Fountain is a free and open-source plain text markup language that makes it possible to write a formatted screenplay in any text editor, on any device, using any software that edits text files. Fountain (which got its name from Fountain Avenue, the famous Hollywood shortcut) was inspired by John Gruber’s Markdown, and has its origins in two different and non-related projects: Scrippets, developed by John August and Nima Yousefi, and Screenplay Markdown, developed by Stu Maschwitz.