How to use Stream

Getting started

Sign in with your email (we send a one-time link) or with Google. A new account opens on All projects — every project as a folder. Choose New script, New manuscript or New project, or New season for a series with a season bible.

Everything saves as you type. The word beside the title says where it stands: Edited while you write, then Saving and Saved — or Save failed, if the connection dropped.

The grid button at the top left (beside the Library) brings back All projects from anywhere. The Library button (⌘1) opens the project you’re in: its scripts, treatment, bible and notes.

Writing a screenplay

Stream writes Fountain, plain text that knows it’s a screenplay. You just type:

• Scene headings start with INT. or EXT. — INT. DINER - NIGHT.
• Characters are a name in capitals on its own line; the dialogue goes on the next line.
• Parentheticals: on the empty line under a character, press Tab.
• Transitions end in TO: — CUT TO:.
• Acts and sequences: # is an act, ## a sequence, ### a beat. = starts a synopsis.

The bottom bar shows what the line you’re on is — click it to change it. ⇧⌘S switches between Writer (the page) and Syntax (the Fountain marks showing).

Select text and a strip appears over it: the kind of line, bold ⌘B, italic ⌘I, underline ⇧⌘U, alignment, and Clear red.

Title page: the page icon at the top. Fill in the title, credit, author, draft and contact; it prints first.

Page, Board, Outline

At the top: Page is the script; Board (⇧⌘B) lays the same script out as cards — acts and sequences as columns, scenes as cards. Drag a card and the script moves with it. Cards can be tagged with a colour.

Outline (⇧⌘O) is the script’s shape down the left. The buttons at its top choose which levels show: sequences, scenes, beats, sluglines. Click a line to go there; drag one to move it.

Side by side (⌥⌘\) opens a column beside the document — notes, the treatment, or a second script. In the Library, ⌥-click any script, treatment or note to put it beside the one you’re in — another episode’s treatment beside the pilot, say.

Season bibles

A season is a project: one folder, an episode script each, and one bible for the whole season. Make one with New season on All projects, or open Bible at the top in any project (⇧⌘E).

The bible is written the way scripts are, one level out: # is an episode, ## an act, ### a sequence, = a synopsis on any of them. Writing above the first episode is the bible’s front — premise, tone, characters.

It has three views: Board (the season as a wall, episodes as columns), Document (the bible as a page), and Scripts (what’s actually been written). Breaking out an episode writes its acts into that episode’s script — once, when you ask; nothing syncs back.

Treatments, manuscripts and notes

Treatment (⇧⌘T): the film in prose, beside its script. Manuscript: a book’s page instead of a screenplay’s, with chapters. Notes (⇧⌘N): a project’s notes, in folders, over or beside the script.

In all three, ⌥⌘1 ⌥⌘2 ⌥⌘3 make a title, section and subsection; ⇧⌘7 a bullet list; ⇧⌘9 a quotation.

Links: type @ or [[ to link to a note, a script or a scene by name. Click a link to follow it; renaming something keeps its links.

Drafts — going back

Stream keeps drafts of every document as you work. Open Drafts (the clock at the top, or ⇧⌘H) to see them: Name this draft marks where you are (“Network notes”, “Shooting draft”), and any draft can be restored — restoring is itself saved, so you can always come back.

Revisions (⇧⌘R, or > Red in ⌘K): everything you write next is red, as a sketch, until you turn it off. Clear the red from a selection with the strip over it, or all of it from ⌘K.

Finding things

⌘K (or ⌘F) searches the whole project and the document you’re in; ⌥⌘F opens it with Replace. Start with @ to jump to a document, or > to run any command by name — every command Stream has is listed there.

⌘[ and ⌘] go back and forward through what you’ve had open.

Writing with other people

The person icon at the top (Add people) shows who’s in the project. On Pro, invite anyone by email as Can edit or Can read — they join free. Everyone in a document sees each other’s carets in their own colours, live.

Anyone can leave a project they were invited to; the owner can remove people or change their role at any time.

Bringing your own AI

Stream on the web doesn’t have an AI of its own — you connect yours, and it works in your scripts with your permission. Its words arrive in its own colour, so you always know what you wrote. Connecting is free.

• Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, with the address on your Account page.
• ChatGPT: on chatgpt.com, Settings → Apps & Connectors → Advanced → turn on Developer mode, then Create, with the same address. In a chat, turn it on from the + menu.

You approve each app on a Stream page, and can disconnect it any time from your Account.

Export, print, and your work

The share button at the top: PDF to read, PDF with red kept to revise, Final Draft (.fdx) to work on elsewhere, and Print with or without the title page (⌘P, ⇧⌘P).

Your Account page downloads everything as a .zip — every project, draft and note, laid out the way the Stream Mac app keeps them. Coming from the Mac app? Bring your projects over.

Back up to Dropbox from your Account: everything you own — scripts, treatments, bibles, notes, every draft — copied into Apps/Stream in your own Dropbox, laid out as a Stream folder the Mac app can open. Changes follow within about ten minutes. Stream only ever sees that one folder, and never deletes anything in it, so something you delete or rename in Stream stays in your backup.

Your scripts are encrypted at rest with a key for each project, and backed up. Nobody at Upperstate reads them, and they’re never used to train AI.

Plans, appearance, help

Free holds 3 scripts. Pro — $8 a month or $72 a year — is unlimited scripts and inviting people. Change or cancel any time from your Account; your scripts always stay yours.

Day, night or system: the half-moon in the bottom bar. Key commands: the keyboard in the bottom bar, or ⌘/.

Something wrong? The bug in the bottom bar sends a report straight to us — add a screenshot if you can. Or write to stream@upperstate.tv.