PDF

PDF works in both directions, and the two are not mirror images. A PDF comes in as pictures. A presentation goes out with its text still text.

Bringing a PDF in

There are three ways in. All three open the same window, where you choose the pages.

Where you start	Where the pages land
New Presentation → From PDF…	In a new presentation
Add File (+) on a presentation’s title bar, then pick the PDF	At the end of that presentation
Drag the PDF from the Finder / File Explorer onto the slide list	Where you drop it. Drop it on a card and the pages go after that card — nothing is replaced

For a new presentation, choose New Presentation from the + beside Library or Cue Sheets in the sidebar. Pick Which library (you have to) and Add to cue sheet (optional) if you want it there too, then press From PDF… instead of Create and pick the PDF. If you leave the name as New Presentation, the presentation takes the PDF’s file name. More on libraries and cue sheets in Libraries and cue sheets.

One PDF at a time. Drop or pick several and only the first comes in, with PDF files are imported one at a time.

Choosing the pages

The window’s title is the PDF’s file name, with how many pages it has beside it. If the PDF mixes page shapes, it also tells you how many are portrait and how many landscape.

Every page starts out picked. Click a thumbnail to drop it or pick it again.

All / None	Picks every page, or none
Range	Type pages to pick, such as 1-3, 7, 10- — pages 1 to 3, page 7, and 10 to the end. What you type replaces the current picks

With nothing picked, Pick the pages to import appears and Import stays greyed out.

Resolution and format

Resolution sets the size of each picture. It is measured on the page’s long edge, whichever way the page faces.

Resolution	Long edge
FHD	1920 px
2K	2560 px
4K (the default)	3840 px
6K	5120 px

A 16:9 page at 4K comes out 3840 × 2160 — exactly a 4K screen. A portrait A4 page at 4K comes out about 2715 × 3840. Fitted to a 16:9 screen it only fills the height, so it carries more pixels than the screen shows — room to spare if you crop in on part of it.

Format is JPEG (the default) or PNG. JPEG keeps the files much smaller.

The line under these buttons adds it up for you: how many pages, the size of the largest picture, and a rough file size. The size is given as a range, because it depends on what is on the page — a page of plain text is far smaller than a page full of photos.

Press Import. The button turns to Rendering… and a bar counts the pages. Cancel stops it, and nothing is added. When it finishes, Imported N pages from the PDF appears.

What you get

• Each page is one picture slide. The text on it cannot be edited — the window says so at the bottom. It is a picture like any other, so whatever Slide settings does with a picture, it does with these.
• The page looks the way the PDF draws it. It is drawn with the fonts the PDF carries, so it does not matter whether this computer has them. (A PDF saved without its fonts is the exception.)
• The words on each page are kept for searching. They do not show on the slides, but Find (⌘F / Ctrl+F) finds the presentation by a line inside the PDF. A scanned PDF has no words in it, so there is nothing to find.
• The pictures go into the media folder, named after the PDF and the page number — Bulletin 3.jpg. Import the same pages again with the same settings and the same files are used, not new copies. Where that folder is: Where your files live.
• One ⌘Z / Ctrl+Z takes the whole import back. It says Undone — PDF import.

If you need to change the words

Bring it in from PowerPoint instead, if you have the .pptx. A PowerPoint file comes in as slides you can edit — see PowerPoint.

When it does not come in

What appears	What to do
Could not import the PDF — This PDF is password-protected — remove the password and try again	Remove the password in the app that made the PDF, save it, and import it again
Could not import the PDF — Could not read the PDF	The file is not one LayerCue can read. Save it again as a PDF from the app that made it

Saving a presentation as a PDF

1. In the sidebar, right-click a presentation — in a library or inside a cue sheet — and choose Export to PDF….
2. The Export to PDF window lists its slides by number and name. Every slide starts out picked. Click a slide to drop it or pick it again; All, None and Range work as they do when importing.
3. Press Export to PDF… and choose where to save it. The file name starts as the presentation’s name.
4. Exported to PDF — followed by where the file went appears when it is done.

It exports one presentation at a time.

What goes into the PDF

One slide per page, on a 16:9 page. There are no handout layouts, page numbers or margins — each page is the slide, edge to edge.

Slide	On the page
Text slide	The text stays text — you can select, copy and search it in a PDF reader. The fonts go into the file, so it looks right on a computer that does not have them
Picture slide	The whole picture file on a black page, laid out by its Scale as on stage — Fill and Stretch are kept, anything else is fitted. Crop is not applied
Video slide	One still — the video’s thumbnail. When the video sits in a box among text and shapes, the page shows them all, with the still in the video’s place
A full-screen picture or video with text boxes on top — lyrics over a background picture, a PowerPoint slide with a picture background	As on stage: the picture underneath — for a video or a downloaded YouTube, its thumbnail — and the text boxes over it, their text still text
Streaming YouTube or audio slide	No picture comes out. Leave these unpicked

In the list, every slide that is not a text slide is tagged thumbnail.

When it does not save

What appears	What to do
Could not export to PDF — Could not write the PDF — check that you can save to that place	Save it somewhere else, such as your Documents folder
Could not export to PDF — Took too long (60 seconds)	Export fewer slides at a time with Range