Notenik 19.0.1 Available for Beta Testing on May 25th, 2026

Beta Versions
1

This latest beta has an additional enhancement related to presentations.

There’s now an option at the bottom of the View menu for Spoken Script Toggle.

In order for this to work, your collection needs to have a field of type longtext with a label of Spoken or Script or Spoken Script.

This would require a line like the following one to appear in the Collection template file.

Script: <longtext>

This field would then contain any speaker notes that the presenter may wish to reference during the presentation.

Invoking the Spoken Script Toggle would then open a separate window showing, for each note/slide, the contents of the slide, followed by the Spoken Script, if any.

The Spoken Script will be parsed as Markdown, and shown as HTML.

This “Speaker’s Window” can then be positioned anywhere the speaker might find convenient.

I’m hoping that some of you (especially @Malcolm) might have some feedback on this.

I have not done any presentations in a long time, but have one coming up soon for a sort of social group in which I’ve been participating lately (a Sunday Assembly, in case you’re interested), and I’m trying to do the whole thing using Notenik.

Also, in case some of you are wondering, I haven’t forgotten about completing the hoisting/filtering functionality, but am waiting to get my presentation squared away before I return to that.

Thanks, as always, for your patience and feedback!

This beta version is no longer available. Look for a later beta release or the most recent Mac App Store release.

1 Like
2

Fantastic! Having a separate window for speaker’s notes is really one of “the” functions that makes presentation software unique.

Things that I’m thinking about as I use it.

  • I like the inclusion of the note title in the speaker notes
  • I’m not convinced that the inclusion of the note text is useful. The main issue is that the note content pushes the speaker’s notes down “some x” distance. Having to locate the position of the notes beneath the “Spoken Script” heading requires mental effort that I don’t want to expend.
  • If the note text was removed the heading “Spoken Script” would become unnecessary.
  • The navigation tools would be more sensibly placed into the speaker’s notes window.

Items unrelated to speaker notes

  • The Display|Edit buttons remain on display. You can be sure that the audience will ask about them.
  • Full screen behaviour of the current output is text biased. If the content was centred vertically and horizontally that would be closer to the poster style of presentation content presentation software uses.
1 Like
3

Thanks, @Malcom! I appreciate the feedback.

I guess I’m confused a bit about use of the speaker’s notes while presenting.

I’m assuming that the speaker is looking at one screen that contains their script, while the audience is looking at another screen that contains the Display (sans notes).

But in that case, doesn’t the speaker have to turn away from the audience in order to see the content they’re seeing?

And so I thought it would be useful for the speaker to see both the audience content and the speaker’s notes on one screen.

But, of course, I can see your point as well.

Any additional thoughts/comments on this topic?

4

Hardware Config

Audience, audience monitors, speaker, speaker monitor and data sources can be in many configurations.

Most of the time I’m presenting to my team or another work team and I’m in one of the audience seats with everyone else. I have notes on my laptop screen that are for me and I’m looking at the primary monitor, along with everyone else. Software like Keynote or Powerpoint usually provide thumbnails of the screen which is usually sufficient for me when I have my back to the main monitor.

Recently I was presenting at a conference centre. On the lectern I had the notes on my laptop screen and beside that, mirroring the main monitor, was a 24" monitor which faced me. Venues with a raised stage will put monitors among the footlights so the presenter never needs to turn.

Presentation Styles

The main monitor displays content to the audience. I illustrate the topic with a screen shot or diagram. I typically include several “do” statements or a question which frames the topic of the slide beside the illustration.

My speaking notes will often be talking points rather than verbatim text. I’m usually fairly comfortable with my subject. The talking points will encompass the framing statements on screen. They will not be the same. The audience can read the text onscreen. I don’t want to repeat it. In fact, seeing it onscreen makes it much more likely I’ll re-use those words exactly. I personally don’t want speakers to read the screen for me and I try to avoid doing that myself.

Separate from the talking points I may include references or source data needed to respond to questions but which do not need to be voiced otherwise. In Keynote I use a pair of hyphens as a simple separator for these references and place them after my talking points.

5

This is a great feature. If I do use Notenik for presentations, this will be very useful.

I have mixed thoughts about having the note text in the speakers winodw. Sometimes having the note text in the speakers notes window is useful (when one can’t look at the screen) but at other times, it can get in the way, especially if its at the bottom of the notes text. I guess if you did not display the note text in the Speakers Notes window, one could in principle add it to the Script field if one wanted to.
Also, there seems to be a bug with display of latex symbols in the slide window as well as the speakers notes window. $\alpha$ doesn’t get rendered properly, though it did in 19.0