Export Cue Sheet

What it's for — The paperwork a show runs on: the operator's cue list, the stage manager's calling script, the director's running order, and a sheet for each department. CueSync writes it from the cues you have built, so nobody retypes a cue list into a spreadsheet the night before tech.

The dialog

Pick four things, then Export… and choose where to save. The file is offered under the show's name and the layout's — Hamlet-calling-script.pdf — so a calling script and a running order of one show don't overwrite each other.

• Source — DJ Cue List (the Cues list) or Theatre Show (the Show Editor's Parts). Only the sources your project has are offered. With neither, the menu item says Nothing to export yet instead of opening.
• Layout — which document to write.
• Department — shown for the Department layout only: pick the cue group (DJ Cue List) or the output lane (Theatre Show) the sheet is for.
• Format — PDF (the default), HTML, CSV or Markdown. USITT ASCII is added for the Lighting layout of a Theatre Show.

A sheet is grouped by cue group (DJ Cue List) or by Part (Theatre Show). In a Theatre Show a cue's department is its output lane. Lighting, Media and Sound keep only the cues on a lane named for that department — Lighting, LX, Lights; Video, VX, Projection, Media; Sound, SFX, Audio — and in a DJ Cue List only the cue groups named that way. A lane numbered or qualified from one of those names (LX2, LX FOH), or set to that group in the lane's settings, stays on the sheet; so does a cue group numbered the same way. A lane or group with any other name appears on the Operator list, Calling script and Running order, and on its own Department sheet.

What the sheet tells you

• The Actions column says everything a cue does. A Goto, Group or Load cue reads Goto 5, Group 5, 6 or Load 5 — a cue in another Part adds that Part's name, because cue numbers restart in each Part. A venue intent reads Look Warm Wash or Blackout off. The protocol actions follow.
• Times use the show's frame rate. A Theatre sheet prints HH:MM:SS:FF at the rate the show records, and the show-clock line in the heading is written at the same rate. A show that records no rate prints HH:MM:SS, never frames at a guessed rate. Cues on the same frame print in the order they fire.
• A long name stays in its column. A long file path or address wraps inside its own cell; it doesn't push the Ready and Notes columns off the page. In a PDF the column headings repeat on every page, and the footer says which sheet it is — Hamlet — Calling script.
• A PDF prints Latin, Greek and Cyrillic letters. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai and emoji come out as # in a PDF, and the export says which characters it could not print. HTML, CSV and Markdown keep every character as written.
• The page is A4, or US Letter where your computer's region uses it. A PDF also carries the show's author in its file properties.
• A Part with no cues is left out of the sheet, not printed as a heading over an empty table.
• Script pages print when you have them. Give a Theatre cue a Page (the Inspector's Notes tab, or the cue editor) and every layout gains a last Page column — in CSV, just before Enabled. A show with no pages prints exactly the columns above.
• Standby calls are never dropped. A cue that waits for your GO reads STBY in the Call column, or carries a STBY prefix in When on a layout without one — including a Go cue read back from a grandMA3 desk.
• Disabled cues are listed, not hidden. HTML and PDF strike them through; CSV has an Enabled column (yes / no). Markdown, a compact paste format, does not mark them.
• CSV opens straight in Excel, accented and non-Latin cue names included. Cue names are written so a spreadsheet never runs one as a formula.
• USITT ASCII is a skeleton for a lighting console. It carries cue numbers and labels and no channel levels. A console orders cues by number and merges repeats, so numbers that repeat or go backwards (cue numbers restart in each Part) are renumbered upwards. Each renumbering is written on a ! comment line in the file, and a disabled cue's label ends in (DISABLED).
• It carries the cue times the show has. A cue's desk fade is written as Up and Down: the fade an imported marker named (<3> in a REAPER marker, or a desk's fade pulled in by Import as show track), or else the duration of the cue's first Fade action. It is the same fade the grandMA3 sync programs. A Follow or Auto cue becomes a Followon on the cue before it: the cue's pre-wait, counted from that cue's GO, which is how CueSync runs it. A cue with no fade carries no time, so the desk uses its own default. Timecode cannot travel: USITT has no timecode keyword, and Eos reads timecode events only from older ETC consoles' files. Each timecode cue's time is written as a ! timecode … comment for whoever builds the desk's show-control list. CueSync can also fire the cues over OSC (ETC Eos).
• Loading it on an Eos desk: in the Browser, File → Import → USITT ASCII. ETC's import puts every cue into cue list 1, labelled Imported from USITT ASCII. The file was built to the USITT ASCII 3.0 standard and ETC's Eos Family USITT ASCII Import page. No Eos desk has imported it yet.

Tips & gotchas

• The same sheet, from Studio. CueSync Studio exports the calling script, running order and department lists with the same columns, so paperwork looks the same whichever end made it.
• Crew devices can download a sheet too. Settings → Companion offers a printable cue sheet for the whole show or for one station, as HTML or CSV.
• There is no Tracklist layout. It would need track data this export does not read.

Related

• Show Editor — Build the Theatre cues these sheets list
• Cues — The DJ cue list
• Show Companion — Crew devices and the downloadable cue sheet
• CueSync Studio — Cloud show prep with the same paperwork