Formatting Final Draft scripts for TableRead

TableRead reads a script by its elements: the paragraph types Final Draft assigns (Scene Heading, Action, Character, Parenthetical, Dialogue, Transition…). It doesn't look at fonts, margins or capitalization to decide what something is. A script that uses the right element for each paragraph will almost always read well. This guide covers what TableRead does with each element, where it starts reading, and the small habits that make a reading sound right.

Dialogue is read in each character's voice. Everything else that's read aloud (scene headings, action, sound cues and, if you choose, parentheticals) is read by Stage directions, a part of its own at the bottom of the cast list with its own voice.

Quick checklist

• Save as .fdx (Final Draft 8 or later).
• Put the title, author and copyright on Final Draft's Title Page, not in the script body. If they must be in the body, start the story with a New Act element (it can say anything: "ACT I", "OUR TALE BEGINS"); everything before it is skipped.
• Give every block of dialogue a Character element, even after a line of action interrupts a speech. (If one is missing after action, TableRead gives the line to the last speaker and marks it "(cont'd)".)
• Spell each character's name the same way every time (extensions like (V.O.) and (CONT'D) are fine).
• Put sound cues in Action paragraphs that start with SFX:.
• Put setting descriptions in Action paragraphs that start with Scene:, Setting: or At rise:.
• Write years and numbers as words where it matters ("nineteen twenty-three"), and acronyms without periods (FBI, not F.B.I.).

The file

• TableRead accepts .fdx files, Final Draft's format since version 8, up to 10 MB. Older .fdr files: open them in Final Draft and use Save As to make an .fdx.
• Only the script body and the title page are read. Headers and footers, script notes, revision marks, scene numbers and page breaks are ignored.
• Italic, bold and underlined text is shown that way on the script page and read with a little extra stress (see Words and pronunciation). Text set to All Caps in Final Draft is shown in capitals.

The title

The script's name in TableRead comes from the first line of Final Draft's Title Page (Document → Title Page). If the title page still says Final Draft's placeholder "Script Title" (or "Untitled"), or is empty, TableRead uses the file name instead. Fill in the title page and the name comes out right.

Where the reading starts

Many scripts, especially adaptations of stage plays, keep their title page, copyright notice and cast list at the top of the script body. TableRead skips all of that and starts at the story:

1. The first New Act element, if there is one, whatever it says ("ACT I", "OUR TALE BEGINS", "PART ONE"). Everything before it is skipped, no matter what it contains. This is the most reliable way to mark where the story starts: in Final Draft, set that paragraph's element to New Act.
2. Otherwise, a story marker: the first paragraph that is exactly ACT I, ACT ONE, ACT 1, SCENE I, SCENE ONE, SCENE 1, PROLOGUE, COLD OPEN or TEASER. Capitals don't matter, and a trailing period or colon is fine ("Act One.", "ACT 1:"). It must be the whole paragraph: "ACT I - THE STUDY" isn't recognized as a marker, so put "ACT I" on its own line and the rest in a Scene Heading below it.
3. Otherwise, the first Scene Heading.
4. Otherwise, the very beginning.

For 2 and 3, to avoid cutting real story, TableRead only skips ahead if what comes before doesn't look like story already: no Scene Heading and fewer than three lines of dialogue before it. A cold open with its own scene heading before ACT ONE is therefore kept, with nothing skipped.

When something is skipped, the script page says "Title page and cast list skipped" at the top. If the reading starts in the wrong place, check the first few paragraphs against the rules above.

Acts and scenes

• Act markers are shown as centered headings and never read aloud: paragraphs that are exactly "ACT I", "ACT TWO", "ACT 3", "END OF ACT II" and so on, and Final Draft's own New Act and End of Act elements. Use Roman numerals or digits past ACT FIVE; "ACT SIX" spelled out is read as ordinary action.
• Scene Headings are read by the Stage directions voice, tidied up for listening:
• "INT." becomes "Interior", "EXT." becomes "Exterior". INT/EXT., INT./EXT., I/E., EXT/INT. and E/I. are spelled out the same way.
• A dash between parts ("KITCHEN - DAY") becomes a short pause.
• Roman numerals after SCENE or ACT are read as words ("SCENE II" → "Scene two"), so "SCENE I" isn't read as the word "I".
• The Scene headings switch (under Read aloud) turns all of this off, along with the scene descriptions below.

What happens to each element

Characters

• A character is whatever name appears in the Character element, in capitals. (V.O.), (O.S.), (CONT'D) and any other parenthesized extension are removed, so "MARY (V.O.)" and "MARY" are the same part and share a voice. Final Draft's dual-dialogue mark "^" is removed too.
• Spell names consistently. "MRS. HALE" and "MRS HALE", or "DOC" and "DOCTOR", are different parts with different voices.
• NARRATOR is an ordinary character. If your script has a narrator who speaks lines, give them Character elements named NARRATOR (or any name) and they get their own place in the cast list and their own voice. They're separate from Stage directions, the part at the bottom of the cast list that reads scene headings, action, sound cues and parentheticals.
• A sound cue written as a Character ("SFX") followed by Dialogue becomes a part called SFX with its own voice. Write sound cues as Action instead (see below).

Dialogue

• Give every block of dialogue its Character element. If an Action paragraph interrupts a speech, Final Draft normally repeats the character name with "(CONT'D)" for you.
• If that cue is missing, TableRead gives the dialogue to whoever spoke last, and marks it "(cont'd)" on the script page so you can check it. This only carries across Action (and Shot) paragraphs: after a Scene Heading, Transition or act marker, dialogue with no Character above it is not read, and neither is dialogue before anyone has spoken.
• Dual dialogue (Final Draft's side-by-side dialogue) is read one speech after the other and marked "(simultaneous)" on screen.

Lines spoken by several characters

A Character element can name a group, and the line is read by all of their voices at once, slightly staggered like a real ensemble:

Characters named in a group (JOHN AND MARY) get their own place in the cast list even if they never speak alone, so you can choose their voices.

Parentheticals

• A Parenthetical belongs to the next Dialogue paragraph of the same speech, including one in the middle of a speech, between two Dialogue paragraphs.
• With the Parentheticals switch on, Stage directions read it, without the parentheses, just before the line: "(whispering)" is read as "Whispering." Keep that in mind for directions like "(beat)" or "(to June)", which will be read aloud too.
• With OpenAI voices (if enabled), parentheticals are also passed to the voice as delivery instructions.

Sound effects

• An Action paragraph that starts with SFX, FX, SOUND or SOUND EFFECT(S) is a sound cue. The Sound effects switch decides whether Stage directions read sound cues. Note that any action starting with the word "Sound" ("Sound of rain on the roof.") counts as a sound cue.
• "SFX" is read as "Sound effects", wherever it appears.
• Put one cue per paragraph, so switching sound effects off skips exactly the cues and nothing else.
• Music cues ("MUSIC: Theme up") are read as ordinary action. There's no switch for them.

Scene descriptions

An Action paragraph that starts with Scene:, Setting: or At rise: (the usual way stage plays describe the set) is treated as part of the scene heading: the Scene headings switch turns it on and off. It must start the paragraph and include the colon; "The scene changes to night." is ordinary action.

Words and pronunciation

TableRead changes some text before it's spoken. What's shown on the page stays exactly as written.

• Titles before a name are spelled out so the voice doesn't stop at the period: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., Prof., Rev., Fr., Capt., Col., Gen., Lt., Sgt., Maj., Det., Insp., Gov., Sen., Mt. and others become "Mister", "Missus", "Miz", "Doctor" and so on.
• St. and Sr. are left alone because they're ambiguous (Saint or Street? Sister or Senior?), and the voice pauses at the period. Write Saint, Street, Sister or Senior in full.
• Capitals are fine. Names and shouting in capitals (HAROLD, STOP!) are read as normal words.
• Dashes give a real half-second pause: an em dash (—), an en dash (–), a double hyphen (--) or a hyphen with a space on each side ( - ). Hyphenated words ("well-known") aren't affected. A dash at the very end of a line ("I was going to—") is read as an interruption: the line simply stops. Use a comma for a shorter breath and an ellipsis (…) for a trailing-off sound.
• Questions: end every question with a question mark. Yes/no questions ("Are you coming?", "You really think so?") are read with the pitch rising at the end, as people say them. Wh- questions, which start with who, what, where, when, why, how, which, whose or whom ("Where did you put it?"), are left to fall naturally. Openings like "Well," "So" or a name followed by a comma are looked past: "John, where are you?" is still a wh- question.
• Emphasis: put a word in italics (or bold, or underline it) to have it stressed. The voice holds the word's stressed vowel a little longer. The effect is gentle, so use it for the words an actor would lean on rather than whole sentences. For a stronger effect, a comma or dash just before the word gives the voice a beat to set it up.
• Acronyms: common ones (FBI, BBC, TV, OK) are spelled out letter by letter as you'd expect, and ones that are words (NASA) are said as words. Don't add periods: "F.B.I." makes some voices pause after each letter. If an acronym is read as a word but should be spelled out, separate the letters with spaces ("R Ay D Ay"); write the letter A as "Ay", because a lone "A" is read as the word "a".
• Numbers, dates and money: write them the way they should be said.
• "1923" comes out as "nineteen hundred twenty-three": write "nineteen twenty-three".
• "10/18/2026" is read with the slashes ("ten slash eighteen…"): write "October eighteenth".
• "$4.50" comes out garbled: write "four fifty" or "four dollars and fifty cents".
• Plain counts ("6 apples", "June 5th") read fine.
• Unusual names that are mispronounced can be spelled phonetically, but the phonetic spelling then shows on the page as well.

Helping TableRead cast the voices

When a script is uploaded, TableRead picks a first voice for each part: female voices for female characters, male for male, and the best-sounding voices for the biggest parts. Gender is guessed from:

1. Role words in the name: MRS. HALE, OLD WOMAN, WAITRESS, KING, FATHER O'MALLEY.
2. A cast list in the front matter (the part before the story that TableRead skips; see Where the reading starts), one character per line, written as NAME - description (or NAME: description, or NAME, description): "Mary - His Wife" makes Mary female even if her name were ambiguous. The name must match the Character element exactly.
3. The first name, from a dictionary of about 40,000 names.

Every character starts as an Adult; set ages (Child, Teen, Older, Elderly) in the cast list on the script page. Any first guess can be changed there.

If something reads wrong