Premiere Pro Interface and Workspace (beginner guide)

Get oriented in Premiere Pro’s panel-based workspace and understand where everything lives before touching footage. Here’s how to do it in Premiere Pro on macOS, step by step — part of the free Premiere Pro beginner curriculum.

Lesson 1 of the Premiere Pro curriculum. Next up: Import and Project Organization.

What you’ll do

• Identify the four main panels in the default Editing workspace: Source Monitor (upper left), Program Monitor (upper right), Timeline (lower center), Project panel (lower left)
• Understand that the active panel has a blue border highlight and that keyboard shortcuts are panel-specific
• Find the Tools panel on the left edge of the Timeline (or floating) containing Selection (V), Ripple Edit (B), Razor (C), and other tools
• Switch workspaces using the workspace bar at the top of the screen (Assembly, Editing, Color, Audio, Graphics, Export)
• Toggle any panel to full screen with the backtick key (`) while hovering over it
• Open the keyboard shortcuts reference: Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts (or Opt+Cmd+K)
• Locate the Properties panel and understand it is Adobe’s modern consolidated panel for clip properties and effects
• Save the project with Cmd+S

Do it hands-free with Skilly

Reading steps is one thing; doing them while the menus are in front of you is another. Skilly is a voice-first tutor for macOS: you ask out loud — “where’s the interface panel?” — and it answers while moving your cursor to the exact button, watching your actual Premiere Pro window. It’s the same Premiere Pro curriculum these lessons come from, taught live instead of read. Free to start.

Keep going

This is one stage of the full Premiere Pro beginner curriculum. Continue with Import and Project Organization.