.design
The application source is private, so there is no build to run and no code to send a pull request against. Contributions here are documentation corrections and bug reports.
See CONTRIBUTING.md before opening an issue.
This repository holds eDraft's documentation, example files and images. The application source code, the research materials and the internal design documents are private.
The contents of this repository are proprietary. Copyright © 2025–2026 Yasir Dora. All rights reserved.
See LICENSE for the terms.
Made by a writer, for writers.