Trim & cut waits

Cuts are stretches of your recording that the finished video leaves out: a page loading, a spinner, a wrong turn you corrected. You can mark them yourself or let TurtleScene suggest the waits between steps. Your recording is never changed; cuts only apply to the rendered video, and you can restore any of them.

#Cut a stretch by hand

1. In the editor, move the playhead to where the cut should start. Click the timeline or play the preview and pause.
2. Under the preview, click Cut from here. The button turns red and reads Cut from 0:12.4 to here.
3. Move the playhead to where the cut should end. The stretch between the two points is shaded on the timeline.
4. Click Cut from 0:12.4 to here again.

The cut appears on the timeline as a red striped block, and the total removed shows at the right, for example "−8.2s cut". The cut is saved straight away.

To give up on a cut you've started, click cancel next to the button.

#Find waits automatically

1. Under the preview, click Find waits to cut. The footer shows Looking for loading waits….
2. Suggested cuts appear on the timeline as amber blocks with a dashed border and a ✂ mark. Hover one to see how long it is.
3. Review each one. Play it in the preview if you're not sure it's only waiting.
4. Click a suggestion to cut it, or click Cut all 3 (14s) to cut every suggestion at once.

Suggestions you don't click aren't applied. They are for review only, and they're gone if you reload the editor.

If nothing turns up, you'll see "No long waits found between steps."

#Let the Studio style pace the video

With the Studio video style, Tight pacing (on by default) compresses everything between two narrated steps when the video renders: after each click, about a second of its result plays at normal speed, then footage that moves is sped up 2–8 times and still screens are cut, until the next step's narration. With Tight pacing off, Cut long waits shortens only long waits: a still screen over 6 seconds is trimmed to 1.5 seconds, and a screen that keeps changing for over 15 seconds is sped up to about 6 seconds.

Both add to your own cuts and never change them, so what they took out doesn't appear in your list of cuts, and neither touches a step's narration or click. Switch them off under Video style on the Voice tab to keep the recording at its own speed.

#What counts as a wait

TurtleScene looks for stretches of about five seconds or more where the screen barely changes. It only looks between steps: after one step's click and before the next step's screen. It keeps a short beat at each end so the cut doesn't feel abrupt.

It never suggests cutting inside a step, because a still screen there might be you typing in a small field, and that belongs in the video. This also means suggestions are only as good as the steps: if a step is missing, the wait around it may be missed or cut too generously. Check your steps first. See Steps, zooms & timing.

#Restore a cut

Hover a red cut block on the timeline and click restore in its corner. That part of the recording is back in the next render.

#How cuts affect the preview

The editor preview jumps over cuts as it plays, so you see roughly what the finished video will show. The timeline and the step times still use the original recording's clock, so a step's time doesn't change when you cut something before it.

#How cuts interact with steps

• Steps keep their place. Steps before and after a cut stay on their own screens. Their cards and narration are scheduled on the shortened video, so the finished video stays in sync.
• A step whose click is inside a cut is left out. Its card and narration don't appear in the video. If you need that step, restore the cut and mark a shorter one that leaves the click outside.
• Narration pauses still apply. When a line is longer than its screen, the video still pauses before the click. If you cut part of a step's own screen time, its pause gets longer to make up for it.

#Re-render to apply cuts

Cuts reach the finished video on the next render. After you change a cut, the Final video tab says "You've edited since this render. Re-render to include the changes." Click Re-render in the top bar. See Render, download & share.

Cuts also apply to translated versions rendered after the change, and to social cuts and captions you make after re-rendering.