Getting started · Sopycat

What happens the first time you open Sopycat

The first time Sopycat starts, it shows a page called Welcome to Sopycat. It asks a few short questions:

What will you mostly use Sopycat for? For example writing how-to manuals for your team, or editing and signing PDFs.
What do you do? Your line of work. This one is optional.
Your name. It is written next to the procedures you complete and the manuals you confirm you have read, so a manager can see who did what.
Where your library lives. The folder that holds everything you make. The suggested place is fine for most people. Press Change… if you want it somewhere else, such as a shared folder for your office.
Check for new versions automatically. This is the only time Sopycat talks to the internet on its own.

Your answers stay on your computer. They only change which suggestions and tour stops you see first. They never hide a tool.

Then press Start the two-minute tour, or Skip, take me to the Library.

Everything on the Welcome page can be changed later in Settings. The library folder is explained in Where your files live.

The sample manual and sample PDF

On the first start, Sopycat puts two practice items in your library, both with the label Samples:

Issue a refund in Lakeview Supply (sample), a finished manual made from a recording. Open it to see what a manual looks like, or try Follow along on it.
Welcome to Sopycat (sample PDF), a PDF you can change freely. Try editing a line, signing it or blacking out a number.

If you told the Welcome page your line of work, you may get one more sample that suits it, such as a sample contract for redaction practice, a sample invoice to fill in, or a sample onboarding checklist.

The samples are ordinary items. Delete them whenever you like. They are not put back after that.

Take the tour

The tour moves a spotlight over the real buttons in the app, with a short card beside each one. It covers the Library, recording a task, Follow along, editing the words in a PDF, marking up and signing, the More menu and Records. The order depends on what you told the Welcome page: if you mostly work with PDFs, the PDF stops come first.

Press → or Enter for the next stop, ← to go back, and Esc to end the tour.

To take it again, use any of these:

Settings › Getting around › Take the tour again
Ctrl+K, then type Take the tour again
The Tour again button on the Start here card

Use the Start here card

Library › Everything, at the top

The Start here card suggests three things to try, picked from your Welcome answers. It shows how many you have done, for example "1 of 3 done", and each task ticks itself off when you do it. Typical suggestions are Record your first task, Try Follow along on the sample manual and Change a line in the sample PDF.

Press Hide when you no longer need it. To bring it back, go to Settings › Getting around › Show Start here again.

Make your first manual in five minutes

Pick a short task you know well, something with five to ten clicks. Then:

Press the purple Record a task button at the top of the sidebar.
Under What are you about to do?, type a name such as "Issue a refund in QuickBooks". You can leave it empty and Sopycat will name the manual for you.
If you have more than one screen, choose the one you will use. Sopycat records the whole screen.
Press Start recording. Sopycat minimises itself, counts down 3, 2, 1, and a small black bar appears at the top of the screen. The bar is never in the recording.
Do the task the normal way. Pause for a moment after each click so the picture is clear.
Press Stop on the bar, or Ctrl+F9 from any program.

Sopycat shows Writing your manual with a progress bar. This usually takes a minute or two, and you can leave the page while it works. When it is done you get a numbered list of steps, each with a sentence and a picture of the click. Click any word or picture to change it.

Anything you type while recording is written into the manual. Do not type passwords, or turn off Write down what I type in Settings › Buttons while recording first.

More on recording, including marking a moment with Ctrl+F8 and adding your voice, is in Record a task.

What to try next

Tidy up the manual. Rename steps, move the highlight box, blur something private. See Editing a manual.
Share it. Save it as a PDF, a Word file or a web page. See Sharing and exporting.
Walk someone through it. Open the manual and press Follow along for a small checklist window. See Follow along.
Bring in your documents. Press Add a document or drag files onto the window. See Add documents to the library.
Edit a PDF. Change words, sign, fill in forms and redact. See Edit a PDF.
Sort things out. Make folders and labels as the library grows. See The library.
Learn your way around. See Finding your way around and press Ctrl+K to find anything by typing.

Working in an office? Read Set up Sopycat for an office before everyone starts recording.