Slides

A slide is one thing you put on the screen — a video, a picture, a page of text, a YouTube video — or a sound you play. In the middle of the window each presentation is a section: its header, then its slides as cards.

Add it → put it in order → click it. This page is about the list itself. What each slide remembers — crop, In and Out points, speed, volume — is in Slide settings. Writing and designing text is in The slide editor. The screen and the layers are in Screens and going live and Layers.

What you can add

Kind	Badge on the card	How it comes in
Video	Video	Add File, drag and drop, or paste
Picture	Image	Add File, drag and drop, or paste — a screen capture too
Audio	Music	Add File, drag and drop, or paste
Text	Text	Made in the slide editor, or paste text
YouTube	YouTube	Link, or paste the address. See YouTube

The extension decides the kind.

Video	mp4 · mov · m4v · mkv · webm · avi · mpg · mpeg · ts · wmv
Picture	jpg · jpeg · png · heic · gif · webp · tiff · bmp
Audio	mp3 · m4a · aac · wav · flac · aiff · aif · opus · ogg

Any other file is not added, so it can’t fail later on stage. A notice names it: … isn’t a format we can play, so it wasn’t added — or, for several, … and N more aren’t formats we can play, so they weren’t added.

Pictures keep their true colours. A photo that carries a colour profile — a CMYK file made for print, or a wide-gamut one in Display P3 or Adobe RGB — is converted the way a photo viewer converts it, everywhere: on the cards, in the previews, in the editor and on the output screens. Card pictures made by an earlier version are redone quietly in the background; until then the old one shows.

An audio slide puts nothing on the screen. Click it and the sound plays the way music does; whatever is on the screen stays as it is.

A PowerPoint file (.pptx) or a PDF does not become one slide. Pick it with Add File or drop it on the list and its pages are imported as slides — with Add File at the end, dropped on the list where the bar shows (on the middle of a card, right after that card). See PowerPoint and PDF.

Adding

Add File and Link

At the right of each presentation’s header sit + (Add File) and the chain (Link). The header’s right-click menu has them too.

• Add File — pick one file or several. They go to the end of that presentation. Sound files are listed under the Audio file type in that window; switch to it, or to All files.
• Link — paste a YouTube address. The slide goes to the end and is named by the video’s ID until the real title arrives a moment later.

Drag and drop

Drag files in from the Finder / File Explorer. The presentation that will take them gets a faint outline, and a bar between the cards shows where they will land. Drop them and they are inserted there.

The whole area around a presentation’s cards takes a drop, not just the gaps between them: the margins at the sides, and the row of its header — drop on or beside the header and the files go to the end. Below the last presentation, the empty space down to the bottom of the window belongs to it as well, so a drop there adds the files to its end.

Drop one file on the middle of a card and it swaps that slide’s media. The card lights up to show it is the one that will change. No new slide appears. Near the edge of a card, or with several files, it inserts instead.

What survives a swap

Three things stay: text boxes, layer, and the slide’s background. Everything else starts over the way it would for a freshly added file — the name, In and Out points, crop, speed, repeat, volume and thumbnail. An In point picked for the old video would start the new one in the wrong place.

When you drop a file whose name is already in the media folder, A file with that name already exists appears and lists the names.

Choice	What it does
Use existing	Uses the file that is already there. Pick this when you are reusing the same picture
Replace	Overwrites it. Every slide that uses that file shows the new one
Keep both	Brings it in under a new name with a number added

It compares names only, not what is inside the files. It asks only when you drag and drop to insert — a swap, Add File and pasting never ask; they keep both and add a number.

Paste

With the slide list in focus, ⌘V / Ctrl+V makes new slides from whatever is on the clipboard. They land after the last selected slide, or at the end if nothing is selected.

What you paste	What you get
Files copied in the Finder / File Explorer	A slide for each, as if you had added them
A picture itself, such as a screen capture	Saved as a PNG in the media folder, as a picture slide
A YouTube address	A YouTube slide
Text	Text slides. Longer text is split at blank lines, and again wherever a part doesn’t fit on one slide
Slide HTML an AI chat gave back	The slides it describes — see Connect an AI app
Text boxes copied in the editor	Nothing — Paste text boxes in edit mode

Copying

LayerCue works from its own copy of each file. A file from outside the media folder goes into the list at once and is copied behind it. Meanwhile the card says Copying with a progress bar. Until the copy is done it plays from your original, so you can use it straight away. Where the media folder is: Where your files live.

Reading a card

Where	What it tells you
Top left	Its number in the presentation
Top right	The layer chip — see below
Bottom right	How long it runs, with its In and Out points and speed taken into account
Under the picture	The kind badge and the name. YouTube ↓ means it is set to play its downloaded copy
Orange border	It is on the screen now, on any layer
Indigo border	It is selected
Copying and a bar	The file is still being copied into the media folder
File missing	The file can’t be found — see below

Clicking a card

	What it does
Click the picture	Sends it out. It also becomes the selected slide
Double-click the picture	Sends it out again from the beginning
Click the name under the picture	Selects it and loads it into Slide settings on the right. Nothing goes out
Option-click / Alt-click the picture	The same as clicking the name
Double-click the name	Opens it in the slide editor
⌘-click / Ctrl-click, Shift-click	Selects several — see below
Right-click	The card menu

A click is a send

Click a picture and it goes to the screen that instant. To look at a slide without sending it, click its name, or Option-click / Alt-click it. That is what Option + slide to load (Alt + slide to load on Windows) beside the Slide settings heading means.

Sending a slide out does not pull Slide settings along with it. The two are kept apart on purpose, so you can set up the next slide while another one is out.

A click puts the slide on the stage; it never switches a monitor on. Each output monitor has its own power switch above its preview, and a monitor that is on already shows the stage. If you have switched every monitor off, LayerCue tells you once, the first time you send a slide: All monitors are off — turn one on with the power button above the preview. See Screens and going live and Multi-Output.

Clicking a slide that is already out does nothing — it stays up and keeps playing. That is deliberate: a stray second click during the show should not take anything down. To take things down, use the × beside that layer in the layer column next to the preview (Clear this layer), CLEAR at the top of that column (Clear All), or the keys. The red ■ beside ▶ takes down only the layer that row is working with.

F1, or ⌘1 / Ctrl+1	Clear All
F2, or ⌘2 / Ctrl+2	Takes the foreground down
F3, or ⌘3 / Ctrl+3	Takes the background down
F4, or ⌘4 / Ctrl+4	Takes all the overlays down

More in Layers.

The layer chip

The chip at the top right of a card says which layer the slide goes out on. BG and the overlays (1 Overlay to 5 Overlay, or the number and the name you gave it) always show. FG — the foreground, where slides go unless you say otherwise — shows only while the pointer is over the card.

	What it does
Click the chip	Foreground ↔ background
Click it while it is on an overlay	The next overlay: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 1
Press and hold the chip	Over to overlay 1. Hold it again on an overlay to come back to the foreground

If the card is part of the selection, the whole selection changes — Changed layer for N says how many. The card menu’s Layer ▸ and Overlay ▸ do the same thing.

Pictures, videos, text and YouTube can go on any layer. An audio slide goes on none: its chip says Music and does nothing when clicked.

Giving a slide a background makes it a background slide. Put a picture, a video, a colour or a gradient in the Background row of the slide editor and the slide moves to the background by itself — its chip says BG — unless you have chosen its layer yourself, or it is a YouTube or web slide. On stage such a slide splits in two: its background goes to the background layer and stays there under the slides that follow, while its text and other boxes go to the foreground. Click the chip to make it a foreground slide again, and the whole slide, background and all, goes out on the foreground. Empty its Background row completely and it goes back to the foreground by itself. See Layers.

A background starts silent

Moving a slide to the background turns its sound down to 0 — a background is usually there for atmosphere. Move it back and it gets the volume it had before. If you turn it up yourself while it is on the background, LayerCue remembers that for the next time it goes there. A video that sits in a video box on the slide is not its background, so it keeps its sound.

When the presentation’s header has a layer set for every slide (Layer for this list), the chips are dimmed and stop responding. Each slide’s own layer is kept, and comes back when you clear that setting. See Layers.

The card menu

Right-click a card. If the card isn’t part of the selection, it alone is selected first. If it is, the layer, Crop & fit (all but Set crop area…), Paste style, Copy as HTML for AI and Delete (all but Delete download) work on the whole selection.

Locate file	Only when the file is missing — see below
Present	The same as clicking the picture
Edit	Opens the slide editor at this slide. A video or picture slide can carry text boxes too
Rename	Gives it a different name
Slide settings	Loads it into Slide settings. When the window is too narrow for that panel, this opens it as a window of its own
Crop & fit ▸	Fill, Stretch, Fit, Fit + blur bg (● marks the current one), Clear crop, and Set crop area…, which opens the Crop & fit sheet. For pictures, videos and downloaded YouTube only
Overlay ▸	Puts it on one of the five overlays
Layer ▸	Foreground or Background
Copy style · Paste style · Copy as HTML for AI	For text slides — see below
Show in Finder / Show in Explorer	Opens the folder with the slide’s file selected. For a downloaded YouTube slide, the download. Not there when the slide has no file
Split into slides · Merge N into one · Merge with previous	For text slides — see below
Delete ▸ (Delete N for several)	See Deleting

A change of fit on several slides is reported as Changed scale for N. What Fill, Fit and the crop do is explained in Slide settings.

Selecting several

⌘-click / Ctrl-click	Adds or removes one at a time
Shift-click	Everything from the last one you clicked to here
Shift-⌘-click / Shift-Ctrl-click	Adds that range to what is already selected
⌘A / Ctrl+A	Every slide in this presentation
Drag from an empty spot	A box — any card it touches is selected. With Shift or ⌘ / Ctrl held, it adds to the selection
Click an empty spot	Clears the selection. So does Esc

An empty spot is any free space in the presentation’s area: the gaps between the cards, the margins at the sides — beside the header too — and the space below the cards. Below the last presentation, the empty space down to the bottom of the window counts as well, so you can start a box there even when the cards fill every row.

Moving and copying

Reordering

Press a card and pull it a little to start dragging. A bar shows where it will land, and the list scrolls by itself when you reach its top or bottom edge.

• If the card you grab is outside the selection, only that card moves.
• If it is inside, the whole selection moves together. The dragged picture shows how many.
• On a touch screen, hold for a moment before dragging, so a scroll isn’t taken for a drag.
• Esc cancels a drag that is under way.

The keyboard does it too:

⌥⌘← / Ctrl+Alt+←	One place back
⌥⌘→ / Ctrl+Alt+→	One place forward
⌥⌘↑ / Ctrl+Alt+↑	To the very front
⌥⌘↓ / Ctrl+Alt+↓	To the very end

To another presentation

Drop them	Where they land
Between the cards of another presentation’s section	At that spot
On another presentation’s header	At its end
On a presentation row under Library in the sidebar	At its end

In the sidebar, only the presentations in the Library drawer take slides — not the cue sheets. Rest on a closed library there for a moment (about 0.6 seconds) and it opens, so you can drop on a presentation inside it.

Into another presentation, the default is copy

Over another presentation the dragged picture carries a Copy badge. To move them instead, hold Option / Alt as you drop — the badge changes to Move. What counts is the moment you let go.

Afterwards Copied N to … or Moved N to … appears, with an Undo ⌘Z / Undo Ctrl+Z button.

Duplicate, copy, cut, paste

⌘D / Ctrl+D	Duplicates the selection, right after it
⌘C / Ctrl+C	Copies
⌘X / Ctrl+X	Cuts
⌘V / Ctrl+V	Pastes after the last selected slide, or at the end

Cut takes nothing away on the spot. It only marks the slides — Cut N — they move when you paste — and they leave their old place when you paste them. Copy in one presentation and paste in another to take slides across.

A duplicate or a pasted slide is a new slide of its own. Change it and the original stays as it was.

Deleting

Delete or Backspace deletes the selected slides — the slides only. In the card menu, Delete ▸ (Delete N with several selected) opens up to three choices:

	What goes
Delete download	Only on a YouTube slide with a download. The slide stays and the downloaded copy goes, so the slide streams again
Slide only	The slide leaves the presentation. Its file stays in the media folder
Slide and file (to Trash)	The slide, and its file goes to the Trash / Recycle Bin. Greyed out for a slide with no file of its own

Deleting slides asks first in two cases only:

When	The window says
A selected slide is on the screen	Delete N slides? and Some of these are on air right now.
Ten or more at once	Delete N slides?

Otherwise they go at once and Deleted N appears. Press its Undo ⌘Z / Undo Ctrl+Z button, or the keys themselves, to bring them back.

Deleting the file as well

Slide and file (to Trash) opens a window to confirm; press Move to Trash. What goes is LayerCue’s copy in the media folder. The original you added it from is not touched.

If other slides use the same file, the window warns you first and the button becomes Move to Trash anyway. Go ahead and those slides are not deleted: they lose their video, picture or sound, and keep their text boxes, layer and background. The notice afterwards counts both — N file(s) to Trash · media removed from N slide(s).

Undo brings the slides back, not always the file

⌘Z / Ctrl+Z returns the slides, but don’t count on it to take the file back out of the Trash / Recycle Bin. If a slide comes back showing File missing, restore the file from the Trash / Recycle Bin, or point the slide at it with Locate file.

When a file has gone missing

A card that can’t find its file is tinted red and says File missing. Press Locate file — on the card, or at the top of its right-click menu — and pick the file on this computer. It is copied into the media folder like any new file, and Relinked appears.

Pick a file with the same name and the other slides follow. Every other slide that used the old file is relinked too — Also relinked N other slide(s) using the same file. A moved folder is the usual case.

Pick a file with a different name and only that slide changes — Changed this slide only — N other slide(s) still point at the old file. Sometimes you do mean to swap just one picture.

Text and YouTube slides have no file to lose, so they never show File missing. If the download of a YouTube slide disappears, the slide simply streams again.

Text slides in the list

You write text in the slide editor. In the list you can name, split, merge and restyle text slides without opening it.

A text slide names itself from the first line of its text, up to 40 characters — from the box whose role is Title if it has one, otherwise from the box that holds the slide text. Edit the text and the name follows. A slide with no text yet is New slide.

	When it shows	What it does
Split into slides	One slide selected	Splits the text at blank lines, and again wherever a part doesn’t fit — the same rule as pasting text. If there is nothing to split: Nothing to split — it already fits
Merge N into one	Several selected	Joins their text onto the first slide and removes the rest
Merge with previous	One slide, not the first	Joins it onto the slide before

Merging keeps only the first slide’s look. Backgrounds and shapes on the other slides are lost, so it asks first when one of them has a different background. Splitting or merging a slide that is on the screen also asks first. Each one comes back with a single ⌘Z / Ctrl+Z.

Copy style and Paste style

Copy style picks up the formatting of a slide’s first text box. Select the slides you want to change, right-click one of them and choose Paste style — it goes onto every selected slide at once, and Style applied to N slides appears. It is there for the moment in rehearsal when the text turns out too small and you don’t want to open twenty slides one by one.

• Only formatting travels: font, size, color, outline, shadow, alignment, the box’s fill and border and so on. The text, its position and the box’s role stay as they were.
• Boxes whose role is Decoration or Backdrop are skipped, so a designed slide keeps its header and badges. Roles are set in the slide editor.

Copy as HTML for AI

Copy as HTML for AI puts the selected slides on the clipboard as HTML, for an AI chat that isn’t connected to LayerCue. Paste the chat’s answer back into the slide list with ⌘V / Ctrl+V. See Connect an AI app.

Card size

Drag the slider in the status bar at the bottom, or press ⌘+ / Ctrl++ and ⌘- / Ctrl+- with the slide list in focus. Settings also has S, M and L under Slide card size.

Slider	130 to 340
S · M · L	170 · 210 · 260
⌘+ / Ctrl++, ⌘- / Ctrl+-	20 bigger or smaller at a time

The numbers are the card width LayerCue aims for, in pixels; the real width shifts so a row of cards fits the list. It is remembered for next time. Bigger cards mean fewer wrong clicks in a dark booth.

When editing is locked

The pencil in the status bar is Lock editing. Press it and it becomes a padlock (Unlock editing). Turn on Lock editing while live in Settings and it locks by itself the first time you put something on stage while an output window is open — Live — editing locked (unlock in the status bar) — and unlocks once every output window is off again. If you unlock it yourself in between, it stays unlocked.

While it is locked, the list can’t change: adding, deleting, moving, pasting, renaming, splitting and merging, changing layers or Crop & fit. Usually Editing is locked while presenting appears. Paste style does nothing, and ⌘Z / Ctrl+Z is switched off.

Clicking slides to send them out, Option-click / Alt-click, selecting and copying all work as usual.

Keys

These work when the slide list has focus — click a card’s name or an empty spot in the list first. While you type in a name or a link window, they stay out of the way.

Key	What it does
← →	The previous / next slide — and it goes out
↑ ↓	One row up / down — it goes out
Home / End	The first / last slide — it goes out
PageUp / PageDown	Three rows at a time — it goes out
Return / Enter	Sends out the slide the cursor is on — the one you reached with Option / Alt + arrow keys
Option / Alt + arrow keys	Moves without sending anything out
Shift + arrow keys	Widens the selection, without sending anything out

The arrow keys carry on from the slide that went out last, so the next one is always the next one.

The arrow keys send slides out as they go

Look around with the arrow keys during the show and the screen follows. To look without sending, hold Option / Alt, then press Return / Enter on the one you want. Esc never takes anything off the screen. To stop a monitor, use its power switch above the preview, or the ✕ on the output screen.

Undo and redo work wherever the focus is in the window — except inside the slide editor, which has its own, and while editing is locked.

Key	What it does
⌘Z / Ctrl+Z	Undo
⇧⌘Z or ⌘Y / Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y	Redo

Every key in one place: Keyboard shortcuts.