Importing a script you already wrote

If you've already written your script — a transcript, a screenplay, a draft from another tool — you can bring it in word for word. This is the right path whenever the exact wording matters.

Import keeps your words; generating replaces them

This is the most important thing on this page, and it's easy to get wrong:

Import copies your dialogue in exactly as written. Nothing rewrites it. Punctuation, names, references, phrasing — all preserved.
Asking Sidekick to "turn my draft into a script" is a generation. The AI re-authors your text: it condenses, rephrases, splits lines across panels and drops some entirely. That's the right tool when you want help writing, and the wrong one when you need your exact words.

If your text has to stay as written — training material, legal or compliance content, a licensed adaptation, dialogue you've already had approved — use Import.

How to import

Open the issue and switch to the Script view.
In the Tools rail, click Import script. (Or just ask Sidekick — "I already have a script, can I bring it in?" — and it opens the same window.)
The window walks you through three steps. Step one gives you a Copy prompt button: paste that prompt plus your script into ChatGPT (or any assistant) and it converts your text into the format ComicInk reads. If you already have that file, skip ahead.
Paste the result into the box, or drag in a .json file. It's checked as you type; if something's off you'll see what, with a Fix with AI button.
You'll then be asked how any new characters and assets map to the ones already in your comic — match each to an existing one, create it, or skip it. Nothing is applied until you confirm.

New characters you create this way generate a reference portrait, which costs credits like any character. The script text itself costs nothing to import.

Importing replaces the whole script

Import replaces every page in the issue — it isn't a merge or an append. If the issue already has writing or artwork, you'll be asked to confirm first, and told how many pages are affected and how many are already drawn.

A checkpoint is saved before the replace, so if it wasn't what you wanted you can restore the previous script from Version history. Pressing ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z) straight after an import also undoes it in one step.

Artwork isn't restored by that. Pages that were already drawn keep their old images, which will no longer match the new script — regenerate them at the usual cost.

Writing or editing in ComicInk instead

If you don't have a script yet, you don't need any of this:

The Advanced Script Editor is a full document editor — every page and panel, editable in place, with autosave and undo.
Sidekick can write a script from scratch, rewrite a page, or restructure an issue ("split this into three acts", "cut this from 12 pages to 8"), and can also copy a script between your own projects — see Sidekick across projects.

Adapting a full manuscript

If what you have is a finished novel or manuscript rather than a script, that's a different feature: point Sidekick at a PDF with Attach a book, or pick Book to Comic when starting a new comic. Note this is an adaptation — it condenses prose into comic pages and does not preserve your text word for word. See converting a book PDF into a comic series.

Exporting

Downloading the script as a JSON file isn't currently available in the editor. Import is.

Updated on: 17/08/2026

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