Spotlight

The Spotlight mode dims the canvas except a soft circle of light that follows your cursor, so a viewer's attention lands on one spot at a time. Choose it from the mode picker at the top of the floating palette.

How it works

As you move the cursor, the circle of light moves with it while everything outside stays dimmed. Left-click grows the circle and right-click shrinks it, so you can match the beam to a single shape or open it up over a whole cluster. This is useful when you are talking through a diagram and want to focus the room on one area before moving on to the next.

Setting up the light

While the mode is active a Spotlight panel sits under the palette, over a live preview of the shroud:

• Size — Small, Medium, or Large. Clicking the canvas still grows and shrinks the light freely; the row reads Custom once you have nudged it off a preset.
• Dim — how dark everything outside the light goes: Soft, Normal, Dark, or Blackout, which is the one to reach for on a projector.
• Edge — Soft for a feathered rim that reads as lighting, or Crisp for a defined pool of light.
• Shape — a Circle, or Wide: a broad ellipse for lighting a swimlane or a table row without dragging the rows around it into the dark.

Your settings are remembered on this device. Remember that the shroud is yours alone — everyone else keeps seeing the whole diagram.

The spotlight inside a presentation

While you are running a slide deck, press S to light the spotlight over the slide and S again to put it out. It and the laser are the only two tools a presentation lets you reach, because neither can change what is on the slide.

With the spotlight lit, a click sizes the beam instead of advancing the slide, so use the arrow keys or the presenter's buttons to move the deck while you are lighting something up.

Availability

Spotlight is desktop only, and is disabled on an empty canvas. Add an element on a desktop browser and the mode becomes available.