Files: Fountain, .fdx and projects
Cold Open opens and saves three kinds of script file. It saves a script back to the kind it came in, unless you choose another with Save as.
Fountain (.fountain) | Final Draft–compatible (.fdx) | Cold Open project (.coldopen) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Plain text (primer) | The XML format most productions exchange | A zip holding the script and everything about it, in open formats |
| Opens in | Any text editor, and most screenwriting apps | Final Draft and most screenwriting apps | Cold Open; or unzip it to read the Fountain and JSON inside |
| Keeps tracked changes | No | No | Yes |
| Keeps revision sets and marks | No | No | Yes |
| Keeps notes, boneyard, sections, synopses | Yes | No | Yes |
| Keeps parts Cold Open doesn’t use (another app’s settings and the like) | — | Yes, untouched | Yes, from the .fdx it came from |
| Best for | Your own writing, version control, sharing with Fountain apps | Sending to and receiving from a production | Revising: changes, revisions, notes, all in one file |
When to use which:
- Writing on your own: Fountain. It’s readable anywhere and never locked in.
- A production sent you an .fdx: keep it as .fdx, so they get back the format they sent. See .fdx exchange.
- Tracking changes, or production revisions: a project. Save as Cold Open project… in the palette. You can always save a copy as Fountain or .fdx to send out.
When a format can’t hold something
Cold Open never drops anything without asking. If you save to a format that can’t hold part of your script, it says what would be lost before writing anything, and offers three choices:
- Save as Cold Open project… keeps everything. It’s the default when tracked changes or revision marks would be lost.
- Save anyway writes the file without what it can’t hold. Tracked changes are accepted first, and revision marks taken out, and the version with them is kept in Recovered versions.
- Cancel.
Save a copy as .fdx and Save a copy as Fountain (palette) write a copy in that format and leave the script you’re working on as it is.
Opening
- Mod+O opens
.fountain,.spmd,.txt,.fdxand.coldopenfiles. - Recent files are on the start screen and in the palette. A file that’s gone (on an unplugged drive, say) stays in the list, marked Missing, until you remove it.
- A script in a folder Cold Open can’t write (a read-only share, or a CD) opens as an untitled copy, with a notice. Save as… keeps it somewhere else, and the original is never touched.
Inside a project
A .coldopen file is an ordinary zip. Inside are script.fountain (a readable copy of the script), document.json (the script with every element’s id), changes.json (tracked changes), revisions.json (revision sets) and meta.json. Its format is open and documented in the bundle spec, so other tools can read it, and the same script always saves to the same bytes.