Document the process once
Every team has the same two artifacts for the same procedure: a screen recording someone made, and a written SOP someone else typed up from it. They're made separately, they age separately, and after two releases they disagree. ScreenTailor produces both from one recording: a share-ready MP4, and a step-by-step PDF or PNG guide built from its own frames.
The doc that can't drift
The steps in the guide are frames of the video. Not screenshots taken on a different day, from a different account, with a different sidebar open — the same run of the same process. When someone reads the SOP and someone else watches the recording, they're looking at the same thing. That's the whole argument for generating the document from the video instead of writing it beside the video.
Real data, safely
Internal procedures run on real screens — a real customer record, a real invoice, a real API key. Blur the region for the seconds it's on screen and every output inherits it: the video, the captured steps, the PDF and the PNG pages. There's no second pass where you remember to redact the screenshots too — the clean pixels simply never leave the app.
When the process changes
A button moves and the SOP is wrong. With Checkpoint Recording you re-record just the clip that changed rather than the whole walkthrough, fix the caption on that step, and export the guide again. The video and the document are regenerated from the same source, so the fix lands in both — which is the part that usually gets skipped when they're two separate artifacts.
A working routine
- Record the procedure end to end. Talk through it if you like — with system audio the app's own sounds come along too.
- Trim and zoom so each step is legible on a laptop screen, and blur what shouldn't be in a document.
- Caption each step as an instruction — "Open the billing tab", "Set the status to Approved". Short, imperative, one per action: these become the labels in the document.
- Switch to Step-by-Step Guide and press From captions — one step per caption, captured at the moment it's on screen.
- Export both. The MP4 for onboarding, the PDF for the SOP binder, or PNG pages to paste into Confluence or Notion. Details in how to turn a screen recording into a step-by-step guide.
Where it fits — and where it doesn't
Good fit: onboarding walkthroughs, internal tool procedures, support macros, "how we do X" runbooks, handover docs, training material that also needs a video — anything where the process is best shown and the doc is the artifact of record.
Not the tool for: documents that are mostly prose with the odd screenshot, or knowledge bases that need every word in the PDF to be full-text searchable. Steps are images with no separate text field, and PDF pages are embedded as images — so their text isn't indexable. Teams that need both usually export PNG pages and write the surrounding text in the wiki, keeping the PDF as the printable attachment.
One recording, two deliverables
Record the process, export the video and the guide.
Frequently asked questions
How do I create an SOP from a screen recording?
Record the process, caption each step as you edit, then switch the editor to Step-by-Step Guide and generate a step per caption. Export the pages as a PDF to attach to the SOP, or as PNGs to paste into your wiki. The screenshots are frames of the recording, so the written procedure matches the video exactly.
Can I hide customer data in the documentation?
Yes. Blur a region for the seconds it is on screen in the editor, and every output inherits it — the video, the captured steps, and the PDF and PNG pages. The unblurred pixels never leave the app in any export.
What happens when the process changes?
Re-record just the part that changed with Checkpoint Recording, fix the caption, and export the guide again. You don't redo the whole walkthrough, and the video and the document are regenerated from the same recording, so they can't disagree.
Can I write instructions under each screenshot?
The step's text lives in the caption burned into the frame — there is no separate text field per step. Teams that need long procedural prose export the PNG pages and place them in Confluence, Notion or Google Docs, writing the surrounding text there.
Is the exported PDF searchable?
No — pages are embedded as images, so their text can't be indexed or selected. If your knowledge base needs full-text search, use the PNG pages inside a searchable page and keep the PDF as the printable attachment.