How to Use HoverBoard Spotlight — Focus Attention on One Area

Spotlight dims the screen and leaves a soft-edged opening around your cursor. It is the fastest way to direct attention without drawing on the content or asking people to guess which part of a dense slide matters.

Activate Spotlight

The default shortcut is ⌃⌥S. You can also activate it from the menu bar. Move the cursor over the point you want to discuss; the spotlight follows it. Press Esc or the shortcut again to close it.

Spotlight is free forever. It does not start a Pro trial, require a license, or alter the document underneath the overlay.

Tune the focus window

Spotlight settings control three useful dimensions:

Radius: enlarge the opening when the audience needs to read a paragraph or a small diagram; shrink it for a single control.
Darkness: make the surrounding screen quieter without hiding it entirely.
Feather: soften the edge so the focus feels natural rather than like a hard cutout.

Choose a smaller radius for a product walkthrough and a larger one for a spreadsheet or architecture diagram. The right value depends on your screen resolution and how far away viewers are sitting.

Keep the underlying app clickable

Spotlight is click-through by design. You can move the pointer and interact with the application underneath while the focus layer remains visible. This makes it useful for live demonstrations: spotlight a button, click it, then follow the next state without toggling the overlay at every step.

If you need to draw instead of click, switch to Draw with ⌃⌥D or close Spotlight first. Draw and Spotlight solve different problems: one leaves a mark, the other reduces visual competition.

A focused explanation workflow

Open the slide or app state.
Press ⌃⌥S.
Move the cursor slowly to the exact area you want viewers to inspect.
Explain the point before moving on.
Use the spotlight to travel to the next area, or combine it with Cursor Halo for an even clearer pointer.
Press Esc when the focused section is complete.

Avoid sweeping the cursor randomly. Spotlight is most effective when its movement has the same structure as your narration.

The overlay is rendered above the content you are presenting, so viewers see the dimmed screen and focus opening in Zoom, Meet, Teams, recordings, and in-person projection. It is a local presentation layer; HoverBoard does not send your screen to a backend.

Restore settings

Spotlight settings include Restore Defaults for radius, darkness, and related appearance options. If the opening becomes too small or the background too dark, reset and tune one value at a time. Settings dismiss when you click outside the panel in recent versions.

Troubleshooting

If the spotlight does not respond to ⌃⌥S, check Accessibility permission and Settings → Hotkeys. If you cannot click the app, confirm you are in Spotlight rather than Draw or another interactive mode. If the overlay looks too strong in a recording, reduce darkness and increase feathering.

Spotlight is free, quiet, and always ready: no annotation cleanup, no slide edits, just one clear place for the audience to look.