Index Cards

Index Cards

The Story Architect (Index Cards) mode gives you a bird's-eye view of your screenplay's structure as a grid of scene cards, just like pinning index cards on a corkboard.

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Entering Index Cards Mode

Type /ic in the editor to switch to Index Cards mode.

Each scene heading in your script becomes a card. Cards display:

• The scene heading (e.g., INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY)
• The synopsis (if you've written one with = ... after the heading)

Cards are laid out in a 3-column grid, giving you a visual overview of your screenplay's flow.

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Navigation

Shortcut	Action
Up / Down	Move up or down by one row (3 cards)
Left / Right	Move to the adjacent card

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Editing Cards

Press Enter on any card to open the spacious Card Details & Outline Editor Modal:

1. Structured Layout: Displays the scene or section Heading at the top, followed by each individual Synopsis block as a vertically stacked form.
2. Field Navigation: Use Up / Down arrow keys to highlight the desired field.
3. Editing a Field: Press Enter to edit the selected field, type your changes, and press Enter again to save. Press Esc to cancel the edit.
4. Multi-Synopsis Management:
   • Press s to add a brand new blank synopsis field directly under the selection.
   • Press d to delete the selected synopsis block.
5. Closing the Modal: Press Esc while not actively writing to close the modal.

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Reordering Scenes

Hold Shift and use Left / Right arrows to swap cards sequentially:

Shortcut	Action
Shift+Left	Move/swap the selected card to the left (previous position)
Shift+Right	Move/swap the selected card to the right (next position)

When you actively move a card using these shortcuts, the selected card is visually highlighted with a bold Thick Border and a glowing warning orange/yellow color, along with an explicit [MOVING] badge next to the scene title.

Swapping cards moves the actual scene content in your script, not just the visual position.

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Managing Cards

Shortcut	Action
n	Add a new card (Scene) after the selection
Shift+N	Add a new Section after the selection
Delete / Backspace	Remove the selected card
Ctrl+Z	Undo the last operation
Ctrl+Shift+Z	Redo

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Visual Organization

You can explicitly color individual cards by adding a Fountain-Markup#Scene-Coloring tag to the scene in the editor:

[[sceneclr: blue]]

The card in the grid will be tinted with the specified color, allowing you to visually group scenes by storyline, character arc, or production state.

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Using Commands

Press / inside Index Cards mode to open the command palette. You can run any command (e.g., /theme, /w, /snap) without leaving the card view.

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Exiting

Press Esc or q to return to the editor. Fount will jump your cursor to the scene heading of the card you had selected, so you land exactly where you were looking.

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Next: X‐Ray Mode — Analyze your script's pacing and character distribution.