FAQs

Table Of Contents

    Free Trial & Paid Plans

    Where is the free version of Scrite?

    Until January 14, 2025 Scrite was available for free under the public beta program. Since the 15th of January, a free trial is available for 30 days after which a paid subscription is required to continue using Scrite.

    The complete source code of Scrite continues to be available on GitHub, so you can pull a copy of the code from our public repository and build from source to use it for free. However, please note that no support will be provided for such builds.

    Read more: Version 1.0 Released

    Why the switch to paid model?

    Many of our early adopters asked for a paid version and as a team we also felt the need for Scrite to be a viable business in order to continue investing time, resources and money to further develop and improve the product. Our intention is to keep Scrite affordable, while at the same time also generate enough revenue to invest more time and effort on the product.

    Read more: A new chapter begins.

    Why don’t you have a perpetual or life-time plan?

    As of writing, we only have time-limited subscription plans ranging from three months to three years. While we are not ruling out a perpetual plan down the line, we do not have a life-time plan at this point. Many users have requested for a life-time plan and we are actively considering it, although we do not have a published timeline for when we can begin to offer the same.

    Will I be able to continue using the old public betas?

    As of February 3, 2025 – we are not issuing activation codes for the old public betas. This means anything other than the screenplay tab in the old public betas will no longer work. We advise you to upgrade to any version greater than 1.0 to continue using the product.

    How much does the subscription cost?

    Until 31st March 2025, depending on whether you are an early adopter or new user, you will see different set of plans. Prices are shown in INR within the Indian territory, and in USD for the rest of the world.

    From the 1st of April 2025, a single set of plans will be available for all users including early adopters.

    More information: A new chapter begins.

    Can I transfer my subscription from one email to another?

    Subscriptions are tagged to the email id from which it was purchased. Once activated, the email associated with your subscription cannot be changed.

    Can I cancel my subscription and get a partial refund?

    Subscriptions are not cancelleable and are therefore not refundable.

    Further reading: Refund and Cancellation Policy

    Can I share my subscription with others?

    Depending on your subscription plan, you will be activate your subscription on up to three devices at a time. However a single email id should be used for activating on all the devices, and you should personally own these devices. We do not encourage sharing your subscription with others, and as such we would really appreciate if you requested your co-writers to also purchase Scrite subscriptions.

    Can I get a discount?

    We run discount offers from time to time, keep a look out for them on the #announcements channel in our Discord community server.

    If you are a film student and wish to avail a special price, please reach out to us on email support@scrite.io and we will consider extending a special discounted plan for you.

    Payment Related

    I am from India, why do I see USD price?

    Its possible that our systems have incorrectly detected your country of use. Please reach out to us on support@scrite.io and we will rectify it.

    I am not from India, why do I see INR price?

    Its possible that our systems have incorrectly detected your country of use. Please reach out to us on support@scrite.io and we will rectify it.

    Payment always fails! What do I do?

    Within India, we have noticed that UPI payment always works. However both in India and elsewhere we notice that certain payments from credit and debit cards just don’t go through. In such cases

    • If you are from India, kindly try to use UPI to make the payment.
    • If you are from outside India, kindly make sure that you are using an internationally enabled credit or debit card, and are choosing to pay in USD only (instead of opting to pay in your local currency)
    • If you are still unable to pay, reach out to us and we will work with our payment gateway partners (Razorpay) to support you with your payment.

    Can I pay using PayPal?

    At the moment we don’t have a merchant account with PayPal, and are therefore unable to accept payments on PayPal.

    However, we are registering with them and hope to start accepting payments on PayPal soon.

    Can I directly transfer amount to your bank account?

    At the moment we cannot accept direct bank transfers.

    Why do I get notifications from VCreate Logic when I make payment?

    VCreate Logic is the company (legal entity) that owns Scrite and has the right to monetise it. Any notification related to payment failures or completion will be sent from Razorpay with VCreate Logic name spelled out in the header. Upon successful completion of payment, you will also receive a order confirmation email from Scrite.

    Will I get a GST Invoice?

    If you are an Indian customer, you can provide your business name and GSTIN on the checkout page. We will email you a signed copy of the GST Invoice within 45 days of your payment.

    Please note, your GST Invoice will be sent by VCreate Logic.

    Support Related

    Where can I get support?

    If you have questions or need any help, please join our Discord community and look for solutions to your issues on it. If you are unable to find answers there, please create a new topic on an appropriate channel. Read more about our Discord community here.

    If your plan allows, you will also be able to request for support on email. Please send your questions to support@scrite.io and we will get back to you within 3-10 business days.

    NOTE: While WE are committed to providing support for all reported issues, we cannot guarantee specific turnaround times for issue resolution or that every issue will be resolved.

    Is there a phone we can call on?

    At this point we do not offer support over phone. All support queries have to be posted on our Discord community server or sent via email to support@scrite.io only.

    I want to suggest a feature, how do I reach you?

    Please create a ticket (or topic) on #feature-requests channel in our Discord community server, or send us an email on support@scrite.io.

    Note: Please check in the said channel if your feature request has already been reported by others.

    I want to report a bug, where can I reach you?

    Please create a ticket (or topic) on #bugs channel in our Discord community server, or send us an email on support@scrite.io.

    Note: Please check in the said channel if your feature request has already been reported by others.

    I have a question, where can I ask?

    Please create a ticket (or topic) on #questions channel in our Discord community server, or send us an email on support@scrite.io.

    Note: Please check in the said channel if your feature request has already been reported by others.

    Can I visit your office and meet you in person?

    We would love to meet you as well. While we have a registered office address as mentioned in the footer below, we do not work out of that office.

    We hope to organize Scrite User Meetups later this year, and also host webinars. As and when we have clarity on the schedule for these meetups, we will be sure to send you a notification within the app and also make announcements on our Discord community server.

    Can I have a Zoom call with you?

    We do schedule one on one, or small group Zoom calls once in a while. Please reach out to us if you have any specific issues or ideas to discuss with us over a Zoom call, and we will be happy to schedule one with you, and hopefully invite a few other users as well if they are interested.

    Product Related

    Is there a mobile or tablet app?

    We do not have a Scrite app for Android or iOS phones and tablets at the moment. While we really want to build one in the future, we do not have a published roadmap for the same.

    I am unable to open my Scrite document, what to do?

    We assume that you are unable to open your Scrite document by double clicking on the file in File Explorer or Finder or File Manager. If that’s the case, simply launch the Scrite app and try opening it by selecting the Open option from your Home Screen.

    If you are still unable to open, then it could mean one of the following:

    • Security and Permissions Issue: Read permissions on your storage device was altered, and its no longer allowing Scrite app to open your document for reading. Check read and write permissions on your file and folder in which the file is saved. On Mac, please also check privacy settings of Scrite app in your System Settings.
    • Antivirus Software Interference: We have noticed this happen especially on Windows systems that use Antivirus software which interfere with read/write mechanisms on certain apps. Either turn off your Antivirus software while using Scrite, or configure an exception for Scrite in your Antivirus software.
    • File is temporarily locked: This can happen if you are attempting to open your document from a folder that is synced with cloud (like Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox, iCloud etc.), and its currently being synced or locked for some purpose. If this is the case, wait for the sync to complete or relaunch your cloud storage app.
    • File is corrupt: In rare cases files do get corrupted and it becomes impossible to open it. This can happen because of a hard disk crash, or because of other errors. Try to recover your work from backups or from the vault as explained next.

    How can I recover my lost Scrite file?

    Sorry to hear that you have lost your Scrite file.

    The Scrite app doesn’t save a copy of your work on our cloud servers, so there is no way we can recover your files for you from our end.

    All Scrite documents are stored locally on your computer, and on additional storage devices (USB, external HDD, or Google Drive etc) if you have stored a backup copy there.

    Having said that, here are a few options you can try to recover your Scrite documents.

    • Backups Folder: Every time you save a Scrite file on your computer, the Scrite app also creates a Backups folder in the same place as your file and keeps one or several backup copies of your file. So, for instance if you had saved your Scrite file in C:\Screenplays\MyScreenplay.scrite, you will find a folder called C:\Screenplays\MyScreenplay Backups\ where all the backups are stored. You can restore a previous version (preferably the most recent backup) of your Scrite file from this folder, if its present. If you are able to open a backup, please remember to “Save As” or “Export > Scrite” to another file. If you are unable to find the backups folder then
      • Either the folder was not created because you had saved the Scrite file only once, and hence no backup copy had to be saved,
      • Or you have disabled backups feature in Settings,
      • Or both your Scrite file and the backups folder were deleted by somebody or some other app.
    • Vault: If you had not even saved a copy of your Scrite document, then you may try and recover your unsaved work from the Vault. Just click on the Recover option in the Home Screen and see if you can find your unsaved work in there.

    Can I import from PDF?

    We do not have an option to import from PDF as yet.

    It’s not that we have not tried building a PDF importer, its just that importing from PDF is a notoriously difficult problem to solve reliably. We can manage to import PDFs properly in only a few odd cases, however most of the time PDF imports just don’t work. If you have tried using online PDF to Word converters, you will know what we are talking about here. So, until we are able to figure out a way to reliably parse a PDF file and interpret the text in it as a screenplay, we will likely not offer a PDF importer.

    What’s this message I get about lock file?

    NOTE: The lock file serves an important purpose and is therefore not a bug.

    Scrite creates a .lock file next to your document every time it is opened. This is done to ensure that a second instance of Scrite doesn’t open the same document and cause read-write-locks, or worse corrupt your document.

    This .lock file is automatically deleted when you close the Scrite app or open another document in it. In odd cases where the .lock file was not removed you will see an error message like this:

    As the dialog box suggests,

    • First verify that there are no other instances of Scrite either in your computer or elsewhere (over the network) where the document in question is opened.
    • Click “Ok” on the dialog box.
    • Scrite would have launched File Explorer (on Windows), Finder (on macOS) or File Manager (on Linux) where the lock file in question can be found. If you dont see it, check if they are opened in a background window. Go ahead and delete the .lock file manually.
    • You can then come back and reopen the document and it should work fine.

    If you see this message all the time, then its possible that Scrite isn’t closing properly or that you are saving directly on a cloud-synced folder and the syncing of files across devices is not working properly. Try saving your Scrite file on a local folder and check again.

    Text is all gibberish. What do I do?

    This happens in rare cases where we run into an unknown graphics driver and the rendering engine starts drawing garbage instead of the text we ask of it.

    To address this problem, you can switch to Software Rendering. Please lookup instructions on this page for doing this.

    I get a blank/black/white window, with nothing on it. What do I do?

    This happens in rare cases where we run into an unknown graphics driver.

    To address this problem, you can switch to Software Rendering. Please lookup instructions on this page for doing this.

    Scrite crashes upon launch. What do I do?

    This happens in rare cases where we run into an unknown or faulty graphics driver, which is causing the crash.

    To address this problem, you can switch to Software Rendering. Please lookup instructions on this page for doing this.

    If the app continues to crash even after switching to software-rendering, then please try updating the graphics drivers on your system and try again.

    While using, the app crashed. How can I get help?

    On Windows and macOS, Scrite will show you a crash handler dialog box when you relaunch Scrite after a crash.

    If the crash has happened for the first time, then simply click on “Continue to Scrite” and launch the app as usual. You should be able to resume your work.

    If the crash occurs repeatedly, then try resetting your login credentials and activate your installation of Scrite.

    If the crash continues to occur, see if resetting to factory default settings makes it work any better.

    Inspite of this, if you notice the app crashing, then please look for a folder called “Scrite Crash Reports” on your Desktop and send us the latest crash report on the #crashreports channel in our Discord community server.

    On Windows, you can also try updating your graphics drivers and see if that makes any difference. Sometimes faulty graphics drivers can cause Scrite to crash, and as such fixing those issues would fall outside our scope.

    The app is very slow all of a sudden. What do I do?

    This can happen if you are working on a large document with realtime page-counting and time-estimation turned ON. You can simply turn this off by clicking on the toggle page-count button on the bottom left corner of your screenplay editor.

    Can I get rid of the watermark?

    If you have an active or upcoming paid subscription of Scrite, then you can disable or change watermark settings. Click here to learn how to do that.

    Does Scrite save a backup of my file on the cloud?

    No. We do not save a copy of your files on our cloud-servers.

    However, you can sync your Scrite documents on to your own Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox or iCloud folders. Please lookup documentation from those service providers for more information using any of the links below:

    Can I collaborate with another writer?

    At the moment, Scrite does not offer real time collaborative editing features. However, we intend to add support for the same in a future update, although we do not have a published timeline for it yet.

    Many of our users share their Scrite documents on a folder that is synced to their Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox or iCloud storage. In such cases, its possible for multiple writers to work on the same document, but not at the same time. To know more about this, click here.

    Can I work on my Scrite file from multiple devices?

    While we do not offer cloud storage of our own, its possible for you to save your Scrite documents on a folder synced with your Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox or iCloud service and access your documents from multiple devices – much the same way you can do with Word, Excel and other documents. To know more about this, click here.

    How do I format dual dialogue?

    Formatting dual dialogues is not possible at the moment. We will support this in a future update, however we don’t have a published timeline for that yet.

    Hey, where is dark mode?

    Scrite doesn’t provide a dark mode just yet. We will support this in a future update, however we don’t have a published timeline for that yet.

    Can I import/export to Final Draft?

    Yes!

    To import, simply drag and drop the FDX file on an empty Scrite window.

    To export, select Export > Final Draft option.

    In the export configuration dialog box, please look up all the options provided to customize the way in which you want the export to work.

    Can I import/export to Fountain?

    Yes!

    To import, simply drag and drop a .fountain file on an empty Scrite window. You may have to manually fix formatting errors after import, but we have seen that Scrite gets most of the formatting right as long as the supplied fountain file is in the proper format.

    To export, select Export > Fountain option.

    Can I import/export to Word?

    While you cannot directly import from Word, you can save your Word document as a text file and try importing that to Scrite. Assuming that the text file is accidentally in fountain format, most of the formatting should be properly imported. However, we recommend manually proofreading it once to fix any formatting errors.

    You can export your screenplays to Open Document Format, which can be opened in any modern version of Microsoft Word.

    Can I import/export to Text files?

    Yes!

    You can drag and drop your text files on an empty Scrite window to import screenplays written in plain-text files. Assuming that the text file is accidentally in fountain format, most of the formatting should be properly imported. However, we recommend manually proofreading it once to fix any formatting errors.

    You can export screenplays in plain-text format by selecting the Export > Text File option.

    Can I extract dialogues of one or more characters?

    Select Character Report or Character Screenplay report to extract dialogues of one or more specific characters.

    Can I get a location report?

    Select Location Report from Reports menu to extract a summary of locations references in the screenplay.

    What other reports do you have?

    As of writing, these are the reports supported in Scrite.

    • Character Report: for extracting dialogues of one or more characters
    • Character Screenplay: for extracting entire scenes in which one or more characters are present
    • Location Report: for extracting a summary of locations references in your screenplay
    • Notebook Report: for extract all notes you have captured in the Notebook.
    • Scene Character Matrix: for extracting a PDF or CSV of all scenes and locations in a matrix-like-table. The CSV extract can be imported into Excel for further analysis, and even used for scheduling and planning purposes.
    • Screenplay Subset: for extracting a subset of scenes, or episodes or acts.
    • Statistics Report: for extracting a one page summary of statistics related to your screenplay. Click here to watch a video explainer.

    I want a different template, how do I get that?

    We have a few templates offered via Scriptalay, which you can access from the Home Screen. If you wish to create your own templates then please watch this video to know how.

    Indian languages are spelt wrong. How do I correct them?

    The built-in transliteration in Scrite uses a static map for replacing English letters with equivalent ones from the selected language. You can click on the alphabet table to discover this mapping. Click here to know more.

    If you prefer, you can use Microsoft Input Tools or Text Input Sources with Scrite. Continue reading the next FAQ to know more about this.

    Can I use Microsoft Input Tools with Scrite?

    On Windows, you can use any IME (Input Method Engines) with Scrite. Please watch the video at this link to know how.

    If you are a Mac user, then you can configure your Text Input Sources with Scrite. Please watch the video at this link to know how.

    Can I use Baraha or Nudi IME with Scrite?

    You can enable Baraha or Nudi IME on your Windows desktop to use them with Scrite, just as you would with any other app. However, we do not have native integration with either of these apps.

    What international languages are supported in Scrite?

    At the moment, we do not have formal support for international languages. But we are actively working on supporting them. In a future update later this year, you will be able to formally configure Scrite for writing in international languages.

    Do you offer pre-production tools like Studio Binder?

    We do not have any pre-production tools bundled into the app as yet. In a future update, we plan to provide dedicated spaces within the app for script-breakdown, shot-division, and scheduling.

    Does Scrite have AI integration?

    While we do not have native AI integration within the app, writers can already use Gen AIs like ChatGPT to generate scenes and copy/paste them in Scrite, with formatting preserved.

    Can I use Scrite app on multiple monitors?

    Currently we do not support multiple monitors. However, this has been an active feature request and we will surely support this in a future update.