Method Reader

Turn a screenplay PDF into an e-book for your Kindle or other e-reader, or into a script you can edit again (Fountain, .fdx or .osf).

Method Reader is the new name for Screepub, and it is part of the Method Production Suite. Same app, same books: updating from Screepub keeps your settings and your library.

Download for Mac  ·  Other platforms  ·  Take the tour at methodreader.com

You get scripts as PDFs, and an ordinary PDF-to-ebook converter wrecks them: dialogue collapses into paragraphs and character names drift away from their lines. Method Reader reads how the scenes, cues and dialogue actually sit on the page and rebuilds a real e-book from that structure, so it reflows at any text size and still holds its shape. From the same structure it writes the script back out as a file you can edit: Fountain, or .fdx and .osf for screenwriting apps.

What it does

• Drop a PDF, get a clean e-book. Nothing to set up first. A Fountain script (.fountain) or an Open Screenplay Format script (.osf) works the same way, no PDF needed.
• A book to look at from the start. The first time it opens, Method Reader shows Field Station, an invented sample script, as a book, so you can see what it makes before you convert your own. Open Sample in the Help menu brings it back any time, and a switch on the Settings page turns the first-launch sample off. The sample keeps to a folder of its own, outside your library.
• Send it to your reader, straight from the result. Say once what you read on, and one button does the rest: plug in a Kindle and it copies over in the right format, then offers to eject it (beta on Windows and Linux). Every other way to send, and every file type Method Reader makes, is under Other ways.
• Look before you send. A built-in reader shows the script as the device will, and the Settings page changes margins, spacing and page numbers live. "Use these for new scripts" makes your choices the starting point for every script after.
• Built for real scripts. Dual dialogue, revision marks, watermarks, page-break interruptions and offbeat character cues, with bold, italic and underline carried across.
• Get the script back to edit. The same PDF also comes out as a script you can keep writing in: Fountain; .fdx (beta), which most screenwriting apps open; or .osf (beta), an open script format some of them read. It is rebuilt from the page, so revision colors and the exact page breaks stay behind.
• Pictures from the script (beta). Storyboard panels, photos and a designed title card come across into the e-book where they sat, and a title card that opens the script becomes the book's cover. Both are switches on the Settings page. The MOBI, the file for the oldest Kindles, stays text only for now.
• Free and open source. No account, no subscription, nothing uploaded.

Yours to keep

• Free, for good, and open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0; the AZW3 writer is GPL v3, see below). No account and no subscription.
• Nothing is uploaded. Converting happens on your computer and works offline; your script stays on your machine.
• Plain files you can open anywhere, in 20 years: an EPUB 3 book (the standard), and the script as Fountain text, or as .fdx or .osf for screenwriting apps. Nothing writes your script for you: every word in the book is the PDF's own.

Which readers?

What each Kindle file needs. Copying to a Kindle over USB needs nothing installed: Method Reader writes the AZW3 itself (beta: Calibre's own reader opens every one in our tests, and it has not yet been tried on a Kindle). KFX is optional, and looks better: it needs three free tools on your computer (Calibre, Amazon's Kindle Previewer and the KFX Output plugin), and Other ways, on the result screen, lists what is missing and installs the plugin for you. Emailing the EPUB to your Kindle, or sending it with Amazon's Send to Kindle, needs no tools at all and already gets Amazon's own best layout.

How well a Kindle keeps a scene together depends on the file. A script emailed to your Kindle, or copied over USB as KFX, keeps a scene heading and a character name on the same page as the line that follows. AZW3 and MOBI can strand one at the foot of a page, and so can Apple Books. A newer Kindle that never shows up as a drive speaks a protocol your computer does not mount: see Emailing scripts to your Kindle.

Own a Kobo, a tolino or a reMarkable? A five-minute report either way is the most useful thing you can send. On the result screen, that reader's asterisk opens a note ending in It worked and It did not work; press one, or open an issue to say more. A reader that is not on the list goes in My device isn't here on the same screen (beta).

Something came out wrong? You don't need a GitHub account to say so. Choose Help > Report a Bug, or Report a bug on a conversion that failed, write what happened, and press Send by email: your mail app opens a message to hello@methodproduction.com that you can read and change before it goes. No words from your script are sent. A box, off unless you tick it, adds counts of the script's shape (pages, scenes, cues), and the same window can open an issue on GitHub instead.

What beta means here. A feature marked (beta) works in our tests, but has not been tried widely on real devices or apps yet: tell us how it goes.

Install

On a Mac, download Method-Reader-macOS.dmg: the Mac app, signed and notarized by Apple, for Macs with Apple silicon or Intel, macOS 13 or later. It is the file the download button gives you, and it updates itself. The same app runs on Windows and Linux.

On an Intel Mac the same download runs, from 1.0.0. An Intel Mac still on 0.9.0, released under the app's earlier name, Screepub, is offered 1.0.0 as an update the next time it checks.

Every file is on the latest release. SHA256SUMS there covers these five files and every other download on the page (sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing in your downloads folder checks the ones you have). Reports from Windows and Linux are welcome: open an issue. Who has checked what, in full: the verification ledger.

Windows will warn you. The Windows downloads are unsigned, so SmartScreen shows a "publisher unknown" screen the first time: choose More info, then Run anyway.

Sending to a reader is only proven on a Mac. On Windows and Linux, converting is well tested and sending to a device has never been tried on real hardware; a tolino cannot be detected on Windows at all, because Windows gives a drive no name to recognise it by. On Windows and Linux the window does not update itself: download each new version by hand.

There is also a command-line converter for macOS, Linux and Windows: for developers.

If you installed with Homebrew: Method Reader is no longer offered through Homebrew. The app keeps updating itself. The command-line converter Homebrew installed does not, so run brew uninstall method-reader (or brew uninstall screepub) and use the downloads above.

Help build it

If you read or make films: start with an issue labelled help wanted: film knowledge; no code needed. The most useful thing is a report from a reader nobody here owns (a Kobo, a tolino, a reMarkable, or a reader that is not on the list yet; see above), or a script whose layout comes out wrong. Describe the problem in an issue and never attach or quote a real script: an invented page that shows the same problem is enough, and the issue form says how to make one.

If you write code: start with an issue labelled good first issue. cd rust && cargo test --workspace checks everything, and CONTRIBUTING.md covers the rest.

Method Reader is part of the Method Production Suite: free, open tools for making films, from the first draft to the last shoot day.

Your script stays on your machine

Scripts are confidential. Method Reader is built accordingly.

• No AI, no machine learning. The conversion is ordinary code that measures where text sits on the page and applies screenplay layout rules.
• Converting never touches the network, on any platform. Your PDF is read from disk and the e-book is written back to disk.
• No accounts, no telemetry, no analytics. Nothing tracks usage or reports crashes.

Method Reader uses no network except checking for updates, which you can turn off. On a Mac, two minutes after the window opens and every six hours after that, it fetches one small file, latest.json, from Method Reader's releases on GitHub. The request carries the app's name and version (method-reader-update/ and the version number) and nothing else: no account, no identifier, nothing about your scripts. GitHub sees your internet address, as any website's host does. When a newer version is there, the window downloads it, checks its signature, and says Update ready, restart to update; nothing is replaced until you restart. To turn the checks off, uncheck Help > Check for Updates Automatically; Help > Check for Updates… still checks once when you ask. If you said no to the old once-a-day question, they stay off. On Windows and Linux the window neither checks nor updates itself.

Otherwise it reaches the network only when you ask it to:

• A docked reMarkable: the upload goes over USB to your own tablet, not the internet.
• Pages it opens in your browser: GitHub for Report a Bug and the User Guide, methodreader.com and methodproduction.com from the Help menu, Amazon's Send to Kindle page and its Kindle settings page, and the Calibre and Kindle Previewer download pages.
• Installing the KFX plugin: fetched from Calibre's own plugin index.
• Method Reader's request service, only when you press Send in My device isn't here or answer It worked or It did not work beside an asterisk. It carries the device's name (or which reader and your answer), the app's version and your platform, and nothing else. The service stores only counts and the day: never your address or anything made from it. Cloudflare, which runs it, sees your address as any website's host does, and uses it to allow five requests a minute.

On a Mac the result screen can also hand a book to another app and stop there: Amazon's Send to Kindle app, Apple Books (which syncs through iCloud if you use it), or a Mail message that goes nowhere until you send it.

If you email a script to your @kindle.com address, Amazon receives it and their terms apply. That's your call, and Method Reader never makes it for you. The source is right here to check any of this.

What Method Reader isn't

• Not a screenwriting app. It reads scripts that already exist.
• Not a coverage or analysis tool. No summaries, no notes, no AI.
• Not a PDF viewer. It makes an e-book you read on a device built for reading.

Coding agents

method-reader mcp is an MCP server, so coding agents and other MCP clients can work with your scripts through typed tools: look inside a screenplay PDF (pages, scenes, speaking characters), read one page as plain text, write it out as a .fountain and a .fdx to keep editing, and make an EPUB, AZW3 or MOBI. Every tool runs the same conversion as the app and the command line. It only touches files inside the folders you give it, takes absolute paths only, and never replaces a file unless asked. Nothing is sent anywhere.

It comes with the command-line converter. Claude Code:

claude mcp add method-reader -- method-reader mcp --root ~/Scripts

Claude Desktop, in claude_desktop_config.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "method-reader": { "command": "/path/to/method-reader", "args": ["mcp", "--root", "/Users/you/Scripts"] } } }

Every tool and the safety rules: docs/mcp.md.

For developers

Method Reader is a PDF to Fountain to EPUB3 pipeline written in Rust, as one Cargo workspace. The window is native (egui, with AccessKit for screen readers) and has the engine linked in. The command line, the library layout and the architecture are in docs/developers.md; setting up and sending a change is in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Independent

Method Reader is an independent project by Method Production Suite Team and the Method Reader contributors, not affiliated with or endorsed by the makers of any e-reader, reading app or screenwriting app it works with. Kindle, Kobo, tolino, reMarkable, Apple Books, Calibre and Final Draft are named only to say which readers and file formats it works with; their trademarks belong to their owners.

License

Method Reader's code is licensed under the MIT License or the Apache License 2.0, at your option: see LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE. Use any part of it in your own project, open or closed.

One crate is the exception: the AZW3 (Kindle) writer, rust/crates/sp-azw3, is ported from calibre and stays under calibre's licence, the GNU GPL v3 (LICENSE-GPL-3.0). The PDF reader, the parser, and the Fountain and Final Draft writers don't use it. Because the command line and the app contain it, the released programs as a whole are distributed under the GPL v3.

Bundled third-party components are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md, which also ships inside the apps.

Copyright © 2026 Method Production Suite Team and the Method Reader contributors.