How Present Tense works.
A screen share sends pictures of your screen. Present Tense sends the page, and every screen rebuilds it in step with yours.
Structure, not pixels
A screen share takes pictures of your screen and streams them. Present Tense sends the page itself: its text, layout and state. Each screen's browser rebuilds it and keeps it in step with yours, so text is sharp at any size and there is far less to send.
The relay in the middle puts updates in order and forwards them. It is built to pass your page along without reading it.
Because each screen gets real text and layout rather than pixels, a person's own browser can translate the page into their own language. The translation is the browser's, not ours.
Two ways to capture a page
Present Tense picks the right method for each part of your page on its own. You don't choose, and one presentation can use both.
Capture is delivered by the Present Tense extension for Chrome. Your audience installs nothing.
Pages made for Present Tense
Every element carries a stable name, so we send short instructions instead of changes: go to slide 12, highlight this row. Fast and very light.
Any other page
We record changes to the page as they happen and rebuild a read-only copy for the audience. Heavier than instructions, still far lighter than video.
Or bring a deck
You don't have to present a tab. Import a deck — reveal.js markdown or an HTML export — and Present Tense renders it on every screen with reveal.js. What crosses the network is the DECK itself, its text and structure, a few kilobytes; each screen renders it locally. It never sends a picture of the slide.
The composition is shared, so the presenter, the audience and the projector see the same slide in the same arrangement, at their own size. The room follows you slide by slide, and because a deck is real text, each viewer's browser can translate it into their own language.
Catching up without replay
Someone who joins late and someone whose wifi dropped are handled the same way. They receive a recent snapshot of the page and the changes since, and land on what is showing now. Nothing they missed plays back.
About every ten seconds, each screen checks that it still matches yours. If one has drifted, it is quietly replaced with a fresh copy.
What joiners see, and what is live only
Kept for everyone who joins
Which slide or page you are on, scroll position, form values (with passwords and private fields masked), focus and highlights.
Live only
Your pointer and what you hover over. They show while they happen and are never replayed.
When something can't be matched
If an element can't be matched on an audience member's screen, they see a clear marker at the spot you mean instead of a wrong element or nothing at all.
Present Tense never fails silently. An audience member always sees where you are pointing, even when the exact element isn't available on their side.
Try it in a real room.
We're letting people in by email while we test in real venues.