PowerCue User Guide

Getting started

Requirements. An Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, and a microphone for voice following (the built-in mic works fine; any USB mic or audio interface works better). On first Follow, macOS asks for microphone and speech recognition permission. Follow uses both only to track your place in the script, on-device. Recording with PowerCue Pro asks for more: see Permissions, limits and good practice.

The idea. PowerCue is a teleprompter with the operator built in. You write or import a script, style the prompter, and then either speak (Follow mode listens and scrolls with you) or let it roll on a timer (Play mode). The spoken words light up karaoke-style, an on-screen timer keeps you honest, and the whole prompter can flip for beam-splitter glass. With PowerCue Pro the same app also records the take: your camera, your voice and, if you want, your screen.

Take the tour. On first launch PowerCue offers a one-minute guided tour: coach marks that point at the real controls, from the script editor to voice following to mirror output. Skip it any time, and replay it whenever you like from Help → Take the Tour. The rest of this manual is the long version.

The layout. The main window has two modes, switched at the top: Edit shows the script editor on the left and a live prompter preview on the right (the divider between them drags). Prompter shows the same page the way the prompter shows it: a black page, the prompter's text color and the prompter's line breaks, with screen directions hidden (the eye button under the preview shows them). You can still type and edit in it. The Open Prompter Window button in the toolbar opens the prompter in a window of its own, which you can move to any display. While that window is open, the same button reads Close Prompter Window. It opens by itself on first launch so you can see both sides at once. Beside it are Floating Prompter (see The Floating Prompter) and New Recording… (see Recording with PowerCue Pro). In a narrow window New Recording shrinks to a dot, then the two window buttons to their icons. At the right end of the bar stand two small buttons for the Prompter Window as your output, full screen and blackout: see Full screen and Blackout.

Tooltips. Rest the pointer on any button, switch, menu or slider and a tooltip says what it does, with its keyboard shortcut where it has one.

Everything stays in sync. The preview, the Prompter Window and the Floating Prompter are the same prompter: scroll any of them and the others follow, start following or playing anywhere and all of them move in lock-step.

The status bar under the script shows the number of words you will read (screen directions are not counted) and, while the script has screen directions, whether they show on the prompter. At its right stand the microphone and the language voice following uses, so you see both before you press Follow. During the trial the days left stand there too, with Buy License… and Enter License…. In a narrow window the bar shortens itself.

Settings (⌘,) holds the app-level choices in four tabs: Follow (the microphone and the language voice following listens for), Companion (the link to your iPhone and iPad, and the look each device shows), Updates & License and Help. The gear at the bottom right of the edit window opens and closes it. Everything about how the prompter looks lives inline under the preview, where you can watch it change.

Projects & autosave

PowerCue autosaves your script from the first word, even before you save a project file. To keep scripts organized:

• File → New Project… (⌘N) asks for a name and a place, then starts a fresh script in that file.
• File → Save (⌘S) and Save As… (⇧⌘S) write a project file wherever you choose. Once saved, the project autosaves to that file from then on.
• File → Open Project… (⌘O) and Open Recent bring scripts back; the recents list keeps your latest projects one click away.
• File → Revert to Version… lists automatic snapshots of the current project, taken as you work. Restoring one is itself preceded by a snapshot, so you can always come back.

Two copies of the same script. If another app or another Mac (a shared or synced folder) changes a script while PowerCue has it open, PowerCue never writes over those changes. Your version goes into a copy beside it, named like "Show (PowerCue copy 2026-09-26 11.04)", PowerCue carries on in the copy, and a note says so. If a save fails (the folder went offline, the disk is full), PowerCue keeps your changes in Revert to Version, tries again every few seconds, and asks before you quit or open another project while the file is still behind.

Writing & formatting

The editor is a real dark-mode word processor built for scripts:

• Styling: bold ⌘B, italic ⌘I, underline ⌘U, strikethrough, a typeface from the Aa menu (six to pick from, and every installed font under All Fonts), and the full macOS Fonts panel from the button beside it (⌘T).
• Color: the color swatch in the formatting bar opens the Colors window and colors the selected words; the eraser next to it returns them to the default. Word colors show on the prompter too.
• Highlighter: the highlighter button next to the eraser puts a color block behind the selected words (yellow, green, cyan, pink, orange, purple or red) with dark text on it; Remove Highlight takes it off. Blocks hug their words, show on the prompter and the companion, and stay readable after you have read past them (the block dims, the text stays dark).
• Alignment: left, center, right and justified, per paragraph.
• Zoom: ⌘− and ⌘= make the page larger or smaller. Where the editor has the room, the lines stay as they are at every zoom. In a narrow editor the script wraps to its width at your zoom, so no line is cut off at the right. The prompter never changes with it. Zoom goes from 50% to 300% in steps of 25. The percentage between the two zoom buttons shows the zoom; click it to go back to 100%.
• Find: ⌘F searches the view you are in; the editor and the prompter each have their own search field. In the Prompter Window, ⌘F or the magnifying glass opens Find in a band under the controls, with Find Next; Esc closes it.
• Paste: pasted text takes the styling of the text around the cursor, never the fonts and colors of wherever it came from, so a paragraph from a web page or a document lands in the look of your script. It never picks up a screen direction or a highlight from the words beside it: only its own [square brackets] and its own Markdown marks become directions or highlights (see Word, Markdown & export). Replacing everything (⌘A, then ⌘V) starts from the plain look of a new script.
• When the script column is narrow (a small window, or the markers panel and the preview taking room), the formatting bar moves what does not fit into the … menu at its end, one group at a time. The marker, screen direction and timer buttons and the zoom always stay in the bar.
• Edit while prompting: the script stays editable while the prompter runs. Corrections re-sync the voice tracking automatically.
• Edit right in the prompter: double-click a word in the preview, the Prompter Window or the Floating Prompter and change it there. See Editing in the prompter.

Screen directions

Camera notes, b-roll cues, wardrobe reminders: anything the reader should not read out loud. Select the text and press ⌘D (or the crossed-out eye button in the formatting bar). The text turns teal in the editor and is treated specially everywhere else:

• Hidden from the prompter by default, so the read stays clean. The flag and eye buttons under the prompter can show directions and markers on the prompter when you want them.
• Ignored by voice following, so a direction never confuses your place in the script.
• Exported to Word with the script, so the production copy keeps its notes.
• Not counted: the word count in the status bar under the script counts only the words you read, and a note beside it says whether directions show on the prompter.

Press ⌘D on a direction again to turn it back into spoken script.

Jump markers

Markers are numbered flags you drop through the script to move around it fast, mid-take.

• Insert one at the cursor with the flag button or ⌘M. With text selected, the marker goes in front of it and the text stays. Markers number themselves 1, 2, 3… and renumber automatically as you add or remove them.
• The margin badges show each marker's number beside its paragraph in the editor. Click a badge to jump the prompter straight there. Drag a badge, in the margin or in the text, to move the marker: the caret shows where it will land, Escape cancels.
• Name a marker by double-clicking its badge (or a row in the markers panel, or right-click the row). The name shows in the panel and when you hover the badge; the badge in the text keeps just the number so the words around it stay put. Names are saved with the script.
• The markers panel (sidebar button at the left of the top bar) lists every marker with its name and a snippet of the text that follows it; click an entry to jump both the editor and the prompter. The row whose section the prompter is showing is highlighted, so you always know where the reader is. With a run time set, each row also shows the estimated time at which the prompter reaches that marker. Drag the panel's right edge to make it wider or narrower.
• The panel opens whether the script has markers or not. Before the first marker it says what markers are and how to add one. While the script has no marker yet and has lines that start with #, ## or ### and a space, the panel offers Make Markers from the # Headings, with their number: one click turns them all into named markers, and ⌘Z takes it back. The panel's header shows how many markers the script has, and holds two buttons for the panel's text size, Add Marker (a marker at the cursor) and a close button.
• Rearrange the script from the panel: drag a row up or down and its whole section moves with it, the marker and everything up to the next marker (right-click, Move Up or Move Down does the same one step at a time). One undo step puts it back.
• Under the prompter, previous and next buttons step through markers, and the number box jumps to any marker by typing its number and pressing Return. Beside it, a readout such as 03 / 12 shows which marker's section the prompter is in and how many markers the script has.
• By voice: while Follow listens, say “PowerCue, take me to Marker 3” and the prompter jumps there, also while another app is in front. See Jump to a marker by voice.
• Markers are hidden on the prompter by default (toggle with the flag button under the prompter, or with Numbered jump markers in the Reading Marker section) and are never exported to Word: they are navigation, not script.

The prompter

Three surfaces, one prompter:

• The preview in Edit mode, beside the editor; show or hide it with the panel button at the right of the top bar. Drag the divider to give it more or less room. It carries a full set of prompter controls underneath, and its heading says READY, FOLLOWING or PLAYING.
• The Prompter Window (toolbar button) goes on any display. While it is open, the preview is a live mirror of it, controls and all.
• The Floating Prompter (toolbar button) is a see-through prompter with no frame that floats over every app. It can be open next to the Prompter Window. See The Floating Prompter.

Scrolling is always manual too. Scroll, drag or swipe any surface at any time, even mid-follow: every other surface moves with it, and Play pauses while you drag. The Back to Top button returns the script to the beginning.

The Text section (under the preview) sets the font, the size, the column width or a target of words per line, brightness and color. Paragraph gap has a switch: off, the prompter keeps the script's own spacing and blank lines; on, the slider alone decides the space between paragraphs, from none at all (blank lines and the lines screen directions sit on collapse) to four lines' worth. The companion matches it.

The settings under the preview are grouped in sections: Text, Scrolling, Reading Marker, Karaoke, Voice Follow, Timer, Camera Feeds, Framing Guides, Floating Prompter and Recording. Click a section's title to open or fold it. They start folded, and the ones you open stay open; Option-click any title to open or fold them all at once. The small (i) beside a section's title or a setting opens a sentence or two on what it does. A setting that is greyed is waiting for the switch above it; some say so in a line under them.

The Recording section is for PowerCue Pro: it opens New Recording and shows the next take in a line.

Put the sections in your order. Drag a section by the grip at the left of its title to move it, for example Camera Feeds to the top, or right-click the title for Move to Top, Move Up, Move Down and Move to Bottom. Reset Section Order, at the bottom of the panel once a section has moved, or in the same menu, brings back the original order.

Editing in the prompter

Double-click a word in the preview, the Prompter Window or the Floating Prompter to change the script right where you read it. The paragraph opens where it stands, outlined in purple, in the prompter's own type, with the word you double-clicked selected. Play pauses when the paragraph opens, so the text holds still while you type.

• Return or a click elsewhere keeps the change. Esc leaves the paragraph as it was.
• The new words take the look of the words they replace. The formatting, markers and screen directions around them stay as they are.
• While the paragraph is open, ⌘Z undoes your typing and pastes step by step, and ⇧⌘Z redoes them. Once the change is kept, ⌘Z in the editor takes it back.
• Pasted words come in as plain words in the look of the text right before the cursor, never with the fonts, sizes and colors they were copied with.
• A Prompter Window whose text is flipped for mirror glass cannot be edited this way. Edit in the preview instead.

Type an exact value

The purple number beside a slider is a button: click it and type the value you want. Return sets it, Esc puts back the value from before, and the ↑ and ↓ arrows nudge it, with ⇧ ten steps at a time. The value stays inside the slider's range, and ⌘Z takes the change back. The Pace under the prompter works the same way, except while a run time paces the script.

Prompter Settings, in the Prompter Window

Where no settings panel sits beside the controls (in the Prompter Window, in the Floating Prompter, and under the script while the preview is hidden), the sliders button at the right of the controls opens Prompter Settings: the Look menu, then Text, Reading Marker, Karaoke, Voice Follow and Timer, the same sections as under the preview and in the order you gave them there. Camera Feeds, Framing Guides and Recording stay in the main window. In the Floating Prompter the Floating Prompter section comes first.

Looks

A look keeps how the prompter reads: the text's typeface, size, column, paragraph gap, brightness and color; the reading marker's position, line and arrow; the karaoke highlight and the fading of read text; and whether the timer shows, what it shows and how it looks. A look does not keep the script, the pace, Follow, the microphone, the language or the camera.

The Look menu sits above the sections under the preview, and at the top of Prompter Settings in the Prompter Window and the Floating Prompter.

• Default is PowerCue's own settings. Default itself cannot be changed: save your settings as a new look.
• Save as New Look… names the settings you have now. Saving under a name you already use replaces that look, and any iPhone or iPad on it changes too; the note under the name says which.
• Change a setting and Edited appears after the look's name. Update Look keeps the change in the look; Revert Look goes back to the look, and your changes wait under Unsaved Settings (see below). Once a look is named, the menu puts its name there, for example Update “Evening”.
• Custom means settings no look holds. When you pick a look while your settings are not saved in one (Custom, or a look you changed), they wait under Unsaved Settings in the menu, with the time you left them; choose one to bring it back. PowerCue keeps the last five, so trying a look never loses a setup you tuned by hand.
• Rename Look… and Delete Look… act on the look named in the menu.
• ⌘Z takes back picking a look, bringing back unsaved settings, Update, Revert and replacing a look.

PowerCue keeps up to 20 looks.

A look for your iPhone and iPad

Each iPhone and iPad can show its own look while your Mac keeps its own. Once a device has connected, choose iPhone and iPad in the Look menu, then the device and its look. Settings, Companion lists every device that has connected, with the look it shows, and Forget for one that has gone. A device you have not set up shows your Mac's look.

The words are the same on every screen, so Follow, Play and scrolling from the phone work as before; a look only changes how they read. On a phone the column sets the type size: a look with five words per line gives large type, and pinching makes it smaller.

To tune a device's look, pick the same look on your Mac: the device shows each change as you make it. When it reads well, choose Update Look (on Default, which cannot be updated, save it as a new look).

Good to know:

• With PowerCue Companion 1.0.7 and earlier, every iPhone reports its name as iPhone, so all iPhones share one look and all iPads share another. With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, each device has a look of its own, so two iPhones can show two different looks. A device with a look of its own is listed with it, for example "iPhone (iPhone close)".
• The Paragraph gap switch follows your Mac on every device; the look sets the size of the gap. When a device's look and your Mac differ on the switch, the line under the Look menu says so.
• Karaoke's Timing is your Mac's, for every screen.
• The Companion draws the reading marker's line at its own thickness and brightness, with the arrow in the line's color. The look's thickness, brightness and arrow color apply on your Mac.

Voice following

Press Follow (the mic button under any prompter surface) and start reading. PowerCue listens through the selected microphone, matches your words against the script, and scrolls so the line you are speaking sits at the reading marker.

• Smooth or line by line. Scrolling, in the Voice Follow section, sets how the text moves while Follow listens. Smooth rolls the text at your own pace and keeps the word you are saying at the reading marker, so a line drifts through the marker as you read it. It rests when you pause and crosses the gap between two paragraphs in one glide. It moves only for words it recognizes: a room's noise, music or someone else talking does not roll the text on. Line by line lets each line wait at the marker while you read it, then glides the next one up. PowerCue uses Smooth unless you choose otherwise, also after an update from a version that moved line by line.
• Choose the mic from the menu beside the Follow button: built-in, USB, or any input macOS sees. The choice is remembered. On an audio interface, also pick the input the microphone is plugged into, under Input Channel in the same menu. The microphone, its input and the language are also rows in the Voice Follow section; a pick in one place shows in the others. If the chosen microphone is unplugged, the menu reads "Microphone not connected" and Follow uses the Mac's default input until it is back.
• See that it hears you. While following through a Mac microphone, a band sweeps across the Follow button with your voice's level. If it stays still while you speak, the mic menu points at the wrong microphone, or at the wrong Input Channel on an audio interface. With the iPhone or iPad as the microphone, the band does not show.
• Pause and it waits. The script holds still through thinking pauses, sips of coffee, and retakes of the same line.
• Ad-lib freely. Off-script words do not drag the scroll. When you return to the script, PowerCue re-anchors to the text at the marker and follows again.
• Skip around. Jump to a marker or scroll anywhere mid-session; following re-anchors to the words at the marker and picks you up from there.
• Stumble and start again. Re-read a line or paragraph you already read and the prompter jumps back to it, once you are a few words in. Further back than about five lines, it waits for a few more words (six or so), so a phrase that also appears earlier in the script does not pull the prompter back paragraphs. In the Voice Follow section, "Jump back when I re-read a line" turns this off if you would rather it only ever moved forward.
• Language of the script: the globe menu on the control bar (also in the Voice Follow section and in Settings, ⌘,, Follow tab). Pick the language you read in; changing it while following switches the microphone over at once. When the script is written in a different language than the one PowerCue listens for, a note on the globe menu offers to switch (Keep leaves it and does not ask again for that script). Only languages this Mac can recognize on-device are offered, and the iPhone microphone listens in the same one. On macOS 26 and later the list has 60 languages and regions. About thirty (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese) run on Apple's live-speech engine; most of the rest (Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi and more) are marked beta: they use Apple's on-device dictation engine, which is just as private but was not built for long live reading, so following may be less precise. The first use of a language downloads its model from Apple once. On macOS 14 and 15 a language appears only after you turn on Dictation for it in System Settings, Keyboard, Dictation, which installs Apple's on-device model. Bulgarian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese and Slovenian, which no Apple engine knows, are marked beta too: PowerCue hears them with NVIDIA's Parakeet, an open speech model it downloads once (about 460 MB, from Hugging Face) the first time Follow starts in one of them, or copies from PowerCut when PowerCut already has it. The first start takes about half a minute while macOS prepares the model; after that Follow starts at once, and it runs on your Mac like the rest. The iPhone or iPad microphone cannot hear these languages.

  Main engine	Regions
  English	United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa
  German	Germany, Austria, Switzerland
  French	France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland
  Spanish	Spain, Mexico, United States, Chile
  Italian	Italy, Switzerland
  Portuguese	Brazil, Portugal
  Chinese	China mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan
  Cantonese	China mainland
  Japanese	Japan
  Korean	South Korea

  Beta, one region each unless noted: Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch (Netherlands and Belgium), Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

• Which microphone is listening shows at the right of the status bar under the script, together with the language, so a wrong pick (the phone instead of the desk mic) is obvious before you start. In a narrow window the microphone's name drops out first; the menu beside Follow still shows it. While you follow through an iPhone or iPad, a note above the controls says so too.
• Karaoke follows your voice: spoken words light up as you say them, on the prompter and in the editor both, so anyone watching the edit window sees exactly where you are.
• Roll the take with Follow. With PowerCue Pro, switch on Record while following in New Recording and one press does both: Follow on this Mac starts the take, and stopping Follow ends it. See New Recording.

Jump to a marker by voice

While Follow listens, say “PowerCue, take me to Marker 3” and the prompter jumps to marker 3. Follow goes on from there. It works while another app is in front, where the number keys do not, and with the iPhone or iPad as the microphone too.

• Shorter: “PowerCue Marker 3” does the same.
• A marker by its name: “PowerCue, take me to Fixing Audio”, or “PowerCue, take me to the title Fixing Audio”. Chapter and section work in place of title. The markers panel shows each marker's name.
• Other words: “go to”, “jump to” and “back to” work in place of “take me to”.
• When to say it: between two sentences, with a short pause before you read on.

Without “PowerCue” in front, “take me to” is never a command, so your script can say it. When the script itself has the words you say, for example a tutorial that reads out “PowerCue Marker 2”, they are read, not obeyed. A marker the script does not have does nothing, and a script without markers is never affected. The switch is Say “PowerCue, take me to Marker 3” in the Voice Follow section. It is on from the start.

Play mode

Prefer a classic scroll, or recording without speaking? Press Play (or the Space bar) and the script rolls on its own:

• Pace is set in seconds per line, from a leisurely 5 down to 0.1. The slider sits beside the marker buttons under every prompter, with its value next to it, for example 1.00 s/line. Click the value to type an exact pace; with a run time set, the controls read "Paced by run time" instead. The same setting is Play pace in the Scrolling section under the preview.
• Or give it a run time (see Run time & estimates) and Play paces the whole script to finish exactly on time, ignoring the Pace slider.
• The karaoke highlight tracks the marker during Play, lighting the word at the indicator so your eye always has an anchor.
• Space starts and stops from anywhere; grabbing and scrolling any surface pauses the roll while you reposition.
• Riding the speed by hand: the arrow keys, and with a switch the scroll wheel and the trackpad, can speed Play up and slow it down while it rolls. See Scrolling by hand.

Scrolling by hand

The Scrolling section under the preview, right after Text, holds how the script moves when Voice Follow is not moving it.

• Play pace is the same setting as Pace under the prompter. Move one and the other moves too.
• Arrow speed sets how fast the ↑ and ↓ arrows scroll, from 0 to 100. Hold one and the script rolls smoothly at that speed; a tap moves it a little, and quick taps add up. 25 is the speed the arrows always had. Click the number to type an exact one, to two decimal places.
• Speed up and slow down with the arrows is for running the prompter by hand. Switch it on and press Play: hold ↑ to go faster and ↓ to go slower, through a stop and on into rolling backward. Let go and Play keeps that speed. A tap changes it by a small step, and quick taps in a row grow: the second changes it twice as much as the first, the third twice as much again. Arrow speed sets how quickly it all changes. Play takes each change with a short glide, so quick taps, or a hand scroller that sends them, never make the text jolt.
• Scroll wheel and trackpad change the speed too does the same with a mouse wheel or two fingers on a trackpad. With Play rolling, a scroll over a prompter changes Play's speed and does not move the script: scroll the script on to go faster, back to go slower, through a stop and on into rolling backward. While Play is stopped the wheel scrolls the script as usual. It works only while Speed up and slow down with the arrows is on, and it is off to start with.
• What the Pace shows then: the Pace follows the speed you ride. Slower than the slider goes it reads "Standing still", or the word Back with the pace while the script rolls backward.
• Space stops Play and starts it again, forward, at the Pace shown. Rolling backward, Play stops by itself at the top of the script. While Play is stopped the arrows scroll by hand. With this switch on, a run time does not pace Play.
• Editor follows the prompter makes the script editor scroll along with the prompter, with the line being read at the height of the reading marker. Stop to change a word and your place is already in view. Scroll the editor yourself and it waits a few seconds before it follows again.
• Show the prompter's place in the editor marks the line that is on the prompter's reading marker: a small arrow in the editor's margin and a thin line under the text, in the reading marker's own colors. It moves as the prompter moves, so the place is easy to find, with or without the editor following. It starts on.
• iPhone and iPad: the Companion rolls along as before, also when you change the pace. While the Mac stands still or rolls backward, it steps to the Mac's place line by line and shows Play as off.

Leaving the script. While the cursor is in the script, the keys type. Click anywhere outside the editor (the prompter preview, a button, a setting, the markers panel) and the cursor leaves the script: Space and the arrows work the prompter again. Click in the script to type again. The editor's own bar, with bold, colors and zoom, leaves the cursor where it is.

Karaoke highlight

The Karaoke section (under the preview, or in Prompter Settings in the Prompter Window) controls how spoken text lights up. The highlight and the fade are independent: use either, both, or neither.

• Highlight as I speak marks the word you are on, as colored text (Text color) or as a Pill around the word, each with its own colors. It starts off: switch it on in the Karaoke section.
• Timing fine-tunes when each word lights up while following. PowerCue hears when you start and stop speaking, learns your reading pace and uses the recognized words to know where you are, so at In line (the default) a word lights as you begin to say it. At a comma or a full stop the highlight waits while you breathe, and when you pause it rests on the last word you said, so you never lose your place. If it still feels late for your voice, slide Timing toward Ahead; if it feels early, toward Behind (up to 300 milliseconds either way). A note about Timing shows on the first few Follows with the highlight on, with an X that hides it for good.
• Fade the text I have read dims words after you have said them, and Read-text brightness sets how bright they stay; Fade full lines after they pass the marker dims whole lines once they pass the marker, for readers who prefer a calmer prompter.

The reading marker

The reading marker shows where your current line sits. It is not a jump marker: those are the numbered flags you drop through the script (see Jump markers). In the Reading Marker section:

• Style: a horizontal line across the prompter (Cue line), an Arrow at the edge, or both, each with its own switch. The arrow sits flush against the left or the right edge, your choice (Arrow side), and goes from tiny to very large (Arrow size) for a screen read from across the room.
• Color and size to taste, bright enough to find without stealing focus: Thickness and Line color for the line, Arrow color for the arrow.
• Position: place it high, centered, or low, with the slider or by dragging the arrow itself up and down on any surface. Voice following and Play keep the current line exactly there.
• The section ends with Numbered jump markers, the switch that shows the jump markers on the prompter.

Display, mirror & rigs

The Text section controls the reading experience: the font (Match Editor, System, a short list, or any installed font under All Fonts), the font size, the column width, brightness and text color, and a Words per line setting that caps how many words each line carries, the way broadcast prompters do. While Words per line is on, it sets the column width.

Beam-splitter rigs. The two flip buttons, under the preview and in the Prompter Window's own controls, flip the Prompter Window horizontally, vertically, or both (also Prompter → Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical). The text, the reading marker and the timer flip, so they read correctly through mirror glass. The window's controls stay the right way round, and so does the preview, which shows a small FLIP H, FLIP V or FLIP H + V note while a flip is on. The Floating Prompter never flips. Drag the window to the display feeding your rig and take it fullscreen. The full screen button at the top right does both in one click: see Full screen and Blackout.

Second displays. The Prompter Window is a normal Mac window: a second monitor, a projector, or an iPad via Sidecar all work. Scrolling stays lock-step everywhere. The display menu under the preview (the screens icon) moves the window onto any display in one click. The Prompter Window and the Floating Prompter have the same menu in their own controls.

It opens where you left it. The Prompter Window opens where it was last, at the same size, also after PowerCue has quit. Closed in full screen, it opens in full screen again, on the same display. If that display is not connected, the window opens in the middle of the screen.

Small prompter monitors. The Prompter Window goes down to 360 by 240 points, so it fits a dedicated prompter screen such as Elgato's 1024 by 600 display, and its controls wrap onto more rows as the window narrows. The chevron in the window's bottom right corner hides the controls altogether, so the whole screen is text; the main window keeps a full set. Both are remembered.

Hide Controls in the Prompter menu hides the bar of the Prompter Window and of the Floating Prompter at once, and Show Controls brings both back, also a bar you had hidden with that window's own chevron. The chevron still hides only its own window's bar. With no prompter window open nothing changes on screen: the command sets how the next one opens, and its chevron brings the bar back.

Close Prompter Window in the Prompter menu does what the toolbar's button does. With the Floating Prompter open, Follow and Play go on there. With no other prompter window open, closing it ends Follow and Play, and a take that Follow started ends with it, so on a deck give it a key you will not press by mistake during a take.

Full screen and Blackout

Two buttons at the right end of the main window's top bar work the Prompter Window as your output, for when you run the prompter for someone else.

• Full screen opens the Prompter Window if it is closed, moves it to the other display when one is connected, and makes it full screen. Click it again and the Prompter Window is a window again.
• Blackout turns the Prompter Window black, its controls and all, so nobody reads from it for a moment. The preview keeps the script, and Play and Follow go on. The Floating Prompter and an iPhone or iPad are not blacked out. Click it again to show the script.
• Blackout under the preview: the controls under the preview have a Blackout button too, right after the two flip buttons (under the script while the preview is hidden). Blackout is greyed while no Prompter Window is open: a Prompter Window always opens showing the script.

Both are in the Prompter menu, as Prompter Window Full Screen and Blackout, with a check mark while on. Their keys are ⌥⌘F and ⇧⌘B, and you can change them under Help, Keyboard Shortcuts (see Keyboard shortcuts). If you had already given one of those keys to another command, it stays there and the new command starts without a key; PowerCue says so once, in a note titled "A new shortcut had to stay empty". From a Stream Deck: powercue://fullscreen/toggle and powercue://blackout/toggle (also powercue://blackout/on and powercue://blackout/off). See Stream Deck & automation.

The Floating Prompter

The Floating Prompter is a see-through prompter with no frame that floats over every app, also over one in full screen and on every Space, so you can read while you show something on the same display. It is part of every copy of PowerCue, not only of PowerCue Pro. It shows the same words as the Prompter Window, with its own font size, column width and line breaks.

Opening and closing

• The Floating Prompter button in the toolbar. While the prompter is open the same button reads Close Floating Prompter.
• Prompter → Open Floating Prompter or Close Floating Prompter (⇧⌘O), while PowerCue is the app in front.
• Show the floating prompter in the Floating Prompter section, and Floating prompter in New Recording's Capture options.
• The links powercue://floating/on, powercue://floating/off and powercue://floating/toggle, which work even when another app is in front. See Stream Deck & automation.
• Its own close button, an X at the end of its first row of controls.

It has no title bar and no close button of the window kind, so these are the ways to close it. It does not reopen by itself when PowerCue starts, but its place and size are remembered. It first opens along the top of the main display.

Moving, resizing and its controls

Drag the grip at its top left to move it and the one at its bottom left to resize it; it grows toward the lower left. The grips are always clickable. Its controls are the Prompter Window's, with two buttons of its own at the end of the first row: one lets clicks through, one closes it. It has no flip buttons: the Floating Prompter never flips. It never shows the camera either, and the Text section's Brightness has no effect on it.

The chevron at its bottom right hides its controls, and the choice is remembered for this window on its own. With the controls hidden, the click-through and close buttons move to a small card at the top right. Hide Controls and Show Controls in the Prompter menu act on both prompter windows at once (see Display, mirror & rigs). The display menu and Find work as in the Prompter Window, and the sliders button opens Prompter Settings with the Floating Prompter section first, then Text, Reading Marker, Karaoke, Voice Follow and Timer. Its Text section sets the Floating Prompter's own font size and column width.

Its marker, its karaoke highlight and its timer are the same as in the Prompter Window, and the timer card keeps its own place here.

Next to the Prompter Window

It can be open next to the Prompter Window. Then the Prompter Window leads: Follow and Play drive it, and the Floating Prompter follows word for word at its own line breaks. Scroll the Floating Prompter by hand and the other follows. On its own, the Floating Prompter leads.

If you close it while Follow, Play or a take runs and the Prompter Window is closed, the Prompter Window opens and takes over, so the read goes on and a take is not cut short. Closing the Prompter Window while the Floating Prompter is open leaves Follow and Play running on the Floating Prompter.

The Floating Prompter section

• Show the floating prompter opens and closes it.
• Background opacity sets how much the black backing behind the text hides of the screen below. It starts at 35%, and 0 means no backing at all. It is not part of a Look.
• Font size and Column width are the Floating Prompter's own. They start at the values the Prompter Window has, and changing them leaves the Prompter Window's and the preview's alone. While Words per line is on, it sets this column too. Neither is part of a Look. While the Floating Prompter is open without the Prompter Window, the preview shows the script at the Floating Prompter's size, so the two break their lines alike.
• Let clicks through to the app underneath: clicks on the text reach the app below. The grips, the controls with the chevron, the prompter's own two buttons and the timer card's grip and buttons stay clickable, also with the controls hidden. It is off to start with and remembered, and it stays on when you close the prompter. ⇧⌘K turns it on and off while PowerCue is in front.
• Shortcut in every app (⌃⌥⌘K) does the same while another app is in front, such as the one you are showing. It is off unless you switch it on. It works while the Floating Prompter is open, and then takes that combination from every other app.
• Hide from screen sharing where the app allows it asks other apps to leave the Floating Prompter out when they share or capture the screen. It is off to start with. "Not every app honors this. Check with the app you share or record with before you rely on it." To be sure the prompter stays out, share a window instead of the whole screen, or keep the prompter on a display you are not sharing.

⇧⌘O and ⇧⌘K are menu keys, and the Floating Prompter never takes the keys from the app you are showing, so they work while PowerCue is in front. With another app in front, use the button, a link or the key for every app. All three keys can be changed (see Keyboard shortcuts).

In PowerCue's own recordings

PowerCue's screen recordings leave the Floating Prompter out unless Show PowerCue in the recording is on and the Floating Prompter's own Hide from screen sharing is off. See what is left out of the picture. In a recording of your screen, Floating prompter in New Recording's Capture options is how you read the script while you record.

Camera Feeds

Show a live camera behind the prompter text, so you can see your framing, a guest, or a program feed while you read. It is off until you turn it on, and it never goes to the internet. The feed itself records nothing. With PowerCue Pro the same camera is what a take records: see New Recording.

• Turn it on with the two camera buttons under any prompter: E shows the camera in the Editor preview, P shows it in the Prompter Window. With the switch Link show, mirror and brightness on, the two views show or hide the camera, mirror it and set its brightness together; switching Link on copies the Editor preview's settings to the Prompter Window. The same switches are in the Camera Feeds section, as Show the camera under Editor Preview (E) and under Prompter Window (P).
• Any camera macOS sees works: the built-in camera, USB webcams, capture cards, Continuity Camera, and virtual cameras such as Ecamm Live or OBS (start the virtual camera first). Pick it under Source in the Camera Feeds section, or click the small arrow beside the camera buttons: it opens a Camera pop up with the same settings as the section, so you can change the camera without leaving the prompter. Both views always show the same camera.
• Permission: macOS asks for camera access the first time you turn the feed on. If a camera cannot be started (another app holds it and does not share it, or it is unplugged), the Camera Feeds section says so and offers Try Again; an unplugged camera comes back on its own when you reconnect it.
• It reconnects by itself. If the picture stops, for example because you switched the camera to a new resolution or frame rate, PowerCue keeps checking and brings the feed back with the new settings. No restart needed.
• Brightness dims the picture toward black so the text stays the brightest thing on screen, and Mirror flips it left to right. Each view has its own Brightness and Mirror, unless Link keeps them the same. Fill the prompter (crop to fit), under Picture, crops the picture to the prompter's shape; turn it off to see the whole frame.
• Audio meter on the camera picture, under Picture, puts a small meter at the bottom left of the camera picture, in the Editor preview and the Prompter Window, wherever the camera shows. It shows the level of the microphone a take records. Click its microphone icon to choose that microphone: it is the same choice as Microphone in New Recording, and it need not be the one Follow listens to. During a take the meter shows the take's own level. It is on from the start. Recording a take is part of PowerCue Pro: see New Recording.
• Text drop shadow keeps words readable over a moving picture, with sliders for its size and strength.
• Color LUT: Import a .cube file (the format cameras and grading apps export) to see log footage such as S-Log3, C-Log or V-Log in normal color behind the prompter. Imported LUTs stay in the list; the trash button removes one from PowerCue and leaves your file alone. LUT strength blends between the camera's own picture and the full look. Only PowerCue's view changes, never what the camera records itself. A take recorded with PowerCue Pro stays clean too, unless you switch on Burn the LUT into the recording in New Recording.
• Framing guides (their own section; they need the camera feed on) draw over the camera picture: rule of thirds, golden ratio, a center mark and the safe area (the inner 90% of the frame). Crop frame shades what a 9:16 vertical, 4:5 portrait or 1:1 square cut of the shot keeps, so you can frame for social at the same time. Guide opacity and color set how strongly they show.
• The camera runs while a prompter that shows the feed is on screen, and it switches off while PowerCue is hidden. With PowerCue Pro it also runs while New Recording is open and for as long as a take records.
• On an iPhone or iPad: Show on iPhone and iPad, under Prompter Window (P), is on from the start and waits while that view hides the camera. PowerCue Companion 1.0.7 shows no camera, and PowerCue says so under the switch. With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, an iPhone or iPad that mirrors this Mac shows the camera behind its text too: see iPhone & iPad companion.

iPhone & iPad companion

PowerCue Companion is a free app that turns an iPhone or iPad on the same Wi-Fi network into a wireless prompter screen, in lock-step with the Mac: the same line breaks, styling, karaoke highlight, and on-screen timer, word for word. Mount the device at the lens, in a beam-splitter rig, or prop it next to the camera.

With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, the Companion also keeps the scripts it is shown, so it can prompt them by itself when your Mac is not around.

Free · iPhone and iPad

Which iOS. PowerCue Companion 1.0.7 runs on iOS 16 or later.

PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later needs iOS 26 or later. An iPhone or iPad on an older iOS that already has the Companion keeps the earlier one, which still mirrors this Mac as before, shows no camera and keeps no scripts. PowerCue says so in Settings, Companion, while such a device is connected.

Setting up.

1. On the Mac, open PowerCue's Settings (⌘,), Companion tab, and turn on Serve the prompter to companion devices. The panel says "Waiting for devices" until one connects.
2. Install PowerCue Companion from the App Store and open it on a device on the same Wi-Fi network as the Mac. It looks for Macs running PowerCue and connects automatically when it finds one; with several Macs, tap the one you want.
3. Your script appears on the device, with the marker and timer. Every scroll, style change, jump, and karaoke highlight on the Mac shows up on the device the moment it happens.

On the device. Tap the screen to show or hide the controls. The top row runs the prompter: Follow on and off, Play and pause, Back to Top, and previous and next marker; the bottom row shows the name of the connected Mac, horizontal and vertical flip toggles for mirror glass, and an X to leave the session. Scroll the script with a finger and the Mac follows: the position moves on every surface, and voice following picks up again from where you stopped. Pinch to resize the text; the line breaks never change, so you and the Mac always read the same lines. Rotate freely: portrait and landscape both keep the exact wrap. The screen stays awake for as long as it is the prompter.

With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, the controls stay on the screen while nothing is running. Start a reading and they step aside after a few seconds; tap the screen to bring them back. The controls also have a camera button (when the Mac sends the camera) and, above the bottom row, Use on This iPhone.

The phone as your microphone. In the microphone menu under the prompter, pick iPhone/iPad Microphone. Press Follow and the device in front of you does the listening, with speech recognized on the device itself, in the language set on the Mac; the recognized words travel to the Mac, never the sound. On iOS 26 the device uses Apple's newer on-device engine and needs only the microphone permission, with no Speech Recognition dialog. The device shows a badge while it drives the prompter, and explains itself when it cannot listen. If a call or Siri takes the microphone, the Mac is told and listening resumes on its own when the microphone is free. If no device is connected when you press Follow, PowerCue falls back to the Mac's own microphone and says so in a note above the controls.

With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, how loud you speak travels to the Mac too, as numbers for the karaoke timing. The sound itself never does.

Your camera behind the text. With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, and the camera on for the Prompter Window (Camera Feeds, under Prompter Window (P): Show the camera), a device that mirrors the Mac shows the same camera behind its text, so you see your framing as you read. It is a small preview, a little behind the Mac's own picture, and it takes the Prompter Window's Mirror and Brightness. Show on iPhone and iPad, in the same rows, turns it off for every device. The camera button in the device's controls turns it off on that device alone. Two things to know: the Mac's camera switches on for a device that shows it, also while the Prompter Window is closed, and like the script it reaches any device on your network that runs the Companion. Where the picture is slow the device says so in its controls ("The camera picture is slow on this iPhone or this Wi-Fi. The text keeps its place."), with a button Turn Camera Off.

Prompting without your Mac. With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, the Companion keeps the scripts your Mac shows it. On the first screen they are listed under On this iPhone, under the names they have on your Mac, the 20 most recent. Tap one and the iPhone prompts it by itself, from the place where you left it.

• Follow (the microphone button) listens with the iPhone's own microphone and moves the text with your voice. Scrolling chooses between Smooth and Line by line. The first time, iOS asks for the microphone.
• Play rolls the text at a steady pace, starting with the pace set on your Mac. The tortoise and the hare make it slower or faster. If a run time paces the script on your Mac, the row says "By run time, 3:00", and Set a Pace brings the two buttons.
• Back to Top, previous and next marker work as on the Mac. The list button shows every marker by its number and name. Tap one to go there.
• Language shows the language Follow listens in. It starts with the one set on your Mac, unless the script is plainly written in another language. Tap it to choose another; the choice is remembered for that script.
• The timer counts while Follow or Play runs, holds through a pause and goes back to zero with Back to Top. It shows when the timer was on for that script on your Mac.

Leaving the app or locking the iPhone stops Follow, pauses Play and keeps your place.

To go on alone while the iPhone still mirrors your Mac, tap Use on This iPhone in the controls. The text stays where it is, and your Mac stays in the controls by its name, with Connect for the way back.

Ready to follow? Under the scripts the first screen says whether Follow can listen: "Ready to follow in German." If the speech model for a language is not on the iPhone yet, it says "Play only until the German speech model is downloaded." with a Download Now button. Do this while you still have internet. Pressing Follow for such a script starts the download too; press Follow again once the model is here. The model stays on the iPhone, so look at the line under a script before a shoot. If microphone access is off for PowerCue, the first screen says "Microphone access is off for PowerCue. Follow needs it." with an Open Settings button: switch the microphone on for PowerCue in the iPhone's Settings.

A keyboard or a pedal. Space plays and pauses. Return starts and stops Follow. The up and down arrows scroll the text, the left and right arrows move it one line. Page Up and Page Down go to the previous and the next marker. Home goes back to the top. The number keys 1 to 9 go to that marker when the iPhone prompts alone. A Bluetooth pedal that sends any of these keys works the same way. A held arrow key keeps the text moving. Every other key acts once for each press, however long it is held, so a foot resting on a pedal does not switch Play on and off. A keyboard on the iPhone or iPad uses PowerCue's default keys, also when you changed them on the Mac.

When your Mac drops out. The text stays where it is. Tap Keep Going on This iPhone to carry on alone. Nobody pressed Follow on the iPhone for that, so it does not listen for ever: after three minutes in which it hears nothing of the script, Follow stops and the iPhone says "Nothing heard for three minutes. Follow stopped."

When your Mac comes back. Nothing interrupts your reading. The controls name your Mac with a Connect button. Tap it when you are ready and the iPhone mirrors your Mac again. If the Mac is listed but does not answer, the iPhone says "Your Mac did not answer." and you read on.

A warm iPhone. A phone on a rig at full brightness gets warm. When iOS says so, the Companion steps back: first the camera behind the text is switched off and the text rolls a little less smoothly; if the iPhone gets hot, Follow moves the text line by line and the word you are saying is not lit up. The text, your place and Follow itself are never dropped. A line in the controls says what is off, and everything comes back by itself when the iPhone has cooled down.

The sample script. The first time this version opens, the list has one script of its own, "Sample Script", so you can try Follow and Play at once. It stays at the end of the list, under your own scripts. Swipe it to the left to delete it. When nothing at all is kept, the row Add the Sample Script stands in its place, and a tap puts it back.

What stays on the iPhone. The 20 most recent scripts. When a new one arrives and the list is full, the oldest is let go, never the one on screen. Swipe a script to the left to delete it, or use Delete All… in the menu beside "On this iPhone"; your Mac still has them, and the sample script stays. Kept scripts are left out of iCloud and device backups and never leave the iPhone, so a restored iPhone starts without them. On the Mac you decide whether devices may keep scripts at all: Settings, Companion, iPhone and iPad may keep scripts. With it off, a device shows your script as before and keeps nothing new: a copy it already has stays with it.

With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, Width, a row in the bar of a script the iPhone prompts by itself, makes the text column narrower or wider in steps of 10%, and the iPhone remembers it for that script.

With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, while the Mac plays and the iPhone mirrors it, the text rolls evenly at the Mac's speed instead of stepping a line at a time.

Finding the right device. The display menu under the prompter lists the connected devices and offers Ping iPhone & iPad: the screens flash a teal border, and an iPhone buzzes, so you know which one you are looking at.

Reconnecting. Closing the app on the device or letting the Mac sleep drops the connection, and the device looks for your Mac again by itself: with one Mac on the network it reconnects on its own, with several you pick the one you want. Leaving with the X keeps it disconnected until you pick the Mac from the list again or open the app afresh.

Two switches for newer Companions. In PowerCue 1.0.28 the Mac has two switches that act only with a Companion newer than 1.0.7, and both are on from the start. Settings, Companion has iPhone and iPad may keep scripts: on, "A device can keep a copy of the scripts it is shown, to prompt without this Mac." Off, "Devices keep no new scripts from this Mac. A copy a device already has stays with it." The Camera Feeds section has Show on iPhone and iPad (see Camera Feeds). With a Companion that does not know them, PowerCue says so: the Mac says that "A newer Companion does both."

Privacy. Everything travels over your local network only: the companion never contacts a server, and nothing is uploaded. The connection has no pairing, so while the setting is on, any device on your network that runs the Companion can view the script. Turn the setting off on the Mac when you are done and no device is shown the script any more.

With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, the scripts a device keeps stay on that device, and a copy it has kept stays there until it is deleted on the device. The camera preview, if it is on, reaches any device on your network that runs the Companion, like the script. The one thing that comes from the internet is Apple's speech model for a language, which iOS 26 downloads once.

If the device cannot find the Mac: confirm both are on the same Wi-Fi network (guest networks and some office networks block device discovery), that the setting is on in PowerCue, and that macOS allowed PowerCue to use the local network (System Settings, Privacy & Security, Local Network). The iPhone has to allow it too.

With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, when the iPhone does not allow it the first screen says so where your Mac would be listed: "Local network access is off for PowerCue." Tap Open Settings there and turn on Local Network. The scripts kept on the iPhone work without it.

The on-screen timer

The timer card floats over the prompter (and, if you like, the editor). In the Timer section:

• Three readouts, each with its own toggle: ELAPSED (a stopwatch that runs while the prompter follows or plays), REMAINING (counts down the run time), and CLOCK (time of day, 12 or 24 hour).
• Drag it anywhere on the prompter. The Prompter Window, the preview and the Floating Prompter each keep their own place for it, and the card always stays whole on screen. An iPhone or iPad shows it where the Prompter Window has it, or where the preview has it while that window is closed. The timer in the edit view has its own place too, and its own switch: the timer button in the formatting bar.
• Move it by keyboard, reset it, hide it. The card has a dotted grip at its left: drag it, or click it and use the arrow keys (⇧ for bigger steps, Esc or a click elsewhere lets go). The two small buttons at its top right reset the elapsed time and hide the card. Right-click the card for Reset Timer Position, Reset Elapsed Time and Hide Timer.
• Resize from the corner: drag the grip at the card's bottom-right. The editor and prompter cards size independently, and the Timer section has two sliders for it, Prompter timer size and Editor timer size.
• Style it with border and background colors and transparency, so it sits quietly over any prompter look.
• Edit the run time in place: in the editor's timer card, hover REMAINING and click to type a new run time right there.

Run time & estimates

Give the script a target length in the Timer section, in the field Script run time. Typing digits is enough: 11625 becomes 1:16:25, 500 becomes 5:00.

• Play paces to it: the whole script scrolls to finish exactly on the run time.
• The timer counts it down in the REMAINING row.
• The markers panel shows a time for each marker: the estimated moment the prompter reaches it.
• The editor margin shows time estimates at each paragraph: where in the video that paragraph should land, based on its share of the script's words.
• Estimates export: Word exports include the per-paragraph time labels, so a producer can see the timing on paper.

Word, Markdown & export

Write the script in Word if that is where you write, mark it up with the conventions below, and it arrives in PowerCue ready to prompt. Export writes the same conventions back, so a script can go to Word for a client's edits and come home with everything in place.

Import (File → Import Script…, the import button in the formatting bar, or simply drag the file onto the editor) reads .docx, RTF, plain text and Markdown (.md). A sheet shows what was found in the document, with a checkbox for each conversion. The imported script replaces the current one; a version snapshot is taken first.

• Formatting carries: bold, italic and underline always; strikethrough, word colors, Word's highlighter (mapped to the nearest PowerCue highlight color) and paragraph alignment when "Keep Word formatting" is on. Black and white text become PowerCue's default text color. The document's fonts are dropped unless you ask to keep them.
• [Square brackets] become screen directions: write camera notes and cues as [Camera on you] or [Cut to B-roll] and they import as directions: visible while you write, never on the prompter, never heard by voice following. (Parentheses) can be converted too, off by default because normal prose uses them.
• Headings become named jump markers: a Word heading (Heading 1, 2, 3…, or Title, in any language) becomes a marker named after the heading. So do lines starting with # Name or ## Name (with a space after the hashes), with three or more hashes, or with #3: ### The turning point and # The turning point both become marker "The turning point". A #hashtag stays text. The name shows as the section's title above its paragraph, in the editor, on the prompter and on the iPhone, next to the marker number, and a blank line under the heading stays under the title.

Paste works the same way. Paste text into the editor (⌘V) and its [square brackets] become screen directions, its lines starting with #, ##, ### or #3 become named markers, and its Markdown marks become formatting, in the style at the cursor. ⌘Z takes the whole paste back; after a paste with Markdown marks, the first ⌘Z brings back the text with its marks and a second one takes the paste away. ⌘D on a selected direction turns it back into script text. To paste without converting (citations like [1], or a line such as "#1 rule"), use Edit → Paste and Match Style.

Markdown

If you write your scripts in Markdown, PowerCue reads the marks and shows what they mean. This happens when you paste (⌘V) and when you import a text or .md file. A Word or RTF file comes in as it is.

• **bold**, *italic*, ~~strikethrough~~ and <u>underline</u> become that formatting. A link keeps only its words.
• Lines that start with - , * or + become bullets, and a > quote becomes italic.
• <small>words</small> becomes a screen direction. <span color="red"> colors the words, and <span color="yellow_bg"> puts a highlight block behind them. The color names are gray, brown, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink and red.
• --- alone on a line becomes a marker without a name, unless it stands at the start or end of the script, next to a heading or before another ---: then it is removed.
• Headings become named markers, as described above.

Only complete marks convert: a lone asterisk, 5 * 3, snake_case or a tag with no partner stays as typed. On a paste, lines that start with a dash, a star, a plus or > are left alone unless the text has another Markdown mark, so an ordinary list pastes as it always did. On import, the sheet shows a box for each kind of mark, with the number found (for a text file, only the kinds it has). To paste with nothing converted, use Edit → Paste and Match Style.

Export (File → Export to Word…, ⌘E) writes a real .docx:

• Default-colored text becomes standard black on white, the way a script should print; your custom colors, styles and highlight blocks are kept.
• Screen directions gain [square brackets] (unless they already have them) and keep their teal shading, so anyone reading the file sees what is not to be read aloud.
• Jump markers leave as Word headings in front of their paragraphs, named like the marker (### when unnamed). They show in Word's navigation pane, and Import turns them back into markers.
• With a run time set, gray time labels open each paragraph; Import strips them again.

Recording with PowerCue Pro

PowerCue Pro records while you read. One press records your camera, your screen or both, with your microphone and, if you ask for them, the Mac's own sound and your mouse clicks. Each recording is a take: a folder with its video files and an XML that brings the take into PowerCut, Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve with camera and screen in sync.

Recording is part of PowerCue Pro and of the 7 day trial. With a PowerCue license the recording controls carry a PRO badge, and New Recording opens for a look without recording: see PowerCue Pro & the upgrade.

Two files, never one picture. The camera and the screen are recorded to separate files. The preview in New Recording can show the camera in a bubble over the screen; the files never do. The take's XML lines the two up as the angles of one multicam, and you decide in your editor where the camera sits.

The camera, the screen, or both. A switch beside Screen and one beside Camera in New Recording turn each on or off, so a take can be the camera alone, the screen alone, or both. One of the two is always recorded. The microphone is a choice of its own.

A take in five steps:

1. Click New Recording… in the toolbar (⌥⌘R).
2. Under the previews, choose what to record: the Screen and the Camera, each with its switch, and the Microphone.
3. Click Record (Return in that window, or ⌘R anywhere in PowerCue). After the countdown the window steps aside for a small bar with the take's time and Stop.
4. Read. Pause and Continue as often as you like: it stays one take.
5. Click Stop. The take is saved, and the Take saved dialog offers to rename it, show it in Finder, open it in your editor or send it to PowerCut.

The keys for the commands are the ones PowerCue comes with, and you can change them under Help → Keyboard Shortcuts. Return, Esc, Delete, Tab and the arrow keys in the dialogs and drawings are fixed.

Rec, in the prompter controls

Rec sits beside Follow and Play. It starts a take with the settings as they stand in New Recording, without opening that window, so a retake is one click. During a take Rec shows the take's time, and a click stops and saves it. Pause sits beside it.

Further along the same bar are up to two small buttons with a level meter each, one for the microphone and one for the computer audio; each shows only while that sound is recorded. A click mutes that sound in the recording (see Recording a take). The button after them opens New Recording.

The Recording section

The Recording section sits with the other sections under the preview. It holds no settings of its own: it says "Every recording setting is in New Recording." and shows

• the New Recording… button,
• the next take in one line, for example "HEVC camera and screen in .mov, about 710 MB a minute, space for about 6 hours.",
• any warning or problem that stands in a take's way,
• Last Take: this session's last take with its size and length, Send to PowerCut, a folder button and a More button (the three dots),
• what the recorder is doing, from "Ready to record." to "Saving the take…",
• and Show in the menu bar, the switch for PowerCue's item in the macOS menu bar.

The menu bar item

PowerCue puts its logo in the macOS menu bar, at the top right of the screen, for quick screen recordings from any app. Its menu has:

• Start Recording, with what New Recording is set to record, for example "Start Recording: Studio Display". It starts the take New Recording's Record would start.
• Record Display, Record Selection…, Record Window and Record App. Each chooses what to record and starts the take as soon as it is chosen: a display, a window or an app from the list at once, a selection once you have drawn it and clicked Use Selection, a window or an app after Pick on Screen.
• Record Screen Only and Record Camera Only: one take of the screen alone, or of the camera alone. Your settings stay as they are, so the next take records what New Recording says.
• Camera, Microphone and Screen Sound, the same choices as in New Recording.
• Show Quick Bar, Open New Recording… and, after a take, Show Last Take in Finder.
• Check for Updates… and Hide from the Menu Bar. When an update is waiting, the logo has a small orange dot at its corner, and the menu says "Update Available: 1.0.33…" in place of Check for Updates.

During a take the logo becomes a red button with the take's time, and a pause button stands beside it. A click on the red button stops the take; a right click opens the menu, with Pause or Continue and Stop Recording. During the countdown the menu has Cancel.

Hide from the Menu Bar takes the item away; Show in the menu bar in the Recording section brings it back.

The quick bar

Show Quick Bar in the menu bar item opens a small floating bar at the bottom of the screen. It has Display, Selection, Window and App, the menu of what to record, the camera, the microphone, the screen sound, Record, and a button that opens New Recording for everything else. The arrow beside Record offers Record Screen Only and Record Camera Only for one take. The bar goes away when a countdown or a take starts, and it is never in the recording. Its X closes it; the menu bar item opens it again.

New Recording

New Recording is the recorder's own window. It holds every recording setting, shows what will be recorded before you record it, and has Record.

Open it with New Recording… in the toolbar, in the Recording section or in the Prompter menu (⌥⌘R), or with the settings button beside the mute buttons in the prompter controls.

On the left are the previews with each source's switch and menus under them, then the take's name, its frame rate and the Screen sound, with the microphone beside them. On the right are the Camera, Capture options, File format, Destination, Disk, Capture Diagnostics and Last take. Along the bottom are Record, Pause, the take's clock, the take folder and the format in one line.

Beside the window's heading, a dot and a word say where things stand: "Ready to record", "Not ready" (a problem is named in the left column), "Starting in 3", "Recording", "Paused" or "Saving…".

The preview

With a screen switched on, three buttons beside the window's heading choose how the preview is laid out: Screen (⌘1, the screen large with the camera in a bubble), Camera (⌘2, the camera large with the screen small) and Side by side (⌘3). This changes the preview only. A label on it says so: "Preview · camera and screen are separate files".

New Recording opens in Side by side each time you open it. Brought forward while it is open, or back after a take, it keeps the view you chose.

The screen preview shows exactly what the screen file will hold: the whole display, or only your selection, window or app.

Screen

The switch beside Screen turns the screen on or off. Off, the take records the camera alone, as No screen (camera only) does, which the menu under the buttons always ends with. Turning the screen off while the camera is off turns the camera on, so one of them is always recorded.

Four buttons choose what the screen file holds. No button is lit while no screen is recorded.

Display records a whole display. The menu under the buttons names the display. With two displays or more it also offers Pick on Screen…, which lights up the display under the pointer; a click chooses it.

Selection records the part of a display you drag out.

• Draw it. With no selection yet, a click on Selection opens the drawing at once, as Draw Selection… does. The screen dims and says "Drag over the part of the screen to record". Drag a rectangle on the display you want. A bar under it shows the file's size in pixels at Native, with Clear, Cancel and Use Selection. Return uses it, Esc cancels, Delete clears it, Shift keeps 16:9 while you drag, the arrow keys move it, and Option with the arrow keys resizes it. To start over, drag anywhere outside the rectangle. A selection is never smaller than 320 by 180 pixels.
• See it before you record. While New Recording is open, the selection stands on its display as a white frame with a handle on each corner and each side, and a small tab under it with the size and an X. Nothing dims, and every click inside the frame goes to the app under it, so you can arrange what you record. Drag the tab or the frame's line to move the selection, and a handle to resize it (Shift keeps 16:9, Option resizes around the middle). What the frame shows is what Record takes.
• Adjust it. Adjust Selection… in the menu dims the rest of the screen and puts the selection back into the drawing, where the arrow keys move it.
• Draw another. New Selection… opens the drawing with no rectangle. The selection you had stays until you click Use Selection, and Esc keeps it.
• Clear and restore it. Clear Selection forgets the selection at one click. It is in the menu, on the X at the end of the Selection field, on the X of the frame's tab, and on a right click on the field or the frame. Nothing is asked, and nothing is lost: Restore Selection brings the very same rectangle back. You find it in the menu and on a right click, and as a button beside Draw Selection… in the preview. It is offered until you draw a new selection on that display or quit PowerCue.
• If the display changes. A selection belongs to the display it was drawn on. If that display is not connected, the preview says "The selection's display is not connected." If it has another size than when you drew, it says "The display's size changed." and offers Adjust Selection… so you can check the framing.

Window records one window by itself. With no window chosen yet, a click on Window opens Pick on Screen…, which lights up the window under the pointer; a click chooses it (Tab steps through the windows, Return chooses, Esc cancels). The menu lists the open windows by app as well. The window's menus and pop-ups are not in the picture, and a window take has no click rings. If the window changes size during the take, the file keeps its size and the window is fitted inside.

App records one app's windows on a display. "The rest of the display is black in the file." Choose the app from the menu, or with Pick on Screen… and a click on one of its windows. With two displays or more, the menu's On display part says which display it is recorded on.

Screen size sets the screen file's size: Native keeps every pixel, and 4K (2160p), 1440p and 1080p HD keep the shape and save space. Only sizes smaller than Native are listed. A size marked "heavy" asks more of this Mac than PowerCue recommends.

Camera

The Camera menu lists System Default and every camera macOS sees. It is the same camera the camera feed shows behind the prompter text, so picking one here changes it there too.

The switch beside Camera turns the camera on or off. Off, the take records the screen alone, as No camera (screen only) does, the last item of the Camera menu. Your voice then goes into the screen file as its Mic track, which comes on by itself when a microphone is chosen. Turning the camera off while the screen is off turns the screen on.

A camera that is not connected. When you start a take with a screen and the chosen camera is not there, PowerCue asks before the countdown: "The camera isn't connected", with Record Screen Only and Cancel. Record Screen Only records this one take without the camera, and your settings stay as they are.

Camera resolution sets the camera file's size. Match camera records every pixel the camera sends; 4K (2160p), 1080p and 720p are offered as far as the camera reaches. The Camera group at the top right says what the camera sends, for example "The camera sends 3840 × 2160 at 59.94 fps. Match camera records 29.97 fps, every second frame."

If you use a color LUT on the camera feed, Burn the LUT into the recording appears in the Camera group. On, "The file gets the look you see on the feed." Off, "The file stays clean: log footage stays log, ready to grade."

Microphone

The Microphone menu sits under the camera's menus:

• Same as Follow records the microphone Follow listens to.
• No microphone records a take without your voice.
• Or pick any input device by name.

On an audio interface with several inputs an Input menu appears: one input records a centered mono track, a pair of inputs records stereo, the first on the left. The meter under the menu moves when you speak: check it before every session. The line under it reads the sound as the take records it, for example "48 kHz · AAC 160 kbps · mono".

Your voice goes into the camera file. In a take without a camera it goes into the screen file, on macOS 15 or later: "On macOS 14 a take without a camera records no microphone: macOS 15 or later records it in the screen file."

The audio meter on the camera picture shows the same microphone, and its menu makes the same choice: see Camera Feeds.

Take name and frame rate

Take name is what the next takes are called. Type "Intro" and the takes are "Intro Take 1", "Intro Take 2" and so on. PowerCue adds the number, so no take is ever written over another. Leave the field empty and the takes are named after the script. The grey line under the field always says what the next take will be called, for example "Next take: Intro Take 1." Opening another script empties the field.

Frame rate is the take's frame rate, for both files. Match camera records the camera's own rate up to 30 fps, which is as far as PowerCue goes. A camera that runs 50, 59.94 or 60 fps gives every second frame, evenly. Any other rate is converted, and the menu says how smooth that is.

Screen sound

Screen sound, under Frame rate, opens what the screen file's sound holds. It is greyed while no screen is recorded. Three sources, each with its own switch. A new setup has all three on, as three separate tracks:

• Mic is a copy of your microphone in the screen file. The camera file keeps your voice for PowerCut, and the copy stays off in the multicam, so it is never heard twice. In a take without a camera, the Mic track is where your voice is recorded.
• Computer Audio is the Mac's own sound, a video you play or an app's alerts, on a track of its own. PowerCue's own sounds are not in it. With Window or App it holds that app's sound only.
• Mouse Clicks adds a click sound at each press of a mouse button on what is recorded. Click volume sets how loud, and the small speaker button plays it.

Layout decides how they go into the file: Separate tracks (one track per source, in the order of the rows, which you can drag) or One mix (every source in one track, which plays anywhere but cannot be taken apart later). In an .mp4, web players and upload sites play only the first sound track, so PowerCue offers Use One mix there.

Capture options

• Countdown: Off, 3 seconds, 5 seconds or 10 seconds, the time to get ready after pressing Record. A new setup starts at once (Off). A take that Follow starts begins at once.
• Show the pointer puts the mouse pointer in the screen recording.
• Pointer and clicks sets click rings: a ring that grows and fades at each mouse press, in the screen file and on your screen during the take, a left click in one color and a right click in another. A new setup has them on, blue for the left click and yellow for the right. Thickness, Size and Duration shape it, and Try It on Screen shows the rings for 10 seconds with nothing recorded.
• Hide notifications keeps notification banners out of the screen recording. It is on to start with. They still appear on your screen.
• Hide desktop icons keeps the files and folders on your desktop out of the recording; the wallpaper still shows.
• Show PowerCue in the recording is off unless you turn it on: see what is left out of the picture.
• Floating prompter opens the see-through prompter over the screen, so you can read while you record the screen. See The Floating Prompter.
• Record while following ties the take to Follow: "Follow on this Mac starts the take and stopping Follow ends it: one press rolls the recording and the prompter together." Stopping Follow ends only a take that Follow started, and with a take already running, Follow starts nothing. Follow pressed on an iPhone or iPad does not start a take.
• Show Take Saved after each take switches the Take saved dialog on or off.

Hide notifications, Hide desktop icons and Show PowerCue in the recording apply to Display and Selection. A window or app recording never shows notifications, the desktop or PowerCue, so the three are locked there.

File format

Preset sets the formats together:

The two ProRes presets, and ProRes in the menus below, are offered only on a Mac whose chip has a ProRes encoder.

Change anything below the preset for your own mix, and keep it with Save as Preset…. A preset of yours keeps the codecs, the picture quality, the wrapper, the sound quality, both sizes, the frame rate, the countdown and the layout of the Screen sound tracks, but not which sources are on. PowerCue keeps up to 20.

Camera and Screen set each file's codec: "H.264 plays everywhere. HEVC gives the same quality in about half the space. ProRes edits most smoothly and makes big files."

Picture quality decides how much room the picture gets in the H.264 and HEVC files, the camera's and the screen's alike. ProRes sets its own, so the menu is not there for a take that is all ProRes.

• Best is what a new setup records: "the most detail, and the largest files."
• Balanced gives the picture about half of Best's room: "smaller files, hard to tell from Best when played." Fine grain softens.
• Smallest gives it about a quarter: "the smallest files." Clean for a tutorial; grain goes and fine detail softens.

The half and the quarter hold at 24 fps and under. At 30 fps both get a little more.

Each item in the menu says what a minute of the take weighs with it, at the sizes and the frame rate you have chosen, so you see the difference before you record. With a screen file the figure reads "up to": it is the limit a take can reach, and a screen usually needs far less than it is allowed. The sound is not changed by this choice.

Wrapper is the file around picture and sound, for every file of the take: .mov (QuickTime) or .mp4 (MPEG-4). The .mov wrapper suits editing and holds every option; .mp4 plays and uploads anywhere, with AAC sound. ProRes records to .mov only.

Audio quality is the sound format of every file: Uncompressed 24-bit, Uncompressed 16-bit, or AAC at 320, 256, 192 or 128 kbps (these are stereo figures; a mono track gets half). "Sound is always 48 kHz." Uncompressed keeps every detail for editing; AAC is far smaller, and 128 kbps is plenty for speech. An .mp4 file holds AAC sound only.

Under the group one line adds it up, for example "About 1.2 GB per minute: camera 900 MB, screen 300 MB."

Destination, Disk and the rest

Destination is where takes are saved, with Change… and a folder button. The line under it names the next take's folder.

Disk shows three figures: Size per minute, Free space on the take folder's disk, and Capacity, how long that space lasts at this setting.

Capture Diagnostics opens the camera, microphone and encoder details. Warnings and problems always show without it, in the left column.

Last take is this session's last take, as in the Recording section.

If the setup asks more of this Mac than PowerCue recommends, an amber line under Frame rate says so ("Heavy for this Mac: …") and Use recommended changes only the sizes its tip names. Nothing changes by itself, and Record is never blocked by it.

The bottom bar repeats the essentials: the take folder (click it for Change… and Show in Finder) and the format in one line (click it for the presets and All format options…).

Every setting is fixed when a take starts and locked until it is saved.

Recording a take

Starting

Each of these starts a take:

• Record in New Recording (Return, while you are not typing in a field).
• Rec in the prompter controls.
• Prompter → Start Recording (⌘R), while PowerCue is the app in front.
• The menu bar item's Start Recording, Record Display, Record Selection…, Record Window, Record App, Record Screen Only or Record Camera Only, from any app. See The menu bar item.
• Record in the quick bar.
• Follow, with Record while following on.
• A Stream Deck key or a script: powercue://record. See Stream Deck & automation.

PowerCue checks the setup first. If something stands in the way (no room on the disk, a selection whose display is gone, a window that was closed), no countdown starts and a line says what to do. If the camera is not connected, PowerCue asks whether to record the screen alone: see Camera.

The countdown shows as a large number in the middle of the selection or the window that is recorded, else in the middle of the screen. Record reads "Cancel (3)" meanwhile, and Esc cancels it from any PowerCue window.

What is on your screen while a take runs

As soon as a take is asked for, a small dark bar appears along the top of the screen: the capsule. It shows the countdown, and when the take starts, New Recording steps aside and the capsule stays. It floats over every app and every full-screen Space, and it is never in the recording.

The capsule shows a red dot, the take's time and its size so far, then Stop, a pause button, a camera and a microphone button, and a window button that brings New Recording back (its settings stay locked until the take ends). Drag the capsule by the grip at its left. It comes back where you left it.

• A selection has a red frame around it from the countdown on, for as long as the screen file runs. The frame is grey while the take is paused.
• A whole display has a thin red line along its edges in the same way, grey while paused. A window or an app recording has none.
• The menu bar item turns into a red button with the take's time, with a pause button beside it. A click on the red button stops the take.
• A warning turns the capsule's dot amber and adds a triangle. Rest the pointer on it to read what is the matter. Rec in the main window says the same in its tip.
• macOS lets you stop a screen recording from its menu bar. If you do, the screen file ends at that point and the take goes on with the camera. A take without a camera ends there and is saved.

While a take runs the Mac does not go to sleep by itself, and while a screen is recorded the displays stay awake.

What is left out of the picture

• Never recorded: New Recording, the capsule, the countdown, the quick bar, the red frame around a selection, the red line around a display and tooltips.
• PowerCue itself is left out unless you turn on Show PowerCue in the recording. With the switch on, PowerCue's windows are recorded like any other app's: the main window, the Prompter Window, the Floating Prompter, Settings, sheets and menus. A window that opens during a take joins the recording a moment after it appears.
• The Floating Prompter stays out unless Show PowerCue in the recording is on and its own Hide from screen sharing where the app allows it is off. See The Floating Prompter.
• Notification banners stay out while Hide notifications is on, and desktop icons while Hide desktop icons is on.
• The click rings are in a Display, Selection or App recording whenever you switch them on.

The hint under New Recording's left column always says which of the two holds: "PowerCue never appears in the screen recording", or "PowerCue's windows appear in the screen recording; New Recording, the capsule and the countdown never do".

Pausing and continuing

Pause with the pause button on the capsule or in the menu bar, Pause in New Recording or beside Rec, or Prompter → Pause Recording (⌃⌘R). The same places continue: the button reads Continue, the menu Continue Recording.

Nothing is recorded while paused, and Continue picks up in the same take and the same files, which run on without a gap where the pause was.

A paused take does not wait for ever. After 25 minutes the capsule warns, and at 30 minutes PowerCue stops and saves the take, so the camera and microphone are not left on.

Muting and switching

• Mute the microphone with its button in the prompter controls or Prompter → Mute Microphone in Recording (⇧⌘M). The file keeps its sound track and records silence until you unmute. Follow keeps listening.
• Mute the computer audio the same way (⌥⇧⌘M).
• Switch the camera or the microphone inside a take with the two buttons on the capsule, or Prompter → Switch Camera and Switch Microphone. The take pauses while it switches and goes on with the new one. A camera that cannot take over is greyed in the menu, for example one with another shape than the take. If the new source does not come up, the take stays on the one it had; if that one cannot come back either, the take stops and is saved.

Stopping

Stop with Stop on the capsule, the red button in the menu bar, Rec in the main window, Stop in New Recording or Prompter → Stop Recording (⌘R). From a Stream Deck: powercue://record/stop.

The capsule says "Saving…". With the Take saved dialog on, which is the default, the dialog then takes its place. Without the dialog, the capsule says "Saved" with the take's name for a few seconds, with Send to PowerCut, Show and a close button. New Recording comes back if it was open, ready for the next take.

If you quit PowerCue during a take, the take's files are closed properly first. If the Mac crashes or loses power, the take is recovered the next time PowerCue opens: see A take's notices.

After the take

The Take saved dialog

When a take is saved, the Take saved dialog opens where an alert would, on the display you are at, or where you last dragged it. It closes by itself when the next take or its countdown starts, and after Send to PowerCut or Open in Final Cut Pro has handed the take over. It does not come if the take left no file or the copy can no longer record.

• Name. When PowerCue is in front and you stopped the take, the take's name is selected, ready to type over. Return renames. The take's folder, its files and its XML get the new name, and nothing is encoded again. A name that cannot be used says why under the field, for example "There is already a take named “Intro” in this folder." A name you typed is also applied when you click Done, Show in Finder or Send to PowerCut; a name that cannot be used holds Show in Finder and Send to PowerCut back, while Done closes and keeps the old name. Return or Done on the name as it is closes the dialog, and Esc closes it and keeps the name.
• Size and length, for example "412 MB · 1:24", and what was recorded, for example "Camera, Screen, Mic and Computer Audio".
• Files. Every file of the take with its own size: Camera, Screen, the XML ("For PowerCut, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve."), and later any separate sound files and the XML for Premiere Pro. A click on a row shows that file in Finder.
• The take's notice, if it has one: see A take's notices.
• Show this after each take. Untick it and the dialog stays away. The same switch is in New Recording under Capture options, Show Take Saved after each take.

The buttons:

• Show in Finder shows the take's folder.
• Done closes the dialog.
• Open in lists the editors on this Mac. Without one, the menu is not there.
  • Final Cut Pro gets the take's XML directly.
  • DaVinci Resolve… shows the XML in Finder and says where to import it: "In DaVinci Resolve, open a project, then choose File, Import, Timeline and pick it."
  • Premiere Pro… writes an XML of its own for Premiere into the take's folder, shows it in Finder and says "In Premiere, open your project, choose File, Import and pick it."
• Send to PowerCut sends the take's XML to PowerCut: what you recorded as one multicam, ready to transcribe. A PowerCut that cannot open a take by itself yet is started instead, the XML is shown in Finder, and the dialog says to drag it into PowerCut's window. If PowerCut is not on this Mac, the dialog says what PowerCut is, with Learn More, Get PowerCut and Back.

When PowerCue is in front and you stopped the take, Space, the arrow keys and 1 to 9 still drive the prompter until you click in the name or type into it, so a retake starts with the keys you know.

The Saved line and the last take

The dialog is not the only way to a take. Under the prompter controls in the main window a line says "Saved" with the take's name and size, and has Send to PowerCut, Rename… and Show in Finder. If the take has a notice, this line shows it.

The Last Take row in the Recording section and in New Recording stays for the session. Its More button (the three dots) has:

• Rename…
• Open in, with the editors installed on this Mac
• Save Separate Sound Files, which writes the take's Mic, Computer Audio and Mouse Clicks as WAV files into its folder. The picture is not touched. A take whose screen sound is one mix cannot be taken apart: PowerCue then saves the Mic and the Screen Mix.
• Show in Finder

For an older take, use Prompter → Rename a Take… and Save Separate Sound Files of a Take… and choose the take's folder.

Where takes are kept

Takes are saved in Movies/PowerCue in your home folder, until you choose another folder under Destination in New Recording (Change…, then Record Here).

Each take is a folder of its own, named after the take: the Take name you typed or the script's title, and a number, as in "Intro Take 1" and then "Intro Take 2".

In the folder of "Intro Take 1":

The XML holds the full paths of the take's files, so choose the take folder before you record rather than moving takes afterwards.

A take's notices

Most takes end with the plain word "Saved" and the take's name. When PowerCue has something to say about a take, it says it once the take is saved: in the Take saved dialog, in the line under the prompter controls and on the capsule.

There are two kinds.

An amber notice is about something you would see or hear in the take. It says what, where and for how long, then what it means, then why. An example:

Go to that time in the take, look, and then decide whether to keep it.

A grey Details line is about something PowerCue measured that you are unlikely to notice. It needs nothing from you. An example:

Details: The camera picture freezes for 0.2 seconds at 30:16 because this Mac was busy.

What the sentences mean:

When PowerCue stops a take itself, the notice begins with "Recording stopped" and the reason, and ends with where the take is: "The take is saved in Untitled Take 3." What was recorded up to that moment is kept. The reasons:

• "Recording stopped: the disk was almost full." and "Recording stopped: the drive is full. Free some space or choose another folder before the next take."
• "Recording stopped: the take was paused for 30 minutes."
• "Recording stopped because the camera had to restart: its signal dropped or changed, it was unplugged, or the Mac slept."
• "Recording stopped: this Mac could not keep up with saving the video at this picture size and frame rate." A second sentence then says what to try, for example "For the next take, try the screen at 1440p."
• "Recording stopped right at the start: another app is using this Mac's video encoder (the part that makes video files)." Quit apps that export, record or stream video, then press Rec again.
• "Recording stopped: the file could not be written. Check that the drive is still connected and has space."

A take that was cut short by a crash or a power loss is recovered the next time PowerCue opens. The notice says what it holds: "Recovered Launch Video Take 3, which was cut short: 2 min 14 s of the camera and the screen. About 2 s at the end could not be saved." A crash costs the last moments of a take: at most about two seconds, a little more if the Mac was struggling.

The amber triangle on the capsule, while a take runs, and the take's notice are separate: the notice is made after the take, from the finished files.

Permissions, limits and good practice

What macOS asks

Recording needs up to three permissions, and macOS asks for each once. The camera's and the microphone's questions carry PowerCue's own line, which ends "Recordings stay on this Mac."

• Camera. Asked the first time PowerCue uses your camera: the first time you switch on the camera feed, open New Recording or press Rec.
• Microphone. Asked the first time a take with a microphone starts, before the countdown, unless Follow asked for it earlier. If it is refused, PowerCue says "Recording sound needs microphone access. Turn it on in System Settings, Privacy & Security, Microphone, or set Microphone in New Recording to No microphone."
• Screen Recording. Asked only when you record a screen, and only when you click the button for it: macOS does not ask by itself. Until it is allowed, New Recording and the Recording section say "Screen recording needs your permission: click Allow Screen Recording." with the Allow Screen Recording… button under the line, and the screen's preview says "Screen recording needs your permission, once." with the same button. A Rec refused for it has the button too. The button asks macOS and opens System Settings at Privacy & Security, Screen Recording. Switch PowerCue on there, then quit and reopen PowerCue. Open Settings in the preview takes you to the same place. Computer Audio and Mouse Clicks need no permission of their own.

Limits

• 30 frames a second is as far as PowerCue goes: it records up to that rate. A 60 fps camera gives every second frame.
• A take without a camera records your voice on macOS 15 or later. On macOS 14 it records no microphone: pick a camera to record your voice with it.
• Computer Audio belongs to the screen file. It is recorded only in a take with a screen.
• Settings are fixed for a take. The format, the sizes and the take folder are locked from Record until the take is saved. Only the camera and the microphone can be switched inside a take.
• A pause ends at 30 minutes. PowerCue then saves the take.
• A window recording has no click rings, and its menus and pop-ups are not in the picture.
• Separate sound files are WAV files, which hold 4 GB at most. A take too long for that keeps its sound in the video files.

The disk

PowerCue watches the disk before and during a take, so that a take is stopped and saved before the disk is full.

• Before. The Disk group shows how long the free space lasts. Under 15 minutes it warns ("only … at this setting"). Under one minute the take does not start: "Not enough space on … Free some space or choose another folder."
• During. With less than a minute left the capsule warns that PowerCue will stop the take before the disk fills. PowerCue then stops and saves the take while there is still room to close its files, and the notice says "Recording stopped: the disk was almost full."
• Which drive. A network drive gets a warning ("The folder is on a network drive, which may be too slow to keep up with a take. A local drive is safer."), and so does an external drive that has to keep up with a high data rate.

Good practice

• Look at the preview and the meter first. The preview shows what the files will hold, and the microphone's meter moves when it hears you.
• Record a short test take when anything is new: a camera, a selection, the click rings. A few seconds are enough to see how it comes out.
• Quit what you do not need, above all apps that export, record or stream video. They use the same video encoder as PowerCue. If one of them holds it when you press Rec, PowerCue says so and offers Try Again, and on a Mac with a ProRes encoder Record as ProRes.
• Take the recommendation. When New Recording says "Heavy for this Mac", Use recommended sets the sizes PowerCue recommends for this Mac.
• Turn off Low Power Mode for long takes. With it on, New Recording warns: "Low Power Mode is on and can slow this Mac down while it saves video. Turn it off for long takes."
• Pick the preset by what comes next. Small and sharp for most takes, Most compatible when the file goes straight to a website, ProRes when you edit heavily and have the room.

Keyboard shortcuts

The same list is in the app, offline: Help, Keyboard Shortcuts (also a button on the Help tab of Settings), and that window is where you change them. Click a command's keys, press the new ones, and they are kept at once, for every script, also after a restart and after an update. The menus, the tips and the list itself show the new keys right away. Delete in a waiting field leaves a command without a shortcut, Esc keeps the old one, the round arrow at the end of a changed shortcut brings back its default, and Restore Defaults brings back all of them after asking once.

A key belongs to one command. If you press one that another command has, PowerCue asks under that row whether to swap the two shortcuts; if the other command cannot take this row's old keys, or this row has none, it asks whether to move the keys here and leave the other command without one. Return says yes, Esc cancels. It refuses what would type into your script or move its cursor (a letter alone, Command with an arrow), what every Mac app shares (Save, Copy, Undo, Find, Bold, Close, Quit and the like, listed as "Always the same") and what macOS uses itself. The reason stands under the row, with what would work instead. Space, the numbers and the arrows stay as they are, and stay out of the way while you are typing in the script or a text field. Every key named in this guide is the one PowerCue comes with.

The window works by keyboard alone too: Tab or the arrows go from field to field, and Space makes the field wait for its new keys.

The recording rows work in every PowerCue window while PowerCue is the app in front, except ⌘1 to ⌘3, which work in New Recording, and the window marks them PRO in a copy that cannot record. What each does is in Recording a take. Two keys of the countdown and the drawing cannot be changed and are named there only: Return for Record in New Recording and Esc to cancel the countdown. The commands that come without a key can be given one: a Stream Deck likes them.

A key you give Shortcut in every app (⌃⌥⌘K, see The Floating Prompter) takes its combination away from every other app while the floating prompter is open, so it needs two of Control, Option, Shift and Command, one of them Control or Option, or a key from F13 to F20. Shift-Command with a letter is what most apps use for their own commands, so PowerCue does not take that one from them.

With PowerCue Companion 1.0.8 or later, a keyboard or a pedal on the iPhone or iPad works the same way, with PowerCue's default keys, also when you changed them on the Mac. See iPhone & iPad companion.

Stream Deck & automation

Every prompter command can be driven from outside PowerCue: an Elgato Stream Deck, Apple's Shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro, Raycast, or a script from a control room. Two ways, and they can be mixed on one deck.

• Keyboard shortcuts. Most commands of the Prompter menu come with a Command-modified key (see the table above), and Help, Keyboard Shortcuts gives one to those that come without, so a Stream Deck Hotkey action can press it. These work anywhere in PowerCue, even while you type, but PowerCue must be the front app. If your deck presses keys, give it the keys as they are set in PowerCue under Help, Keyboard Shortcuts, and change them on the deck whenever you change them in PowerCue. The links below never change, whatever the keys are, so a deck built on links needs no attention. For a deck that presses keys, "F13 and F16 to F20 are on no Mac laptop keyboard and free on a Mac as it comes, so a deck can have them to itself." On many Macs F14 and F15 are macOS's display brightness keys, and PowerCue refuses any key that macOS's own shortcut list has switched on. On a Mac keyboard's own top row, hold fn to press F1 to F12 into a field.
• powercue:// links. PowerCue answers links, so a Stream Deck Website action (System, Website; put the link in its URL field, keep "Access in background" on) or open powercue://follow in a script works even when another app is in front. Do not use the Stream Deck Open action for these: it expects a file and shows a warning. Every link is listed in the table below.

Copy and paste links

Select a link, copy it, and paste it into the URL field of a Website action. Each row shows every form the command takes.

The links that start a take need PowerCue Pro. Without it they show one quiet line at the top of the controls, "Recording needs PowerCue Pro.", and nothing else happens; powercue://recorder still opens New Recording as a look. A take that a link starts counts down first, when a countdown is set. More on takes in Recording a take.

PowerCue Pro & the upgrade

PowerCue comes in two editions. PowerCue is the teleprompter. PowerCue Pro is the same app with recording: it records your camera, microphone, screen and computer audio, with pause and continue, and saves each take with an XML for PowerCut (see Recording with PowerCue Pro). Both are one-time purchases and both are the same download. Your license key decides which one you have.

If you own PowerCue, you never buy PowerCue Pro a second time. You upgrade the license you have, from inside the app, for the difference in price.

In the 7 day trial everything works, recording included. Rec, the Recording section and New Recording carry a PRO badge, and their tip says "Recording is part of PowerCue Pro, included in your trial."

The PRO badge and the lock

With a PowerCue license, everything that records carries a purple PRO badge:

• Rec, beside Follow and Play, shows a lock, "Rec" and PRO.
• The Recording section, with the other sections under the preview, has PRO with a small lock beside its title. The section says what Pro records and has three buttons: Upgrade to Pro…, Open New Recording… and Enter Upgrade Key….
• New Recording… is not in the toolbar while this copy cannot record. It is there during the trial and with PowerCue Pro.
• The Prompter menu has Start Recording (Pro) and New Recording (Pro)….
• The menu bar item says "Recording is part of PowerCue Pro." and offers See How to Upgrade… and Open New Recording…. It has no quick bar while this copy cannot record.
• Help → Keyboard Shortcuts marks the recording commands with PRO.

A click on Rec, on the section's badge or on Upgrade to Pro… opens the upgrade pop up. It never comes by itself, and Not Now closes it with nothing remembered. If a Stream Deck key or Record while following asks for a take, you get one quiet line at the top of the controls, "Recording needs PowerCue Pro.", with an Upgrade… link, and never a pop up in the middle of a read. The Prompter Window and the Floating Prompter show none of this: your talent looks at those. With a Pro license every badge and lock is gone.

New Recording without Pro

You can open New Recording before you upgrade and check it against your own setup. Click Open New Recording… in the Recording section.

The window opens as it does with Pro. Your camera shows. Switch on a screen and it shows too, once macOS allows it. The microphone level moves if PowerCue may already use your microphone. Every setting can be changed, and is kept.

What it does not do is record:

• Record shows a lock and PRO. Beside it the window says "Preview only. Recording is part of PowerCue Pro." with an Upgrade… link, and the status reads "Preview only".
• A click on Record, Return, or the Start Recording shortcut opens the upgrade pop up. No countdown starts and no file is written.
• The take folder and the disk space are left out. They belong to a take.
• Record while following shows as you left it. Without PowerCue Pro it can be switched off, not on.

What macOS asks. If PowerCue has never used your camera, macOS asks for it when the window opens, and the camera's light is on while the window is open. macOS asks for Screen Recording only after you switch on a screen and click Allow Screen Recording… yourself, and then wants PowerCue quit and opened again: "After allowing it in System Settings, quit and reopen PowerCue." Opening the window never asks for the microphone. While a screen preview runs, you can stop it from macOS's menu bar. If you do, the window says "Preview stopped from the menu bar." and Show Preview Again brings it back.

While the upgrade pop up is open, the previews pause and say "Preview paused". So your screen preview never shows the checkout page while you pay.

Upgrading to Pro

1. Click Rec, or Record in New Recording. The pop up "Recording is part of PowerCue Pro" says what Pro adds and what the upgrade costs for your license.
2. Click Upgrade to Pro. The button carries the price. Your browser opens Payhip with PowerCue Pro Upgrade, and in PowerCue the pop up turns into the key field and waits.
3. Pay. Your upgrade key comes by email from Payhip.
4. Paste the key into the waiting field and click Activate.

Recording unlocks on that Mac right away. There is no new download and no restart for the upgrade, and no take starts by itself: click Rec when you are ready.

The price is in US dollars. PowerCue reads it from rafaelludwig.com, so a sale shows by itself. If it cannot be read, the pop up names no number and says "Payhip shows the price before you pay."

See New Recording first. When the pop up opens over the main window and New Recording is not open, it has a quiet link with those words. It opens New Recording for a look.

Entering the key later. There are three ways to the same field: click Rec and then Enter Upgrade Key…, click Enter Upgrade Key… in the Recording section, or choose the app menu → Manage License… (⇧⌘L). A full PowerCue Pro key works in that field too. Entered under Manage License, two answers read differently: your PowerCue key gets "That is the PowerCue key this Mac already has. To add recording, paste the key from your Pro Upgrade email.", and a key the app does not know gets "That key wasn't recognized as a PowerCue key or a Pro Upgrade key. Nothing changed".

Afterwards, Manage License names your license "PowerCue Pro (PowerCue with the Pro Upgrade)". You need the upgrade key only once. From then on your PowerCue key is a Pro key: on a new Mac, or after Remove License from This Mac…, entering the PowerCue key alone gives you Pro. Once a Mac has unlocked recording, it does not need the internet to record.

Your other Macs

The upgrade belongs to your license, not to one Mac, and it changes nothing about how many Macs your license covers. On every other Mac that uses your PowerCue key there is nothing to type: open PowerCue once while online and click Rec. The pop up appears, asks the license server and closes by itself once the answer is Pro, and Rec is unlocked. That click does not start a take: click Rec again to record.

Do this before a shoot. A Mac that has not been online since the upgrade is still plain PowerCue. It cannot record until it has been online once.

If the pop up says "Your license already includes Pro. This Mac is not one of its … registered Macs. Replace one to record here.", this Mac is one more than your license registers. Click Replace a Mac… and choose the Mac this one replaces. The number in that sentence is your license's own.

If the key is refused

Nothing is used up by a key that is refused. PowerCue says what is the matter, and where a sentence says to write to support, a Contact Support link under it opens an email with your version filled in.

An older PowerCue does not know upgrade keys. PowerCue 1.0.27 and older have no Rec button, and they answer an upgrade key with "That key wasn't recognized, but this copy is already activated". The upgrade was not used, whatever the rest of that sentence says. Update first (app menu → Check for Updates), then enter the key.

If an upgrade is refunded

A refunded upgrade takes recording away again and nothing else. PowerCue stays licensed, and your scripts and your takes are not touched.

Each Mac learns of it the next time it checks your license. Rec gets its lock back, and the pop up says "Your Pro Upgrade is no longer active. If that is not right, paste your upgrade key again or write to support." A take that is running is never cut short: it is saved as usual, and only the next one is refused. Manage License then names the license "PowerCue Standard (its Pro Upgrade is no longer active)".

To ask for a refund, or if recording locked and you did not ask for one, write to apps@rafaelludwig.com.

License & trial

Updates & ownership. Your license is permanent. Every update through version 1.x is free, including macOS compatibility fixes. A future major version will be a paid update, always discounted for existing owners. If this product is ever retired I will say so rather than go quiet: the final version stays downloadable and your license keeps working.

PowerCue and PowerCue Pro are one-time purchases, no subscription. New installs get 7 days fully functional, every feature included, recording too. When the trial ends the app locks until a license key is entered; your scripts and projects are kept safe and are all there the moment you unlock.

Buy License… (in the status bar during the trial, in Settings and in the Help menu while you have no license) asks which edition you want, PowerCue or PowerCue Pro, and shows the price of each when it can read them. Once you own PowerCue, that Help item reads Upgrade to Pro…. You can start with PowerCue and add Pro later for the difference: see PowerCue Pro & the upgrade. The key arrives by email from Payhip after purchase: enter it under the app menu → Enter License Key (⇧⌘L). On a licensed copy the same menu item reads Manage License….

Updates arrive through the built-in updater (app menu → Check for Updates, or Check for Updates… in the menu bar item), signed and verified. When an update is waiting, the menu bar item's logo has a small orange dot at its corner.

The app also locks when the store reports a license as refunded or disabled, and says so: "This license was refunded" or "This license has been disabled". Your scripts are safe either way.

I have a trial code

A trial code (it looks like TRIAL-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX) gives PowerCue more trial days with every feature. Click the link in the email on your Mac, or choose the app menu → Enter License Key (⇧⌘L) and paste the code. Once the trial has ended, the lock screen also has Have a trial code? for it; a license key still goes in Enter License Key…. The days count from that moment, PowerCue needs an internet connection only while it checks the code, and a code works on one Mac unless your email says otherwise.

Your Macs

A PowerCue license covers a set number of Macs at a time. Manage License… (app menu, ⇧⌘L) shows this Mac and the Macs your key is registered on. If you enter your key on one Mac more than the license covers, PowerCue lists the registered Macs and asks which one this Mac replaces. Your scripts on that Mac are not touched, and you can move the license back at any time by entering the key there. Remove License from This Mac… returns this Mac to the trial, which locks the app if the trial has ended; your key is not affected and can be entered again on this or another Mac, with an internet connection. A Mac that already holds the key keeps working if it is later found over the limit: Manage License then says "This Mac isn't counted: the key is registered on … other Macs. PowerCue keeps working here." A Pro key on such a Mac does not record until you replace one of the other Macs.

Uninstalling

PowerCue is a single, self-contained app. To uninstall, quit PowerCue and drag PowerCue.app from your Applications folder to the Trash.

Optional: remove support files

For a completely clean sweep, in Finder choose Go → Go to Folder and remove:

• ~/Library/Preferences/com.rafaelludwig.PowerCue.plist (settings)
• ~/Library/Application Support/PowerCue (the working script, autosaves and versions)
• ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.rafaelludwig.PowerCue.savedState (window state)

Your license is not lost by uninstalling: the key from your Payhip receipt activates any future install. If you are leaving because something did not work, one email might fix it: apps@rafaelludwig.com.

Troubleshooting

• "On-device speech recognition for this language is not installed on this Mac", or "This Mac cannot recognize this language on-device". PowerCue only ever recognizes speech on your Mac, so it needs Apple's on-device model for the language you read in. On macOS 26 and later, update PowerCue and pick the language in Settings, Follow; the model downloads once. On macOS 14 and 15, turn on Dictation for that language in System Settings, Keyboard, Dictation (that installs the model), then press Follow again.
• "Could not start audio input." Update PowerCue: from 1.0.10 it retries and then captures the microphone the way FaceTime does when macOS refuses the normal route (seen on macOS 27).
• Follow does nothing. Check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone (and, on macOS 14 or 15, Speech Recognition as well). Then check the mic menu next to the Follow button is pointing at the microphone you are actually speaking into; the status bar under the script names the one that is listening. On an audio interface, check that Input Channel in the same menu names the input the microphone is plugged into.
• The karaoke highlight runs ahead of me or behind me. Karaoke section, Timing: slide toward Ahead if the highlight comes late, toward Behind if it comes early. Small moves of 50 to 100 milliseconds are usually enough.
• It jumped back when I did not want it to. Re-read detection moves the prompter back when several words in a row match a line you already read: a few words for a line nearby, about six for one more than five lines back. Turn it off in the Voice Follow section if your script repeats phrases and you prefer forward only.
• The text moves while nobody reads. Smooth moves only for words it recognizes, so noise, music or another voice in the room no longer rolls the text on. If it still drifts, check that the mic menu points at your own microphone, or set Scrolling to Line by line.
• Following feels lost after a big ad-lib. Scroll or jump so your next scripted line sits at the marker; following re-anchors to the text at the marker and picks you up on the next words you read.
• The text keeps rolling while I read, and I liked it one line at a time. That is Smooth scrolling, which PowerCue 1.0.28 uses unless you choose otherwise. In the Voice Follow section, set Scrolling to Line by line.
• The Prompter Window shows backwards text. That is the mirror flip for beam-splitter rigs; press the flip buttons under the preview or in the Prompter Window's own controls to set it back, or choose Prompter → Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical.
• The Prompter Window is black. Blackout is on. Click the Blackout button at the right of the top bar or under the preview, press ⇧⌘B, or choose Prompter → Blackout again.
• Scrolling while Play rolls changes its speed. That is Scroll wheel and trackpad change the speed too, in the Scrolling section. Switch it off, or stop Play to scroll the script by hand.
• No karaoke highlight. Check it is enabled in the Karaoke section, and in Play mode remember it tracks the marker, not your voice.
• The iPhone or iPad shows no camera. A Companion from before the camera shows none, whatever the switch says, and PowerCue says so under Show on iPhone and iPad: "… has an earlier PowerCue Companion, which shows no camera."
• The app crashed. PowerCue offers to send the crash report on next launch (you review the email before anything is sent), or Help → Send Crash Reports.
• Something else. Help → Report a Problem pre-fills an email with your version details. Suggestions are just as welcome: Help → Leave a Suggestion.

PowerCue Pro and the upgrade

• Rec shows a lock, or Record shows a lock and the status says "Preview only". This copy has a PowerCue license, and recording is part of PowerCue Pro. See PowerCue Pro & the upgrade.
• Rec still shows a lock after I upgraded. On the Mac where you entered the key, go online and click Rec once more. On another Mac, open PowerCue while online and click Rec: there is nothing to type. If the pop up says "Your upgrade is registered. PowerCue could not confirm it just now.", click Check Again.
• PowerCue says "That is your PowerCue key." Payhip sent you two emails, one for PowerCue and one for PowerCue Pro Upgrade. The upgrade field wants the key from the second. Under Manage License the same mistake reads "That is the PowerCue key this Mac already has."
• "PowerCue could not confirm PowerCue Pro on this Mac yet." This Mac has a Pro license and has not reached the license server yet. Go online and click Check Again. It can happen after an update that was first opened offline.

Recording: before the take

• "Screen recording needs your permission: click Allow Screen Recording." or "Screen recording needs your permission, once." Click Allow Screen Recording… under the line, or in the screen's preview in New Recording. macOS shows no question by itself; the button opens System Settings at Privacy & Security, Screen Recording. Switch PowerCue on there, then quit PowerCue and open it again. If it still asks, click Open Settings in the preview and check that PowerCue is switched on in the list of apps that may record the screen.
• "The camera isn't connected" The camera chosen in New Recording is not there. Click Record Screen Only for this take without the camera, or connect the camera and press Rec again. To record without a camera every time, switch Camera off in New Recording.
• There is no PowerCue item in the menu bar. Switch on Show in the menu bar in the Recording section. If it is on and the item still does not show, the menu bar may be too full for it: quit an app with an item of its own, or make room on a larger display.
• A take without a camera has no voice. On macOS 14 a take without a camera records no microphone. On macOS 15 or later, check that a microphone is chosen and that Mic is on under Screen sound.
• "Recording sound needs microphone access." macOS has PowerCue switched off under System Settings, Privacy & Security, Microphone. Switch it on there, or set Microphone in New Recording to No microphone for a take without your voice.
• "The camera did not start. Check that it is connected and not in use by another app." The camera did not come up within 12 seconds. Check the cable, quit other apps that use the camera, and press Rec again.
• The status reads "Not ready". A line in New Recording's left column names the problem (the Recording section words some of them in its own way). The usual ones:
  • "Not enough space on … at this setting. Free some space or choose another folder." Less than a minute of recording fits on the disk. Free some space, or choose another folder under Destination.
  • "The recording folder is not available. Choose another one." The take folder is on a drive that is not connected. Connect it, or click Change… under Destination.
  • "Screen recording has no selection yet: press Draw Selection, or set Screen to Display."
  • "The display changed since the selection was drawn: check it with Adjust Selection, or set Screen to Display."
  • "The display with the selection is not connected: draw a new selection, or set Screen to Display."
  • "The window chosen for screen recording is closed: choose another under Screen." The same holds when its app is not open: open the app, or choose another window.
  • "This Mac cannot encode …" Choose HEVC or H.264 under File format.
• Another app is using this Mac's video encoder. Another app holds the part of the Mac that makes video files: one that exports, records or streams video. Quit it and click Try Again. On a Mac with a ProRes encoder PowerCue also offers Record as ProRes: this one take is then recorded as ProRes 422 LT in .mov, with much larger files, and your settings stay as they are. After two refused tries Record Anyway appears. It records with your settings; at 4K the Mac may not keep up with saving the video, and PowerCue may have to stop the take. The same message for a take that Follow, a Stream Deck key or a link asked for says "Recording did not start": quit apps that export, record or stream video, then press Rec again.
• "Heavy for this Mac…" The sizes you chose ask more of this Mac than PowerCue recommends, so a take can stutter or stop while you work at the Mac. Click Use recommended, or choose a smaller Screen size yourself. Record is not blocked.
• "… free on …: only … at this setting." Less than 15 minutes of recording fit on the disk. You can record. Free some space before a long take.
• "The folder is on a network drive, which may be too slow to keep up with a take. A local drive is safer." Record to a drive that is attached to this Mac and copy the take afterwards.
• "… is also in use by another app, which can make its picture freeze." Two apps on one camera can make its picture freeze. You can still record. If the picture matters, quit the other app first.
• "macOS does not offer that window for recording: pick another, or record its app with App." Some windows cannot be recorded by themselves. Switch Screen to App and choose the window's app.
• "This microphone could not be opened." The meter under the Microphone menu says so when the chosen input cannot be opened. Check that it is connected, or choose another one in the menu.
• "No sound is recorded. Choose a microphone, or turn on Computer Audio or Mouse Clicks under Screen sound." Microphone is set to No microphone and no screen sound is switched on, or there is no screen at all. The note stands under Audio quality in File format. That is right for a silent take, and a reminder otherwise.
• ProRes is not in the Camera and Screen menus. The ProRes codecs and presets are offered only on a Mac whose chip has a ProRes encoder.
• .mp4 or Uncompressed is greyed. ProRes records to .mov only, and an .mp4 file holds AAC sound only. Choose H.264 or HEVC for .mp4, and .mov for uncompressed sound.
• Screen size does not list 4K. The menu lists Native and the sizes that are really smaller than what is recorded. On a 4K display 4K is Native.
• The white frame around my selection is gone. It shows only while New Recording is open (not minimised, and PowerCue not hidden) on the desktop you are looking at, with Screen set to Selection and a selection that is still valid. It also steps aside while you draw or pick on the screen. The selection itself is kept.
• "Preview stopped from the menu bar." You stopped the screen preview from macOS's menu bar. Click Show Preview Again.

Recording: during the take

• ⌘R does nothing while another app is in front. PowerCue's keys work while PowerCue is the front app. From another app, use the capsule's buttons, or give a Stream Deck key the link powercue://record/toggle.
• Follow from an iPhone or iPad does not start a recording. Record while following starts a take only when Follow is pressed on the Mac, and PowerCue says so when you press it on a device. Follow from the iPhone or iPad still runs the prompter. Press Rec on this Mac.
• The capsule shows an amber triangle. Rest the pointer on it: it says what is the matter. The warnings are about the moment: a microphone that sends no sound (check its cable and its own switch, or switch to another microphone with the capsule's microphone button), a camera that has stopped sending video (its file holds the last picture and stays in sync), a Mac too busy to take every camera frame, a Mac running hot, a disk that is nearly full (PowerCue stops the take before it fills), and a take paused for a long time. The take's notice after the take is made separately, from the finished files.
• The screen recording stops but the take goes on. You stopped the screen recording from macOS's menu bar, the recorded window was closed, or the display with the selection was disconnected. The screen file ends there and the camera goes on recording. For a new screen file, stop the take and start another. A recorded window that is only hidden or minimized leaves its last picture in the file.
• A camera or microphone is greyed in the capsule's menu. It cannot take over this take. The menu says why: it is not connected, it is too small for the take, it has another shape, or it cannot run the take's frame rate. To record silence, use Mute.

Recording: a take that stopped by itself

Each of these opens the take's notice. What was recorded up to that moment is saved, and the notice ends with the take's name.

• "Recording stopped: the disk was almost full." PowerCue stops while there is still room to close the files. Free some space or choose another folder under Destination.
• "Recording stopped: the drive is full." or "Recording stopped: the file could not be written." The drive filled up or dropped out. Check that it is connected and has room. If a file was left unfinished, PowerCue finishes it the next time it opens and says so.
• "Recording stopped: the take was paused for 30 minutes." A paused take is saved after half an hour. Start a new take.
• "Recording stopped because the camera had to restart…" Check the camera's cable and power, keep the Mac awake, and do not change the camera's resolution or frame rate during a take.
• "Recording stopped: this Mac could not keep up with saving the video at this picture size and frame rate." The next sentence says what to try, for example "For the next take, try the screen at 1440p." If it says "PowerCue has no lighter setting to recommend", quit apps you do not need before the next take.
• "Recording stopped right at the start: another app is using this Mac's video encoder (the part that makes video files)." Quit apps that export, record or stream video, then press Rec again.
• "No video arrived from the camera, so nothing was recorded. Check the camera, then try again." If a screen was recorded, the notice says instead that the take "has only its screen recording", and that file is kept.
• "The screen recording did not start. Try again, or choose No screen (camera only)." macOS did not start the screen recording within 30 seconds. It may have been waiting for you to confirm screen recording in a dialog of its own. Press Rec again. To record without the screen, choose No screen (camera only) under Screen in New Recording.

Recording: after the take

• The Take saved dialog does not come. Switch on Show Take Saved after each take in New Recording under Capture options. The dialog also stays away when the next take has already started, when the take left no file, or when the copy can no longer record. The take is in any case named in the line under the prompter controls and in the Last Take row.
• An amber notice after "Saved". It names something you would see or hear in the take, and where. Look at that place before you decide. See A take's notices.
• "Recovered …, which was cut short: …" PowerCue or the Mac stopped in the middle of a take, and PowerCue has put the take's files in order. The sentence says how much they hold. The last two seconds or so may be missing.
• "Until its files are finished, some apps read only their first seconds…" The disk has no room to put a recovered take's file in order. Free the space the notice names, then open PowerCue again. The take is kept as it is until then.
• My take has no computer audio. Computer Audio belongs to the screen file, so it is recorded only in a take with a screen. Check that its switch is on: New Recording, Capture options, Screen sound.
• My voice is there twice in my editor. The screen file's Mic is a copy of the camera file's sound, and the take's XML keeps it switched off. If you bring the files in without the XML, mute one of the two, or record without the Mic copy next time.
• The camera is not in the screen file. The camera and the screen are separate files. The bubble in New Recording is a preview. Open the take's XML in your editor: it holds both, in sync, as the angles of one multicam.
• The file is 30 fps and my camera runs 60. PowerCue records up to 30 frames a second. A 60 fps camera gives every second frame, evenly.
• PowerCue is in my screen recording, or it is missing from it. Show PowerCue in the recording in Capture options decides. It is off for a new setup. New Recording, the capsule, the countdown and the red frame are never recorded.
• "This take has no click rings because macOS did not include them in the screen recording." Record a short take to see whether it happens again. A window recording never has click rings: use Display, Selection or App for them.
• Online, my .mp4 plays without the computer audio. "An .mp4 plays only its first sound track in web players and on upload sites." Choose Use One mix in Screen sound before the take, so every source is in that one track.

Recording: rename, sound files and the XML

• "There is already a take named “…” in this folder." Type another name.
• "A name cannot contain / : \ ? * " < > or |." Leave those characters out. A name also cannot start with a dot and has 80 characters at most.
• "Another app has this take's files open. It will show them as missing until you relink them." An editor is using the take. Close it there first, or click Rename Anyway and relink the files in the editor afterwards.
• "The take could not be renamed: … Nothing was changed." macOS refused the rename, and the sentence has its reason, for example that you may not write to the folder.
• "This take has no XML yet, so it cannot be renamed, sent to PowerCut or opened in an editor. PowerCue tries again at the next launch." The XML could not be written when the take was saved. Free some space on the take's disk, then quit PowerCue and open it again.
• "This folder is not a PowerCue take: it has no take.json." Rename a Take… and Save Separate Sound Files of a Take… want a take's own folder, the one with take.json in it.
• "This take is too long for WAV files: a WAV file holds 4 GB at most." Its sound stays in the video files. Take the sound apart in your editor instead.
• "Not enough room on the disk for the sound files (about … MB)." Free that much on the take's disk and choose Save Separate Sound Files again.

Recording: PowerCut and the editors

• "PowerCut is not on this Mac". Send to PowerCut then says what PowerCut is. Learn More opens its page, Get PowerCut the page's Editions, and Back returns to the take.
• "This PowerCut cannot open a take by itself yet." PowerCut is open behind Finder, where the take's XML is shown. Drag the XML into PowerCut's window, or choose File, Import Final Cut Pro / Resolve XML there.
• "Final Cut Pro could not be opened. The take's XML is shown in Finder: in Final Cut Pro, choose File, Import, XML and pick it." Open Final Cut Pro yourself and import the XML as the sentence says.
• Open in is not in the Take saved dialog. The menu lists Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro as far as they are installed. With none of them on this Mac there is no menu. The take's XML is in its folder all the same: Show in Finder.
• In Premiere Pro a sound of the take comes in switched off. That is on purpose, and the dialog says which sound and on which track, for example "Computer Audio comes in switched off, on track A3". Switch it on and listen: if you hear your voice and not the computer's sound, switch it off again.
• My editor shows the take's files as missing. The take was renamed or moved after the editor took it in. Relink the files in the editor. A take's XML holds the full paths of its files.