Sources of FDR Problems
Frequent FDR Opening Issues
Final Draft is Not Installed
You encounter an error message such as "%%os%% Can't Open FDR Files" when trying to open your FDR. Generally, this is experienced in %%os%% because Final Draft isn't installed on your PC. Because your operating system doesn't know what to do with this file, you won't be able to open it by double-clicking.
Tip: If you don't have Final Draft installed, and you know of another program to open your FDR file, you can try opening it by selecting from the programs listed under "Show Apps".
Wrong Version of Final Draft is Installed
Your Final Draft Document file is incompatible with Final Draft because you might have the wrong version installed. Installing the latest version of Final Draft from Final Draft is recommended. Most of the time your Final Draft Document file was created by a newer Final Draft than what you have installed.
Tip: You can sometimes get hints about the right program version by right-clicking on the FDR file, selecting "Properties", and looking at the version information.
Ultimately, most of the difficulties opening FDR files are due to having the wrong version of Final Draft installed.
Other FDR File Opening Causes
In the majority of cases, installing the right version of Final Draft will resolve your issue. There can be other issues - unrelated to software - preventing you from opening FDR files. These issues include:
- Windows Registry FDR file paths that are incorrect
- Unintentional removal of the description of the FDR file inside the Windows Registry
- Partial installation of Final Draft that did not fully complete
- Something has caused file corruption of your FDR
- Past or present virus infection has affected your FDR
- Device drivers for FDR-related hardware are out-of-date
- Windows cannot load your Final Draft Document file due to insufficient resources (eg. RAM)
Quiz: Which file extension is the most widely used on the World Wide Web?
That's Correct!
Not only is HTML still the "gold standard" file extension of the web, it is also the oldest and still the most widely-used format for serving webpages.
Close, but not quite...
Not only is HTML still the "gold standard" file extension of the web, it is also the oldest and still the most widely-used format for serving webpages.