# Record steps

Click through a task once and get a step-by-step guide, a picture and a sentence for each click, with sign-in and ID fields covered, as one PDF.

Record steps turns a task you do in the browser into a guide: each click that changes the
screen becomes a step, with a picture of the screen, a number on what you clicked and a sentence
that says it. Use it to show a colleague how to file a form, to hand over a routine, or to write
down how a setting is changed. It is a preview: the popup marks it with a green dot until you
first use it.

1. **Open the page to start from** and click the Page Scanner icon.
2. **Press Record steps**, under **Map this site**. The popup closes, Chrome's debugging bar
   comes up over the page, and the Page Scanner icon shows a red count of the steps taken.
3. **Do the task**, at your own pace. Sign in, fill in fields and click through as you normally
   would. A click that only puts the cursor in a field or ticks a box is not a step; a click that
   opens the next screen is.
4. **Click the Page Scanner icon and press Stop and open the steps.** The steps open in a tab
   beside the page.

The recording also stops if you press **Cancel** on the debugging bar, open DevTools on the
page, close the tab, take 100 steps or go on for 30 minutes. Whatever was recorded is kept, and
the steps open all the same.

## What is kept, and what is covered

Each step keeps the part of the page that was in the window before you clicked, the page's
address and title, and what you clicked. What you type is not kept on its own anywhere; it shows
only where it was on the screen.

Fields for a sign-in, a password, a one-time code, a card or an ID number (a resident
registration or business number, for example) are found on each screen and covered with a black
box in that step's picture, in English and in Korean labels. A field of any other kind shows what
you typed in it, as it did on your screen, so look through the pictures before you share a
guide.

## Edit the steps

The steps view lists every step in the **Steps** panel on the right and shows the selected one
in the middle:

- **The number** sits on the corner of what you clicked, and the covered fields are black boxes.
  Both are ordinary marks: select one to move or delete it, or add more with the toolbar (step
  number, redact, blur, rectangle, arrow, highlighter, text).
- **The sentence** is written for you ("Click **Sign in**"). Rewrite it in the field under the
  selected step and press `Enter`.
- **Move a step** with the arrow buttons, and **delete** it with **Delete step**. `⌘/Ctrl` + `Z`
  undoes any change, a deleted step included.
- **Add a picture** or **Add a sentence** puts a step after the selected one, for something done
  outside the browser: a screenshot of another program, or just an instruction.
- **Sensitive Text**, the panel's second button, runs a Pattern Scan over the text of every step
  and lists email addresses, phone and card numbers and the like by step. Open the step and draw a
  redaction or a blur over each one you want hidden.

`↑` and `↓` move through the steps. The editor's tool letters and its `⌘/Ctrl` keys for undo,
the panels and Extract work here too ([Shortcuts](https://docs.pagescanner.app/extension/shortcuts)).

## Save the guide as a PDF

Press **Extract** at the right of the toolbar (or `⌘/Ctrl` + `P`). The PDF has one A4 page per
step, in your order: "Step 3 of 7", the sentence, the picture with its marks, and at the foot the
address the step was on, as a link, and when. Every step is a bookmark. The covered fields are
black in the pictures themselves, so nothing under them is in the file, and the words in the
pictures are read on your computer so the PDF can be searched. The file is named after the first
page and the day, for example `taxdesk-steps-2026-10-01.pdf`.

## Limits

- A picture is what was in the window, not the rest of the page below it.
- Only the fields described above are covered. An on-screen keypad a site draws for its password
  is a picture, not a field, and is not covered.
- Clicks inside a frame from another site, and anything outside the tab (a file dialog, a
  certificate program, another window), are not recorded. Add them with **Add a picture** or
  **Add a sentence**.
- The sentences are in English.
- The debugging bar stays up while you record. See [the bar during a scan](https://docs.pagescanner.app/extension/debugger).
- One recording runs at a time, and recordings are kept with your captures for 12 hours.