Appendix A — Supported File Formats
This appendix lists every file format Scene Cards can read or write, organised by task. For step-by-step import procedures see the relevant chapter.
A.1 Files You Import Into Scene Cards
Scripts
| Format | Extension | What is extracted |
|---|---|---|
| PDF (text-based) | .pdf |
Scene headings, scene numbers, location sluglines, action/dialogue text, revision colour |
| FDX (Final Draft) | .fdx |
Scene headings, scene numbers, location sluglines, revision colour |
Both formats are accepted by the same importer (§5.1). The PDF must be a proper text export from a screenwriting application — a scanned PDF will not yield scene headings (§5.1.1).
Revision colours are detected from the PDF page colour or the FDX
revision attribute and mapped to standard names (goldenrod, blue,
pink, green, etc.).
One-Liner / Schedule
| Format | Extension | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| PDF (text-based or image-based) | .pdf |
Text extraction via PDFKit; Vision OCR fallback for image-based PDFs |
Scene Cards accepts PDFs produced by Movie Magic Scheduling, EP Scheduling, and similar strip-board applications. If the PDF is image-rendered (vector output that cannot be selected as text), Vision OCR runs automatically and an orange badge appears in Schedule mode (§9.4.4).
See §9.1 for the import procedure.
Sound Reports
Scene Cards parses sound reports from three recorder families. Reports from other recorders can be attached to a shoot day as unread files (§10.1).
| Recorder | Format | Extension | How scenes are matched |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sound Devices | .pdf |
Episode and scene encoded in filename: {ep}{scene}S{slate}T{take} e.g. 1329S142T01 |
|
| Sound Devices | CSV | .csv |
Scene column in the export table |
| Zaxcom Nomad | .pdf |
Scene and take encoded in filename: {scene}T{take} e.g. 27T002 |
|
| Zaxcom (slate-based) | .pdf |
Takes named by slate number (1049T1); scenes resolved from production numbers in the Notes column |
|
| Aaton Cantar | .pdf |
Slt column carries the scene reference; date from MM-DD-YY filename suffix |
Wild tracks (Sound Devices): filename pattern {ep}{scene}WTT{take},
e.g. 447WTT01 = ep 4, scene 47.
Wild tracks (Zaxcom): filename pattern {scene}TWT{n},
e.g. 30TWT1.
See §10.2 for the import procedure and §10.5 for the matching logic.
Camera and Continuity Reports
Camera and continuity PDFs are stored in the document package (§18.8) and can be opened from the Schedule day header. Several formats are also parsed into card data:
| Type | Format | Extension | Parsing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Camera report (ZoeLog) | .pdf |
Per-take entries (lens, stop, filters, shutter, FPS, notes); per-scene pages filed into the reference carousel | |
| Camera report (other) | .pdf |
Attach-only | |
| Continuity sheet | .pdf |
Per-scene pages filed into the reference carousel; “Shot on Day” claims reschedule cards |
See §10.2.2–§10.2.3 for details.
Day-Level Documents
Call sheets and production essentials are also attach-only.
| Type | Format | Extension |
|---|---|---|
| Call sheet | .pdf |
|
| Essentials | .pdf |
See §10.4 for attaching these documents.
Images
Images are used for hero stills (§7) and as reference files (§8).
| Format | Extension(s) | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| JPEG | .jpg .jpeg |
Hero stills, references |
| PNG | .png |
Hero stills, references |
| HEIC / HEIF | .heic .heif |
Hero stills, references |
| TIFF | .tiff .tif |
Hero stills, references |
| GIF | .gif |
References |
| WebP | .webp |
References |
| BMP | .bmp |
References |
| RAW (Canon) | .cr2 |
References |
| RAW (Nikon) | .nef |
References |
| RAW (Sony) | .arw |
References |
| RAW (generic) | .raw |
References |
ⓘ Note — RAW formats can be attached as reference files and previewed via Quick Look on macOS, but Scene Cards generates the thumbnail from the JPEG preview embedded in the RAW file, not from the raw sensor data.
Reference Files
Reference files (§8) accept a broad range of types. The file picker filters to common categories, but any file the OS can handle can be added by dragging it directly onto the carousel.
| Category | Common formats |
|---|---|
| Images | See Images table above |
| Documents | PDF, Word (.docx), Pages, RTF, plain text, Markdown |
| Spreadsheets | Excel (.xlsx), Numbers, CSV |
| Presentations | PowerPoint (.pptx), Keynote |
| Video | MP4, MOV, M4V |
| Audio | MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV, AIFF |
| Folders | Any folder — copied as a subfolder into the card’s reference folder |
Files are stored verbatim in Media/references/ (§8.7); Scene Cards
does not transcode or alter them.
A.2 Files Scene Cards Produces
| Output | Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Document | .scenecards package |
FileWrapper directory; contains payload.json + Media/ folder. See §18 for the full specification. |
| Printed wall | PDF (system) | Generated via the OS print dialog — ⌘P (🍎) or Print… (📐). A4 portrait, 2 columns × 3 rows per page. See §11. |
Scene Cards does not export a scene list, schedule, or metadata to CSV,
JSON, or XML. All structured data lives inside the .scenecards package.
A.3 Quick Reference
| You want to import… | Accepted formats |
|---|---|
| A script | PDF, FDX |
| A one-liner strip board | |
| Sound reports | Sound Devices PDF, Sound Devices CSV, Zaxcom PDF (Nomad and slate-based), Aaton Cantar PDF |
| Camera / continuity / call sheets | PDF — ZoeLog camera and continuity sheets are parsed; others attach-only |
| A day folder of mixed reports | PDF / CSV, types auto-detected (🍎 File → Import Reports from Folder…, §10.1.2) |
| A still for a card | JPEG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF, and others (see §A.1) |
| Any other production file | Drag to the reference carousel — any format accepted |