Keep the words in action and the pattern consistent
Action margins signal that the audience sees information rather than hears spoken dialogue. A short, repeated label lets the eye recognize every later message quickly.
Put readable on-screen messages in action, identify the sender when needed, and use one consistent pattern instead of disguising silent text as spoken dialogue.
Direct answer
Write a text message as visible information in action unless a voice actually speaks it. Introduce the device or notification, identify the sender, and present the exact words the audience must read. Labels such as ON SCREEN, TEXT FROM ELI, or ELI'S TEXT are all workable when used consistently.
On the page
INT. LAST TRAIN - NIGHT
Mara's phone lights her face.
TEXT FROM ELI: Don't get off at Harbor.
She types, deletes, then sends:
MARA'S TEXT: Too late.
Evidence weight
Action margins signal that the audience sees information rather than hears spoken dialogue. A short, repeated label lets the eye recognize every later message quickly.
Writers use bold, italics, centered text, bubbles, or simple labels to separate messages visually. Those are presentation choices, not universal semantic elements. Clarity and consistency matter more than imitating a specific phone interface on the page.
Not one rigid template
A very short message can sit in the same action paragraph as the notification when that reads cleanly and the exact screen presentation is unimportant.
Place the label and message on their own action lines when the wording is a story beat or several exchanges need to scan quickly.
Use dialogue only when a character or synthetic voice actually reads the message aloud. The visual text may still need an action line if the audience also sees it.
Reader and handoff friction
Choose for the recipient
Prefer a simple action-based pattern that remains legible in PDF and does not depend on color, a custom font, or a device-shaped graphic.
If the exact interface, timing, or language becomes a playback-graphics requirement, the production can add design and shot detail without changing the submission draft's underlying story information.
In Plot, write the message label and its words as Action and keep Dialogue for words someone says aloud. The exchange reads the same in the editor, the PDF, and the FDX, so every reader sees the texts the way you wrote them.
Asked next
Only when a voice actually reads them aloud. A silent message the audience reads on screen belongs in action; putting it under a character cue tells the reader somebody is speaking.
Introduce the phone once, then give each message its own action line with a short, repeated label such as TEXT FROM ELI or MARA'S TEXT. The consistent label lets a reader scan the exchange without a drawn phone interface.
Pick one pattern per device and keep it. SUPER usually means words laid over the picture, like a location card; mixing it with TEXT and INSERT for the same phone makes the reader stop and decode your convention.
Action
The descriptive prose of a screenplay — what the audience sees and hears, written in present tense. Also called description.
INSERT
A brief cutaway to a detail the audience must read or notice — a letter, phone screen, photograph, or object — usually written as INSERT followed by what we see.
Superimpose
Text or graphics laid over the picture -- titles, dates, locations, captions. On the page, commonly written as SUPER: or SUPERIMPOSE: followed by the overlay copy.
Browse the screenplay formatting reference
Rendered examples and accepted variations for common screenplay situations
Phone calls & intercut
Establish what the audience sees and hears, then use clear scene headings or an INTERCUT instruction so a phone conversation stays easy to picture.
V.O. vs O.S.
Use O.S. for a speaker who belongs to the current scene but is outside the frame; use V.O. when the voice comes from outside the scene's immediate physical action.
Inserts, screens & written material
Put the exact words the audience must read in action, and use an INSERT only when the change in visual emphasis is itself important.