How to Format a Screenplay: The Complete Standard

October 18, 2026 • By Greenlight Writing

You format a screenplay in 12 point Courier on US Letter paper, with a one and a half inch left margin and one inch margins on the right, top and bottom. Inside that frame, every element has its own position: scene headings and action run margin to margin, character names sit at about 3.7 inches from the left edge of the page, dialogue occupies a narrow block beginning at 2.5 inches, parentheticals sit at about 3.1 inches, and transitions align to the right. Those positions are not decoration. They are how readers estimate running time, how producers build budgets and schedules, and how a script announces that its writer understands the production it is asking for.

Why format is a production tool, not a style choice

A screenplay is a working document. A director reads it for staging, an actor reads it for lines, a producer reads it for cost, and a first reader at a company or a festival reads it for competence, quickly. Standard format makes all four readings possible at speed. It also supports the industry guideline that one properly formatted page corresponds to roughly one minute of screen time. The guideline is an approximation, and everyone in the business treats it that way, but it only works when the page itself is standard. Change the font or widen the margins and page count stops meaning anything, which is why experienced readers distrust a script that arrives in a friendly word processor font. The GREENLIGHT Academy teaches format as part of the craft for exactly this reason: it is the first production decision a writer makes.

The page itself

• Paper: US Letter, 8.5 by 11 inches.
• Font: 12 point Courier, a monospaced typeface in which every character takes the same width. Courier New and similar true Courier variants are acceptable.
• Margins: 1.5 inches on the left, which leaves room for binding, and 1 inch on the right, top and bottom.
• Page numbers: in the top right corner, and not on the first page.
• Weight: regular throughout. Uppercase carries scene headings and character cues. Bold and italics are not part of the standard page.

The six elements and where each one sits

Scene heading, also called a slugline

Left aligned at the margin, in uppercase, on one line. It carries three pieces of information in order: interior or exterior, written INT. or EXT.; the location; and the time of day, conventionally separated from the location by a dash. A scene heading tells the production where and when the scene happens before a single word of action is read, and it is the unit a breakdown and a schedule are built from.

Action

Left aligned, running the full width of the text area, in present tense and sentence case. Action describes what the audience can see and hear. Keep paragraphs short, introduce each speaking character in uppercase the first time they appear, and resist camera directions: the page's job is to tell the story, and staging belongs to the director.

Character cue

Positioned at about 3.7 inches from the left edge of the page, in uppercase, naming the person who is about to speak. Extensions such as V.O. for a voice heard from elsewhere and O.S. for a speaker who is present but off screen sit with the name in parentheses.

Dialogue

A narrow block beginning at about 2.5 inches from the left edge and ending about 2.5 inches from the right. The narrow column is deliberate: it slows the eye the way speech fills time, and it is a large part of why the one page to one minute guideline roughly holds. Dialogue sits directly beneath its character cue with no blank line between them.

Parenthetical

At about 3.1 inches from the left edge, in parentheses, between the cue and the dialogue. It gives a brief direction on how a line is delivered. Use parentheticals sparingly: a page crowded with them tells a reader the writer does not trust the dialogue, and actors routinely ignore them.

Transition

Right aligned, in uppercase, ending in a colon for instructions such as CUT TO:, with FADE OUT. the customary close of a script. Modern practice uses transitions rarely, because a new scene heading already tells the reader the scene has changed. A script that cuts on every scene reads as effort, not style.

A short example, described

Picture one scene. The heading announces an interior, a coffee shop, and the day. The action beneath it, in present tense, introduces MAYA in uppercase on her first appearance and describes her sliding a notebook across the counter. Her cue sits at its indent above a narrow block of dialogue asking whether the letter arrived. A single parenthetical, quietly, sits between cue and line. Nothing on the page explains the story. Everything on the page is the story, placed where a production expects to find it.

Mistakes that mark a script as amateur

• The wrong font or margins. This changes the page count math and tells a producer the timing and budget estimates built on the script cannot be trusted.
• Camera directions throughout. Occasional, essential staging notes are tolerated. Directing the film on the page is not.
• Novelistic action. Interior thoughts, long paragraphs and past tense belong in the book the script may be adapted from, not in the script. If you are adapting your own novel, our article on above the line and below the line costs explains why the translation matters to the budget as well.
• Parentheticals on every line. Direct the performance in the writing of the line itself.
• Scene numbers on a submission script. Those belong to shooting scripts in production, not to a script being read for its story.

How writers actually hold the standard

Almost nobody maintains these measurements by hand. Screenwriting software exists so the writer can think in elements (heading, action, cue, dialogue) and let the page take care of itself. That is the design principle behind the writing surface in GREENLIGHT Create: the phone and the desktop show the same true US Letter page, with dialogue in its narrow block and transitions on the right, scaled to fit the screen the way a PDF viewer scales a page. The format a reader will judge is the format the writer sees while typing, with no surprises on export.

Format also travels with the rest of the workflow. A correctly headed scene feeds a breakdown, the breakdown feeds a schedule and a budget, and the whole chain stays consistent when the script and its production plan live together. When you are ready to think about who reads the finished script and how it reaches them, the Discover page lays out the pathway, and Protect Your Work covers what to do before the script leaves your hands.

Frequently asked questions

Is Courier really required?

Yes, for professional submission. Courier's fixed character width is what makes page count a meaningful estimate of screen time. A reader may forgive many things in a draft shared with friends. A script sent to a producer, a competition or a festival should be in 12 point Courier.

How long should a screenplay be?

There is no official length, and format is what makes the question answerable at all: because a standard page approximates a minute of screen time, a feature script's page count signals its running time before anyone reads a word. Studios and festivals form expectations by genre and by program, so check the norms of the place you are submitting to rather than chasing a universal number.

Do margins ever change?

Productions outside the United States sometimes use A4 paper, and individual companies occasionally keep house variations. The measurements in this article are the widely used United States standard described by the sources below, and different references vary slightly on some figures, particularly the bottom margin and the parenthetical position.

Should scene headings be bold?

No. The standard page is regular weight throughout. Uppercase, not bold, carries the heading and the cue.

Sources

• How to Format a Script, Scriptation
• Screenplay Format, Paul Gorman's format notes
• Both sources were read on October 18, 2026. Measurements above follow the values those guides agree on.

The GREENLIGHT Blog teaches the craft and the business of getting a script made. The creator owns the story, always.