Trade edits with a collaborator

Send a play to a dramaturg, a director or a co-writer, and when it comes back, read what they changed on the page before you decide what stays.

Send the play

Proscenium has no accounts and no shared server. You trade edits by trading the play’s files, and each time a script comes back, Changes shows it marked up against your own.

Check that the status bar says Saved.
Right-click the script in the binder and choose Reveal in Finder (Reveal in File Explorer on Windows).
Send the play’s whole folder. Compressing it first keeps the script, the documents and the .proscenium file together.

Your collaborator can open the folder in their own copy of Proscenium, or open the script’s .fountain file in any text editor. They change the lines they want to change, and leave comments where they have a question.

Ask them to begin each comment with their name, such as [[Sam: does she know this yet?]]. You can then list their comments apart from your own.

Leave that script alone while it is out. Their copy holds the script as you sent it. Anything you write in that script afterward is missing from their copy, so when it returns those words show as cut. Work in a document or another script until it is back.

Bring their copy back in

Ask for the script file: the .fountain file from the play’s folder, with its name unchanged.
In Finder or File Explorer, copy it into your play’s folder and replace your script of the same name. The play can be open or closed.
In Proscenium, choose Changes in the toolbar or press ⌘5Ctrl+5.

The returned script is listed as Changed somewhere else, marked New, and Changes opens on it. Your own text from before it arrived is kept on this computer, so nothing is lost by looking.

If they changed a document as well, such as a character’s notes, copy that file over yours the same way. Each file is listed as its own change.

Read what they changed

The change is drawn beside the list, or under its row in a narrow window. On the Page shows the script in your play’s format, as it now stands:

Struck through: Words they cut. A cut line is put back where it stood, with a line through it.
Underlined: Words they added, including a new line, a new speech or a comment.
A rule in the left margin: Marks each line a change touched, so you can find them by running an eye down the page.
⋯: Unchanged lines left out. Where the next change is in another scene, the act and scene are named beside it.

A line they rewrote a little shows both in place: the old words struck through, the new ones after them. A line they rewrote completely shows the old line whole, then the new one. Previous change and Next change go from one marked place to the next. A character sheet or a note they changed is shown on its own page the same way.

If they saved the script several times before sending it, or a shared folder brought their saves in one after another, the saves are one change. Choose one of its times to see a single save.

Choose Line by Line above the list to see the same change as added and removed lines of the script file. That view includes the title page. Your choice is remembered.

To see their changes inside the whole script, open the script and turn on Changes in text in the toolbar. Their cut words are struck through where they stood and their added words underlined, with a rule in the margin beside each changed line; Previous change and Next change in the toolbar go through them. What you type afterwards is never marked as theirs. Once you have seen it, Show in Script on the change in Changes draws it again.

Keep it or put yours back

Their script is already in the file once it is back, so there is nothing to accept: to keep it, carry on writing.

Revert…: Puts your script back as it was before their copy arrived. Proscenium asks first, and keeps their script in Versions. The row stays in the list, marked put back.

To take some of their edits and not others, use the split button in the toolbar to put Changes beside the script. Change back the lines you do not want; you can select and copy struck-through words from the page. With Changes in text on, a line you have rewritten since keeps the rule in its margin and loses its word marks, so what is still marked is what you have accepted.

Work through their comments

Choose Comments above the script or press ⌘⇧CCtrl+Shift+M. Filter the list to their name to see only their comments, and select one to go to its place in the script. Choose ✓ (Resolve) when you have dealt with it. See Review your comments.

To answer a comment, write your own beside it, beginning with your name, and send the script back the same way. On their computer, your edits arrive as changes for them to read.

Share one folder instead

If you both keep the play in a folder that a sync service shares between you, each save reaches the other person’s computer without sending files. Their edits appear in your Changes as they arrive, and yours in theirs.

Take turns. If you both write in the same script at once, Proscenium keeps both versions and asks which to keep. See Review outside changes and Write across devices.

Each computer keeps its own history. Versions and the list in Changes are stored by Proscenium on the computer where they were made. They do not travel with the folder, so your collaborator does not see your earlier versions, and you do not see theirs.