Marked SPMD IconI’ve been working with Jonathan Poritsky, Stu Maschwitz and Martin Vilcans on bringing Stu’s Screenplay Markdown proposal to Marked. It may eventually be incorporated directly into Marked, but for now we have a working solution as a custom processor/custom CSS combination.

Basically, Screenplay Markdown (SPMD) lets screenwriters use a Markdown-like syntax while working on their screenplay, and have it converted into standard screenplay formatting. Martin created Screenplain, and we’ve been customizing it to work with Marked’s specific needs. Jonathan worked hard on the CSS, and I just pulled it all together. I didn’t know much about screenplay formatting going into this (and Martin and Jonathan handled most of the details), but I’ve learned a lot about the somewhat archaic style rules involved. It was a fun process.

Print output is very important in screenwriting and we’ve done our best to work toward consistent output. Marked uses a webkit element to display output, though, and printing from a web page is always less than predictable. As I’m able to improve print output and options in Marked, this will get better.

The details are available on the Marked support site, where you can download the package and find complete installation instructions. You can also download it directly at this link and find instructions in the included README file. More information on Jonathan’s site as well.