3 Tips for Using ProPresenter 7 Macros (and How We Use Them)

Macros are the single biggest thing you can do to make ProPresenter runnable by someone who isn't you.

Here are three tips, plus how our whole macro setup works.

1. Organize macros around your service, not around features

Build your macros to match the shape of a Sunday.

We use four categories. Startup, pre-service, service, and post-service. They're color-coded and labeled by which part of the morning they belong to.

The reason this matters isn't tidiness. It's that a volunteer scanning the list can find the right macro without knowing what any of them technically do. They're looking for "where are we in the service," and the list answers that question.

2. Build every macro like you're starting from a blank slate

Your service has a usual order. Some weeks it won't follow it.

So when I build a macro, I ask what it would need if nothing before it had fired. Stage screen actions, Looks actions, lighting cues. All of it goes in every macro, even when it's redundant in the normal flow.

That redundancy is the point. Skip an element, run something out of order, jump backward. The macro still lands the room in the right state. You never end up with a volunteer staring at a wrong stage screen because step four assumed step three had run.

3. Let the calendar fire them for you

ProPresenter 7's calendar can auto-fire a macro at a set time.

Our countdown fires itself at 10:25 every Sunday. Nobody starts it. It's just running when people walk in. Another macro fires at the top of the service to move into worship.

To set it up: go to the calendar view, create a new event, set the time and the days it repeats, and attach the macro.

Anything that happens at the same time every week should be on the calendar. That's one less thing on a volunteer's list, and it happens whether or not anyone remembered.

The thread here

All three tips do the same job. They take knowledge that lives in your head and put it into the software, so the person running Sunday doesn't need to carry it.

Related reading

• Importing and Exporting Stage Screens in ProPresenter 7 Using Themes
• Easiest Way to Add Chords in ProPresenter 7 with MultiTracks
• How to Train Church Media Volunteers

If you want the full walkthrough on ProPresenter, the ProPresenter 7 Quickstart Guide covers the interface, songs, lyrics formatting, screens, playlists, and macros. It's built to train your volunteers without you having to do it yourself.

And if the problem is less about ProPresenter and more about handing it off, the ProPresenter Volunteer Workflow is the 15-minute setup system our volunteers actually use.