Show your keystrokes during a live presentation on a Mac

27 October 2026 · 6 min read

To show your keystrokes during a live presentation, run a keystroke display on your Mac and mirror your screen to the projector, so the room sees each key and shortcut on the big screen whenever you switch from slides to a live demo. Neither macOS nor Keynote has a setting that shows the keys you press, so it takes an app. What matters in a room is that the keys are large, high in contrast, on the screen the audience is watching, and there only when you want them.

Why a room needs to see your keys

In a talk, the slides tell the story and the demo proves it. The demo is also where you lose people. You press a shortcut, something changes on the big screen, and nobody past the front row saw your hands.

Saying the shortcut out loud helps, and you should always do it. But in a room with an echo, a quiet microphone, or an audience listening in a second language, a spoken “Option-Command-H” goes past quickly. Seeing ⌥⌘H on screen while you say it is what makes it land, and anyone taking notes can copy it down.

Set up the displays first

How the projector is connected decides where the keys have to be.

Mirroring. The projector shows exactly what your Mac shows. Anything on your screen, the room sees, including the keys. This is the simplest setup for a talk with demos.
Extended display. Keynote and PowerPoint can put the slides on the projector and the presenter display, with your notes and the next slide, on your Mac. That works well for slides, but when you switch to a demo, the demo and the keys both have to be on the projector’s display, or the room sees neither.

You choose between the two in System Settings > Displays: select the projector and use its “Use as” menu, where “Mirror for” followed by your Mac’s display mirrors and “Extended display” extends.

Keynote has a middle path. In its Play menu, choose In Window, then Play Slideshow (Option-Command-P). The slides play in a window instead of taking over the screen, so you can move between your slides and the app you are demonstrating on one mirrored display without ending the show. If you play full screen instead, pressing H during the slideshow hides it and switches to the last app you used.

Make the keys readable from the back row

A projector is softer and lower in contrast than your Mac’s display, and the back row is a long way off. Things that read well at your desk disappear on the wall.

With Typebar, a few settings matter most:

Size. Make the overlay bigger than feels right. Typebar’s three modes, the full keyboard, the keystroke pill, or both, each keep their own size and place, so you can make the pill large for talks and leave your recording setup alone.
Contrast. Pick a theme that stands out against the app you demo, such as Paper White over a dark editor. Typebar also follows the macOS Increase contrast setting, in System Settings > Accessibility > Display; with it on, every legend is easy to read.
The pill for most demos. The pill names each shortcut with the name it has in the app, such as “⌘K Insert Link”, which a room can read at a glance. A lit key on a full keyboard takes longer to spot. Show the full keyboard when where the keys are is the point.
Only shortcuts. Ordinary typing scrolling past distracts in a talk. Set the pill to show only shortcuts, so the room sees Command-S and Command-Z and not every word of your search.

The rest of the screen needs the same treatment:

Text in the app. Many editors, browsers and Terminal make text bigger with Command-Plus (⌘+). Do it before the talk, not on stage.
The pointer. In System Settings, open Accessibility, then Display, and raise Pointer size.
macOS Zoom. In System Settings > Accessibility > Zoom, turn on “Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom”. Option-Command-8 then turns zoom on and off, and Option-Command-Equals and Option-Command-Minus zoom in and out, for the moment you need to show something tiny on screen.

Screen sharing to a big room: what to make bigger on your Mac covers the rest of the screen in detail.

Use the Presenting profile, and keep auto-show off

Typebar comes with three ready-made profiles: Recording, Presenting and Learning. A profile keeps a whole setup: look, mode, sizes and places, pill, mouse and sounds. Start from Presenting, adjust it in a rehearsal on the real projector if you can, and switch to it from the menu bar before you go on. You can also switch with a link, open -g "typebar://profile?name=Presenting", from Raycast, Alfred or a script.

Then think about auto-show. “Show when a screen recording starts”, in Settings > Recording, makes Typebar appear by itself while your screen is recorded or shared. That is handy at your desk and a surprise on stage: if the event records your screen, or you share it to remote attendees on a call, the overlay can appear over your slides too. In a talk, you usually want to decide when it shows. Turn auto-show off and show the overlay yourself with Control-Option-Command-K (⌃⌥⌘K) when you switch to the demo. Triple-tap fn does the same, and on a MacBook, fn sits in the bottom-left corner, easy to find without looking down.

If you would rather leave the overlay up the whole time, set Fade when idle, in Settings > General, to a few seconds instead of Never. The overlay fades while you are not typing and comes back fully with the next key.

Pointing and typing away from the keyboard

Two more things help when you are standing away from the laptop.

Pointer Spotlight (Spotlight, in Typebar’s Mouse settings) dims every display except a circle around the pointer, and has its own shortcut. It is a clean way to say “look here” without a laser pointer. Click ripples make each click visible from the back, and a cursor halo keeps the pointer easy to find. Spotlight the pointer during a presentation on a Mac covers the options.

Click to Type lets you type by clicking keys on the on-screen keyboard, into the app in front, for presenting with only a pointer. Modifiers latch for the next key, so you can click ⌘ and then S, and keys repeat while held. Control-Option-Command-T (⌃⌥⌘T) turns it on and off. Presenting with only a mouse: type by clicking an on-screen keyboard goes through it.

A checklist before you go on

Connect to the projector and choose mirroring or extended display.
Switch to your presentation profile and check the size from the back of the room.
Turn auto-show off, or check what it does with the venue’s recording setup.
Turn on Do Not Disturb from Control Center, so no banner lands on the big screen.
If you will type anything private during the demo, turn on Hide letters: shortcuts and special keys still show, and letters show as dots. Fields macOS marks as secure, such as password fields, never show what you type.
Run the demo once with the overlay on, and watch it from the audience’s side.

Typebar is $9 once, with a 24-hour free trial and no card.

Questions

Can Keynote or PowerPoint show the keys I press?

No. Neither has an option for it. A keystroke display app draws the keys on screen, and the projector shows them along with everything else.

Will the keys show on the projector if I use an extended display?

Only if the overlay sits on the projector’s display. With mirroring, the room sees whatever your Mac shows, so the keys are always included.

Can I show shortcuts without showing everything I type?

Yes. Set the pill to show only shortcuts, or turn on Hide letters so letters appear as dots while shortcuts and special keys still show.