A free Final Draft alternative

Cold Open is a free, open-source screenwriting app that opens and saves the .fdx files Final Draft writes. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, needs no account, and works offline.

Download Cold Open free How .fdx exchange works

What carries over

Your .fdx files. Open the scripts you have and the ones producers send. Save them back as .fdx, and they come back as they went in: Cold Open's test files write back byte for byte. Elements Cold Open doesn't use are kept untouched.
Standard screenplay format. Scene headings, action, character, parenthetical, dialogue, transitions and shots, laid out to the usual margins on US Letter, with (MORE) and (CONT'D) at page breaks.
The tools of a revision. Track changes with accept and reject, production revision colors with asterisks in the margin, a title page editor, scene and character reports, and a scene-by-scene comparison of two drafts.
PDF export, with optional scene numbers and a watermark.

What's different

Free, for good. No purchase, no subscription, no account and no activation, and no limit on the computers you install it on. The code is open source under the GPL, so no one can take it away.
Linux too. The same app on Windows, macOS and Linux, laying out the same pages on each.
Plain-text scripts. Cold Open's own format is Fountain, which any text editor can open. A Cold Open project keeps the extras (tracked changes, revision colors, notes) in one file.
A crash journal. Every keystroke is written to a journal before it shows on screen, so a crash or a power cut costs nothing you typed.

What it doesn't do yet

Cold Open is in alpha. There's no spellchecker yet, no index cards or beat board, no real-time co-writing, one template (feature film), and no locked pages. Its builds aren't signed or notarized yet, so your system warns you the first time. Known limitations lists everything, honestly.

How the two compare

Final Draft's own pages list it as a paid program for macOS and Windows, sold as a one-time purchase or in a subscription suite, with sign-in on a limited number of computers. See screenwriting apps compared for the details, each with its source.

Moving over

Download Cold Open and install it.
Open your .fdx script. If it's damaged, Cold Open repairs what it can and shows what it fixed.
Keep writing. Save as .fdx to send it back, or as a Cold Open project to keep tracked changes and revision colors.