Features
Everything Rotulus does
What Rotulus does, from the client's document to the last line of the show.
Scripts and files
Import Word documents
A client's .docx comes in with its sizes, colors, highlights, bold, italics and text boxes, and an Import Note counts any footnotes, endnotes or comments left behind.
Import PDFs
Rotulus rebuilds a PDF's lines into paragraphs, keeps colors, bold, italic, sizes and highlights, and drops repeating headers and footers.
When the client sends a new version
An imported script stays linked to its Word or PDF file, shows Updated when the file changes, and lists every changed paragraph before you replace anything.
Google Docs
Paste a Google Doc's link to import it and keep it linked, and Rotulus never asks for your Google password.
Insert a file at the caret
Drop a .prmpt, .rtf, .txt, .docx or .pdf into the middle of a script when a late page arrives, as one undo step.
Open RTF and text files
Open .prmpt, .rtf and .txt files, a text file from an older editor keeps its curly quotes, and a file is never open twice.
Save in the format you need
A .prmpt keeps everything, and saving to RTF or TXT shows a note saying what that format left out.
Default save folder
Every Open, Save, Import and Export dialog starts in your show folder or in the last folder you saved in, as you choose.
Runlist
The whole show in one list
Every script in reading order, reordered by drag, and switching scripts always keeps what you typed.
Runlist files
Save Runlist writes the list of the show's script files, in order, to one .trl file (the scripts themselves stay in their own files), and a file that cannot be found on opening is reported and kept on the list.
Move between scripts
Ctrl+PageDown and Ctrl+PageUp step through the runlist in either mode, and in present mode Alt+1 to Alt+9 jump straight to a script.
Loop the runlist
With Loop on, a script that scrolls off its end runs straight into the next one, and the last runs into the first.
Editing and formatting
Right-click quick toolbar
Right-click in either mode for style, size, color, highlight, alignment and spacing in a toolbar that stays open while you work, with spelling suggestions too.
Text size in points
Sizes travel with the text, and each blank line has a size of its own, so one gap can change without moving the line above.
Fonts and imported fonts
Apply a family to the whole script, or import a .ttf or .otf whose real family name is read from the file, so Word exports name it correctly.
Colors that read on black
Text color and highlight lead with bright high-contrast swatches, your recent colors and a hexagonal picker, and no Windows color dialog opens over a live display.
Alignment and line spacing
Set left, center or right and 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0 line spacing per paragraph, and both show on the presenter's display.
Undo that makes sense
Whole-script operations such as Format Script or Replace All undo in one step. The history lasts while the script is on screen; switching to another script starts a fresh one.
Paste that keeps formatting
Text copied inside Rotulus pastes back with its sizes, colors, cues and speaker chips, and text from another program takes the size and font of the line it lands on.
Zoom for your eyes only
Zoom the script on your screen from 25 to 400 % without changing the text size the presenter sees.
Tools
Find & Replace
Find counts matches across styled text, and Replace All changes every match in one undo step and understands Word's ^p and ^t codes.
Color All
Color every occurrence of a name or a stage direction at once, and cue markers and speaker chips are never recolored.
Format Script
Turns paragraphs of prose into one sentence per line with a gap between, leaves abbreviations such as Dr. and e.g. alone, and adds no extra gaps when run twice.
Speakers
Give each speaker a color, and Apply paints their names as chips so the operator sees at a glance who is talking.
Style Key
Rules find each kind of cue line, such as videos, slide cues and stage directions, and style it with your color, highlight and size, and can style every new Word and PDF import automatically.
Bookmarks (cues)
Drop a » cue with F7 and jump to the next or previous one with F9 and F8 in present mode, landing it on the guide arrow.
Invert colors
Turn a client's black-on-white document into prompter colors with Invert All Colors or the safer Protected Invert, each one undo step.
Presenting
Present mode
Press F5 and the script fills the screen light on black with a guide arrow (red while paused, green while playing, yellow at speed 0), above every other window and with the menu bar hidden.
Built to stay out of the way during a show
Rotulus's own error dialogs are held until you leave, Rotulus keeps the display awake while you present, and Esc closes an open panel before it leaves present mode.
Live edits
You can still type during the show, and bare shortcut keys are ignored while the caret is in a text field, so nothing fires by accident.
Operator View
With a second display, the prompter gets its own window with its own smooth frames while your screen keeps the editor and the transport.
Display Check
Lists every screen and flags duplicated screens, a prompter below 50 Hz, two graphics chips or battery power, each with its fix.
The transport
F6 plays and pauses, the Speed slider runs from −400 to +400 with negative going backwards, and in present mode an optional 3-2-1 countdown runs first.
Guide line and arrow
Set the reading line from 10 to 80 % down the screen, and mode switches, zoom and spacing changes keep the line being read under the arrow.
Text size and margins
Size the whole script from 16 to 120 pt and narrow the column with left and right margins while you watch the presenter's monitor.
Mirror mode
F4 flips the text for a through-the-lens rig's glass, works in both modes and is remembered.
Mouse wheel
Paused, the wheel moves the script; playing, it trims the speed, and its direction can be reversed.
Middle-click autoscroll
One middle-click engages autoscroll, faster the further you move from the anchor, and middle-click never pastes into the script.
Game controller
Plug in an Xbox or PlayStation pad with nothing to install: the triggers set the speed, the stick moves or trims, and holding B blacks the screen.
Screen Black
Ctrl+Shift+B covers the display with black, and a script that was playing keeps playing underneath.
Clock, ETA and progress bar
Faint read-outs of the time, the time left at the current speed and how far through you are, each of which can be turned off.
Show Sync
A backup that follows
A second laptop follows the runlist, the active script, play and pause, the speed and the position over your own network.
Take over with one key
If the primary fails, the backup is already on the same line at the same speed, and F10 makes it the operator's machine.
Paired and encrypted
Only a machine that knows the pairing code can join or send commands, and the scripts, the runlist and the playback state are encrypted with a key made from the code. Use a code others cannot guess.
Cable or Wi-Fi
The address list ranks adapters with Ethernet first, one cable between two laptops works with no router, and on Windows a button adds the firewall rule the backup needs.
Clear connection messages
Timed out, Refused and Rejected each say what they mean and what to do, and a refused connection retries by itself, so the backup can start first.
Protects the backup's edits
The backup refuses a push that would overwrite its own unsaved edits, and when you force it, a snapshot of those edits is saved first.
Export
Export as RTF or Word
Write a copy as RTF or Word for someone else, and the script, its file and its unsaved state never change.
Client copy or prompter copy
Document colors give the client black on white with highlights kept, and Prompter colors export it exactly as it ran.
Body text size
Pick a body size from 6 to 72 pt and the prompter's large lines scale to it, keeping their proportions.
The whole runlist
Export every script as one document, or as numbered individual files in a folder you pick.
Customization
One Preferences window
Every operator setting is in one window with tabs, and nothing changes until you press Apply.
Defaults
Choose the font, size, line spacing, alignment and color new scripts start with, and whether each launch starts the guide line, margins and mirror from your defaults or from the last session.
Clients
A client remembers its own Style Key, speakers, Format Script options and defaults, and can switch on by itself for files from its show folder.
Move settings to another computer
Export Settings saves your clients, Style Key, speakers, shortcuts, defaults and imported fonts in one file, and Undo Last Import puts the old ones back.
Appearance
Choose the Navy or Charcoal color scheme and a Small, Default or Large interface size, and the script itself is untouched.
Rebindable shortcuts
Rebind play, neutral, speed, reset, edit and present, mirror and the three bookmark keys, and the menus show the keys you set.
Privacy and reliability
Your scripts stay with you
Rotulus has no feature designed to send your scripts to us. They travel only where you send them: encrypted, to the backup and editor machines you connect over Show Sync, and to browsers that have the code when you share a script. The app has no advertising, analytics or tracking. About once a day (never within 20 hours of the last check) it checks rotulus.io for a new version and for withdrawn License Keys, sending no key, name or email address, and you can turn that off. Error reports, if you turn them on, are built to leave script text out.
Auto-save and crash recovery
By default Rotulus snapshots the whole runlist every 30 seconds (during playback it skips a snapshot that would hold up the scroll), and after a crash or power cut the Recover window opens by itself.
A backup before every overwrite
Each save first copies the file it replaces into a backups folder (recent copies are kept), and refuses to save if that copy cannot be made.
Failed saves are never silent
A locked file, a pulled USB stick or a full disk shows Save failed beside the file name, and the script stays in Rotulus, marked unsaved.
Clear Local Data
Tick what to remove, from auto-save snapshots and backups to the crash log, the Show Sync and Share codes and the License Key. Your script files are never touched.
Error reports only if you say yes
Reports are off until you agree. A report is built to leave out your scripts, file names, and your user and machine names; the Privacy Policy lists exactly what one contains.
Platforms
Windows
Runs on Windows 10 or later. Upgrades install over the existing copy and keep your settings. Your script files stay where you saved them.
macOS
A Mac version is coming. It will need macOS 12 or later and be installed by dragging Rotulus from the .dmg onto Applications.
Licensing
There is no free tier: presenting or any other playback of a script, Show Sync and the live view in Share Script in a Browser need a License Key, while opening, editing, importing and exporting never do. One key covers two computers at a time. Licenses are coming soon: Annual and Lifetime Licenses (the key never expires), Show Passes and free 14-day Trial Keys. See pricing.