Screenplay Font: 12-Point Courier, and Why the Courier Face Holds
Published
The screenplay font is Courier, 12 point, 10 pitch: the Courier typeface that scripts in the studio format share. Set inside margins of at least one inch, the page keeps the meaning the format gives it: roughly one minute of screen time.
This guide gives the standard as written down, and the reason a Courier typeface outlived the typewriter. It then looks at what the font does to the page, and what the software does so you rarely think about it.
The standard, as written down
Wikipedia's article on the screenplay (read 11 October 2026) states it in one line: the standard font is 12 point, 10 pitch Courier. The same paragraph gives the margins: at least one inch, usually wider on the left to leave room for the hole punches.
Those two settings produce the white space a script page is known for. Wikipedia notes a side effect: white space can reduce cultural specificity, so a particular world sometimes needs more description, and more text.
Why a Courier face outlived the typewriter
The format's job, in Wikipedia's account, is to make scripts uniformly readable blueprints and to tell a professional from an amateur.
The Fountain syntax spells out the convention from another angle. Some Markdown tools turn straight quotes curly; Fountain does not, because the screenplay convention is to emulate a typewriter. However you type your apostrophes, quotes and dots is how they appear.
The first screenwriting program, SmartKey, was a macro tool that sent commands to ordinary word processors (Wikipedia). It was popular from 1982 to 1987, until word processors gained macros of their own.
What the font does to the page
Set in Courier at 12 point with one-inch margins, a page of script transfers to the screen at roughly a minute. The estimate is contested, Wikipedia says: dialogue plays faster than action, and style changes everything.
Wikipedia gives the studio format as one reason for the rule of thumb. How many pages is a screenplay follows it through, with its limits.
Garrett Tripp (Script Slug, The Five Technical Basics, January 2026) draws the writing lesson from the same page: say it shorter, say it faster, leave plenty of white space. Less is more, Tripp writes.
What the software does for you
Tripp's first basic is to write in a screenwriting tool, so that font, font size, margins, page-breaking conventions and transitions come out right without your attention. He sets this against writing in a word processor and formatting by hand.
Matt Lathrom (Breaking Rules, June 2024) says the same. Most screenwriting apps handle the formatting, with sensible defaults and shortcuts for each element, so fonts, margins and spacing stop being your worry. His one exception is George Lucas, writing first drafts on legal pads.
Lathrom adds that knowing the rules lets a writer break them, and that an aspiring screenwriter has everything to prove, the technical side first.
Plain text first, font later
A Fountain file carries none of it. It is a text file where INT. opens a heading, capitals mark a character and parentheses make a parenthetical. Fountain text can be transformed into something you can print, share, or edit in traditional screenwriting software.
One detail in the Fountain syntax says something about the face too. Underscores are reserved for underlining, because in a screenplay underline and italics are not interchangeable.
The rest of the layout, element by element, is in screenplay format. What separates a spec from a production draft is in screenplay vs script, and the order of work in how to write a screenplay.
Questions
What font is a screenplay written in? Courier, 12 point, 10 pitch, inside margins of at least one inch. Wikipedia gives this as the standard font, with margins of at least one inch; one page is a ballpark estimate of one minute of screen time.
Do I have to set the font and margins myself? Script Slug says most screenwriting apps handle fonts, margins and spacing for you, with defaults and shortcuts for each element. A Fountain file is plain text; Fountain text can be transformed into something you can print, share, or edit in traditional screenwriting software.
Why do screenplays still use a typewriter font? The format exists to make every script uniformly readable and to tell a professional from an amateur, and a single shared face does both. Fountain keeps punctuation plain because the screenplay typographical convention is to emulate a typewriter.