trelby.org

What It Is

Trelby is a completely free, open-source, cross-platform screenwriting application. Its official site emphasizes that it is simple, fast, and able to produce identical output consistently across different platforms. It is not positioned as a general-purpose word processor, but rather as a formatting-focused editor built specifically for film and TV scriptwriting.

Core Features and Compatibility

Its core strength is the screenplay editor: it enforces proper script formatting and pagination, offers autocomplete and spell checking, and supports draft view, WYSIWYG mode, and full-screen mode. Features useful for screenwriters include reports for scenes, locations, characters, and dialogue, as well as script version comparison for reviewing and tracking changes. In terms of writing resources, it includes a database of more than 200,000 character names from different countries. Compatibility is strong: it can import Final Draft XML, Celtx, Fountain, Adobe Story, Fade In Pro, and other formats, and export to PDF, HTML, RTF, FDX, Fountain, and more, making it suitable for moving between different screenwriting tools.

Licensing, Pricing, and Collaboration

Trelby is licensed under the GPL and is free software. The main text does not mention any subscription, one-time purchase, or commercial edition, so it offers excellent value for money. For collaboration, the official site does not describe real-time multi-user editing, cloud sync, or permission management. However, its PDF generator supports custom watermarks, which can be used to track shared files. Project communication and bug reporting are mainly handled through the GitHub issue tracker, following a typical open-source community support model.

Pros, Cons, and Best-Fit Users

Its advantages are that it is free and open source, focused on screenplay formatting, supports a wide range of import and export formats, and offers highly configurable PDF output. The drawbacks, based on the available information, are the lack of modern cloud collaboration, team review workflows, and commercial SLAs; support depends on maintainers and the community. It is well suited to independent screenwriters, student creators, short film or film/TV project writers, and users who need to convert formats such as Final Draft.

Access in China and Alternatives

The official content does not provide information about access from mainland China, a Chinese interface, or local payment options, so access status is unknown. Since it is free, payment is not a major issue. If you need a more mature commercial ecosystem or collaboration features, you may want to compare it with Final Draft, Fade In Pro, Celtx, or Fountain-based writing tools.