A free screenwriting app that never loses your work
Cold Open is a free, open-source screenwriting app for Windows, macOS and Linux. Write in standard screenplay format, exchange .fdx files with producers, and keep every word, even through a crash.
Version 0.1.0-alpha.3, an early alpha. No account, no subscription, no activation.
- Free and open sourceEvery feature, for everyone, with no account, no trial and no subscription. The source is public, so it keeps working whatever happens to us.
- Works offlineNothing to sign into and nothing to activate. Write on a plane, in a cabin, anywhere. Install it on every computer you have.
- Never loses your workEvery keystroke goes into a crash journal before it shows on screen. If the app or your computer stops, the next start brings back everything you typed. Saves replace the file in one step, so a crash mid-save can't leave half a script.
- .fdx exchange, byte for byteOpen the .fdx files producers send, and save them back as they came: our test files write back identical, byte for byte. A damaged .fdx opens with a report of what was repaired.
- Windows, macOS and LinuxThe same app and the same page breaks on all three, including Linux, where Final Draft doesn't run. Every download is under 15 MB.
- Writes like a screenwriting appEnter and Tab move from scene heading to action to character to dialogue. Names, places and times of day finish themselves. Fountain is its native format: plain text you can read anywhere.
Built for the way scripts get made
- Revisions: track changes from collaborators and accept or reject each one, mark production revisions in color, and compare two drafts scene by scene.
- Output: PDFs laid out the same way on every computer, a title page editor, and scene, character and location reports.
- Your files: Fountain, .fdx and a Cold Open project that keeps everything. Nothing you write is locked in.
Cold Open is in alpha. It works, and it's careful with your work, but it's new. Keep a copy of anything that matters, and tell us what works and what doesn't.
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Moving over from another app? Cold Open as a free Final Draft alternative · Open an .fdx file for free · Screenwriting on Linux · What's Fountain? · Screenwriting apps compared