How to cover part of a doc during a screenshare

[tuqqer]

this is an oddity, but wondering if someone's every come up with a solution.

I do 3 or 4 hour-long video conferences a day, mainly through zoom.us or WebinarJam. And much of that involves sharing my screen. Most of the time, I use full-screen Keynotes, etc, but sometimes, I'm just taking people through some text on a Pages or PDF document.

I'd like some utility that creates a no-edge 'sheet' that is always the top app, that I can move so that it covers the part of the page and text I haven't gotten to yet, so my audience is paying attention to only what we're talking about. I would then click and drag this no-edge sheet and move it down to reveal the next section of the page/text.

Currently, I just use another empty TextEdit doc to accomplish this, but if I click on the PDF or Pages doc I'm working with (say, to highlight a particular sentence), the TextEdit cover disappears under.

Anyone ever see a solution like this? Thanks in advance!

[TheTominator]

(Tested under Mac OS X 10.6.8)

The Help app will do this.

When viewing the PDF in Preview, choose "Preview Help" from the Help menu.
A floating Help window will come up which will always be the top window covering anything beneath.
This Help window will remain the top window even when you switch to other apps.

Since the Help app is not specific to Preview, you can invoke it from any Mac OS X app that has corresponding item in its Help menu.

[TheTominator]

(Tested under Mac OS X 10.6.8)

An even better choice than the Help window is the Stickies app.

Create a new Stickies note.
In the Note menu toggle on "Floating Window".
This new note will stay on top of (and obscure) any window in any app.

Unlike the Help window, you can make the Stickies window blank (or say whatever you like).
You can make the color gray to minimize the distraction of the overlay.

[tuqqer]

Well dang, Tominator. That is actually pretty brilliant. Works perfectly. And in fact, I'm finding that if I put some nonsense in the upper right search field (like "--"), all text in the Help window disappears and all that is left is a gray spinning wheel that can hardly be seen. It's been spinning for about 15 minutes, and I suspect will stay that way. So that makes the Help window much cleaner and less distracting.

Thanks for this tip. Works for my needs.

[decay]

I was thinking of Stickies, too.

[StingMe]

IIRC, Zoom.us used to give you the option of sharing just a window or your entire screen...

[tuqqer]

I liked Stickies, too, but it goes behind the active App, which is why the Help window works so well.

And yes, Zoom allows you to choose the window, and even the single app you want to show. But if you have a long page of info, and you only want to show each paragraph or image at a time, this trick is handy.

[RAMd®d]

Too bad Stickies doesn't work.

You could put a note in the middle:


NO READING AHEAD!

Not at all distracting.

[decay]

tuqqer wrote:
I liked Stickies, too, but it goes behind the active App, which is why the Help window works so well.

You have to make the note Floating.



like the Tominator said:

Create a new Stickies note.
In the Note menu toggle on "Floating Window".
This new note will stay on top of (and obscure) any window in any app.

[tuqqer]

Whoops, sorry I missed that detail. That's actually great, and works the best (I've never used Stickies before, so that float feature's new to me). Thanks for pointing this out, decay.