Migrating from Arc Studio

Arc Studio is built for writing with other people: real-time collaboration, cloud sync across Mac, Windows, iPad and the browser, revision management. Throughline is built for the opposite situation: working focussed by yourself, offline, without an account to manage. Know which one you’re solving for before you switch.

Bringing a project in

Export your script as Fountain from Arc Studio, then import it into Throughline as a new project. Once it’s in, your Characters and Settings have room Fountain never offered: a Want, a Need, and a Flaw on every Character, and a description on every Setting, waiting to be filled.

What you get in Throughline

A development tool with a full screenplay editor attached, rather than a screenplay editor with outlining bolted on. Cast Characters and Settings onto Beat Cards, give every plotline its own emotional Arc with Poles you name yourself, overlay a classic Story Shape to see how yours compares, and scrub a timeline to watch your cast’s relationships form and dissolve Beat by Beat. It’s a one-time purchase, and it runs the same whether you’re on a plane or at your desk.

The trade-off

If you write in a room with other people, hand pages to a producer for live notes, or need your script open on an iPad, Arc Studio does things Throughline doesn’t: there’s no collaboration, no cloud sync, and no mobile app here. If you’re working alone and trying to find the shape of the story before you commit to writing it, that’s what Throughline was built for.

See the full comparison for the rest.