You use the Action Recorder to record an action macro. After an action macro is recorded, you save the recorded commands and input to an action macro, which has the file extension ACTM.

The Action Recorder is a panel on the ribbon and contains the tools to record, play back, and modify an action macro. You can also set the preferences for the Action Recorder from the Action Recorder Preferences dialog box. During the playback, editing, or recording of an action macro, you can expand the Action Recorder panel to access the individual actions of the current action macro from the Action tree.

In the Action tree, you can modify and delete the action nodes of an action macro. Action nodes represent the recorded commands or input values of an action macro. You can also specify base points, insert user messages, and pause for user input for a value node during playback. A value node in an action macro represents the input that was provided at a sub-prompt of a command during recording. Value nodes can contain acquired points, text strings, numbers, keywords, or other values that might be entered when recording a command.