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Numbering a worksheet by hand is the slowest part of a lesson: type Q1, move, type Q2, move, type Q3. A rubber stamp does the counting for you. Make one once, and it sits on the board frame ready to use — click the board and it stamps Q1, click again and it stamps Q2, for as long as you keep clicking.
Find itTools → Rubber stamp. Make a stamp and it appears cut into the frame of the board, like stamps set into a wooden tray — on a phone, where the frame is too thin to hold them, they sit just above the tool rail instead.
Make oneChoose what it counts like, and the preview shows the stamp itself alongside the run of values your next few clicks will produce. Q1, Q2, Q3 for questions. A1, A2, A3 for answers. 1, 2, 3 for plain numbering, A, B, C for lettering, Step 1, Step 2 for a method. Or pick My own and set the text before and after the number yourself — Task 1:, (1), Ex 1a. Always the same never counts at all, which is what you want for a tick, a cross or a star.
Where it starts, and by how muchStart at begins the run wherever you like — picking up at Q7 on the second board of a worksheet. Going up by counts in twos or fives, or in steps of −1 to count down. Leading zeros gives you 001, 002, 003 for a numbered list that stays in line. Then dress it: a circle, a rounded box, a square or nothing at all behind the text, the shape and text colours, the font, the size, bold and italic. Give it a short name — that is what you will recognise on the frame.
Click, click, clickTap a stamp to pick it up. Every other stamp sits down in the frame; the one in your hand lifts proud of it and takes a ring, so a glance tells you which one is loaded. Now every click or tap on the board places one. The tile always shows what the next click will stamp — so you can see you are about to lay down Q4 before you lay it down. Tap the same tile again, press Esc, or simply reach for another tool to put it down.
Move it where you want itThe tray has a small grip at its left end — the only part of it that is not a stamp, so dragging never costs you a click you meant. Drag it anywhere along the frame, and drag it towards the bottom of the board to move it onto the bottom edge instead. Let go near the left, the middle or the right and it snaps to it. The creator lists the six places by name as well, and the arrow keys move it for anyone who would rather not drag: left and right along the frame, up and down between the two edges, Home and End to the corners. Where you put it is remembered on your device and is not saved into the lesson, so moving your tray never moves anyone else's.
The side rings turn the pageThe left and right edges of the frame carry four more engraved buttons, cut the same way. On the right: › for the next board and + to add one after this one. On the left: + to add one before this one and ‹ for the previous board — so “before” is on the left and “after” is on the right, and the direction is in the position rather than in an icon. At the first and last board the arrows go grey rather than vanish, so they stay where your hand expects them.
Six at a timeA tray holds six stamps — enough for questions, answers, a tick, a cross, a star and a step counter — and they are cut to the depth of the frame, so they take no room off the board however thick or thin the frame is. Change the frame to oak, charcoal or a photograph of your own and the tray re-reads it and adjusts its own contrast to suit, so the stamps stay readable on all of them. When it is full it says 6/6 and the creator will not add a seventh: nothing you made is ever quietly replaced. Delete one you have finished with and the slot is yours again. The + at the end of the tray opens the creator, and every stamp you have is listed inside it: tap one to change it, ◀ ▶ to move it along the frame, ↺ to start its count again and ✕ to delete it. Deleting asks first, and the stamps you have already placed stay on the board.
What lands on the boardA stamp is not a special kind of object — it is ordinary Slate text, with an ordinary shape behind it if you chose one, grouped so the pair moves as one. Select it, drag it, recolour it, resize it, delete it, replay it, export it. Once it is down it is simply part of the board, and the stamp that made it has moved on.
UndoUndo takes stamps off the board one at a time, as it does with any other mark. It does not wind the counter back, though — undo Q8 and the next click still gives you Q9, because the counter is a property of the stamp rather than of the board. The tile shows you which value is next, and ↺ beside the stamp in the creator starts its count again. A right-click on a stamp (a long press on a tablet) offers the same thing straight from the frame, along with changing it and deleting it.
In a live sessionThe tray is part of the lesson, so everyone in a live session sees the same stamps with the same look, and a participant who joins halfway through gets the tray as it stands. Make one, delete one or move one along and it reaches the class straight away. The presenter looks after the tray and does the stamping — as with every other object Slate places for you, rather than draws — so the counter has one owner and a class never ends up with two Q4s. The whole tray saves into the .slate file — counters included — so a worksheet reopened tomorrow carries on at Q12 rather than starting again. Stamps you make are also remembered for new boards, so your ticks and crosses are waiting the next time you start from scratch.
Part of the Slate guide — or read the whole guide on one page.