Switching from VideoScribe Legacy: your guide to getting started

Before you dive in, the getting started tutorial is a short video that covers the basics from start to finish. It's a good place to begin if you want a quick overview before exploring the details below.

In this guide

• How to access VideoScribe

• Starting a new project

• Adding images

• Adding text

• Choosing animation type and timings

• Cameras and scenes

• Audio

• Preview

• Publish and share

• What's new at a glance

• A few things that work differently

• Want to go deeper?

• Still stuck?

How to access VideoScribe 

VideoScribe works in your browser or as a downloadable desktop app for Mac and Windows. Your projects are the same across both.

• Open VideoScribe in your browser

• Download the desktop app (Mac)

• Download the desktop app (Windows)

Sign in with your existing account and you're ready to go.

Starting a new project

When you create a new project you'll be asked to choose your canvas size. This works exactly the same as in Legacy. Choose from:

• 16:9 standard widescreen, ideal for YouTube and websites

• 1:1 square, ideal for Instagram and Facebook

• 9:16 portrait, ideal for Stories and TikTok

See output sizes for full details.

Once your project is open you'll land on the canvas. It's a roaming canvas, the same as in Legacy. Scroll and zoom freely.

Moving around the canvas

Use the scroll bars to move around, and use the zoom controls in the bottom right corner of the canvas to zoom in or out.

Adding images

Open the library

Click the 'Image' icon in the left-hand panel. VideoScribe's image library has grown from around 11,000 images in Legacy to over 5 million, so the first thing you'll notice is how much more there is to explore.

You can resize the panel using the handle on its right edge and you can now keep this panel open while you add multiple images to your canvas. The library stays open after each image you add so you can keep browsing without interruption. If you close it and reopen it, it will remember exactly where you left off including your last search or category. This is different from Legacy where closing the library resets your position.

Browse or search

Use the search bar or browse by category, these are the same ones you are used to in Legacy. You'll notice shortcut tags for the most popular searches just below the search bar for quick access. To narrow down results add more specific terms, for example "female paramedic" rather than just "paramedic". Hover over any image to see its name. Many named characters appear in multiple poses, so searching by name (for example "Adriana") brings up the full set.

The image library has three tabs:

• Illustrations contains everything you know from Legacy plus a huge amount more. The classic hand-drawn VideoScribe style is all still here, alongside a range of newer, more contemporary illustration collections each with its own distinct visual character from clean and minimal to bold and expressive. Images within each collection are designed to work together, so once you find a style that fits your video, use the 'Image Style' filter to browse within that collection and everything you choose will look like it belongs. For more guidance on building a consistent visual theme see how to choose and set a theme for your VideoScribe video.

• Icons contains a huge collection of icon-style images, ideal for anything where you need a clean simple visual.

• Graphic Elements is completely new compared to Legacy and one of the most useful additions for making your videos look polished and considered. It's home to flourishes, decorative accents, dividers, patterns, textures and design details. Use them to add a background texture to a scene, separate sections with a divider, layer decorative elements to give your canvas depth and visual interest, or tie a visual theme together across your whole video. These finishing touches can make a real difference to the overall look and feel of what you produce.

Adjust image colors

Many images in the library support color changes. Look for the 'Color-change' icon on the thumbnail in the library to identify which ones. To make changes, select the image on the canvas, open the 'Edit' tab in the right-hand panel, and use the 'Appearance' section. Depending on the image you can change the 'Fill 1' , 'Fill 2' , 'Skin' , 'Hair' , 'Highlight'  and/or 'Stroke' color. Custom colors can be saved to your palette and reused across all your projects. See changing image colors for details.

Upload your own images

Import SVGs, PNGs and JPEGs using the upload option at the top of the image library panel, the same as in Legacy. For the hand-drawn animation style to work on imported images they need to be SVGs. See Importing images for full details.

Access your uploaded and AI images

Find everything in the 'Your files' tab at the top of the library panel.

Find images you've used before

Use the 'Recently used' tab for quick access to images from previous sessions.

For a full guide to navigating the library see finding images in the VideoScribe library.

Adding text

Add text by clicking the 'Text' button in the left-hand panel. Once your text is on the canvas, select it to see the formatting options in the right-hand panel. These include font, font size, weight, alignment, color and opacity.

A few things worth knowing if you're used to Legacy:

• Line spacing is now built in as a formatting option, which was a common request from Legacy users.

• Custom colors can be saved to your palette and reused across all your projects. This makes it much easier to stay on brand consistently. Select a color, add a hex code, and it will appear in your color palette every time you open a project.

• Per-character color changes are supported. You can apply different colors to individual letters and words within the same text element.

See Adding and formatting text for full details including how to add custom fonts.

Choosing animation type and timings

In Legacy, animation options are set per element via the Image Properties dialog, where you can choose from Draw, Move in, Fade in or Morph, and set Animate, Pause and Transition timings.

In VideoScribe the same principle applies. Animations are set per element and accessed from the 'Animation' tab in the right-hand panel. The timings work similarly with duration and pause controls.

Setting defaults

New in VideoScribe, you can set default animation types and timings for all new elements you add to the canvas via the 'Settings'  screen. You can set defaults for all elements at once, or separately for images, shapes and text. This saves time if you tend to use the same animation style across a project and is not something available in Legacy.

Entrance animations

Entrance animations control how each element appears on screen. The options in VideoScribe will feel familiar if you’re used to Legacy; Draw, Move in, Fade in and Drag in all have Legacy equivalents, they're just laid out more clearly.

Legacy’s Draw style has been split into separate styles of 'Hand draw' , 'Pen draw'   and 'Draw' (no hand) , rather than configurations of one style. While VideoScribe’s 'Move in' animation has no hand by default with 'Drag in' being a separate style which drags elements on screen with a hand.

VideoScribe also has the new entrance animation of 'Bounce in' , elements bounce onto the screen from any direction. Good for key visuals and CTAs.

See Entrance animations for details.

Emphasis animations

Emphasis animations add movement after an element appears. 'Pulse' , 'Spin' , 'Shake' and 'Bounce' are all available. These are new in VideoScribe and not available in Legacy. Set the duration and number of loops for each.

See Emphasis animations for full details.

Exit animations

Exit animations control how elements leave the screen. 'Fade out'   , 'Move out' , 'Disappear' and 'Erase' are available, plus 'Slingshot' which is new in VideoScribe. Exit animations are not available in Legacy.

You may recall that each element in Legacy also has a Transition time setting, to control how long your camera view takes to move from one element to the next. For greater ease of use, this setting has been moved to the camera element settings, which you can learn more about below.

See Exit animations for full details.

Cameras and scenes

Cameras

Cameras are one of the biggest differences between Legacy and VideoScribe, and getting your head around how they work is probably the single most important thing you can do to get great results in the new version.

In Legacy, the camera is a setting you apply to each element. You position the canvas where you want it, then tell that element to set the camera so the video knows what area to show when that element animates. It works, but because the camera isn't visible as an object, it can be hard to visualize the overall flow of your video as you build it, and easy to lose track of which element has which camera set.

In VideoScribe, cameras are visible objects that sit on the canvas and on the timeline. You place them where you want them, size them to frame the area you want to show, and position them in the timeline at the exact point you want the movement to happen. You can see your entire video's camera structure at a glance, directly on the canvas.

This change makes a real difference to the quality of videos you can create. Because you can see exactly what your viewer will see at every point, it's much easier to plan your layout, keep things visually tight, and catch problems before you export.

Here's what you can do that you can't in Legacy:

• See your camera views on the canvas as you work. 'Pin' cameras so their outlines stay visible while you add and arrange elements within them.

• Control camera movement precisely. Set the movement type ('Ease out' or 'Linear' ), how long the transition takes, and how long to pause before the next animation starts. Being able to pause after a camera movement is also new in VideoScribe.

• Resize and reposition cameras freely. Drag the bounding box to move a camera or pull the corners to resize it. The aspect ratio locks automatically to match your project format.

• Place cameras exactly where you need them on the timeline. Add a camera before a specific element, after another camera, or at the end of the sequence. Move cameras on the timeline just like any other element.

To get started, Camera 1 is already in place when you open a new project. Navigate to where you want the next view to be, add a new 'Camera' from the left-hand panel, position it on the canvas, then place your elements within that camera view.

See Controlling cameras for full details and watch the Cameras tutorial for a walkthrough.

Scenes

Scenes are completely new in VideoScribe and don't exist in Legacy. They give you a way to structure longer videos into distinct sections, each with its own canvas, background and layout. Think of each scene as a fresh page in your video where you can start a new visual idea without it being connected to what came before.

You can add, duplicate and delete 'Scenes' using the buttons in the left-hand panel. A project can have up to 25 scenes.

Using cameras and scenes together. You can use cameras within a single scene to pan and zoom across the canvas, use scenes for distinct sections, or combine both. Cameras give you movement and flow within a section. Scenes give you a clean break between sections. Together they give you much more structural flexibility than Legacy's camera-only approach.

Transitions between scenes. When you move from one scene to the next you can apply a transition to control how the change happens. Transitions are set via 'Scene settings' in the right-hand panel. Options include 'Fade', 'Slide in', 'Bounce', 'Erase' and 'Drag', all new in VideoScribe and not available in Legacy. See the ultimate guide to VideoScribe scene transitions for examples of each in action.

See Adding scenes and Scene transitions for full details.

Audio

Music library

The same music tracks you know from Legacy are available in VideoScribe, but the library is much easier to navigate. Tracks are organized by mood and style so you can find the right background music quickly without leaving the app. All tracks are royalty-free so you can publish anywhere without copyright concerns.

Recording a voiceover

Voiceover recording has improved. You can now record in sections, so if you make a mistake you can pause and pick up again rather than starting over. You can also play your project alongside the recording to keep your voiceover in sync. See Recording a voiceover for details.

Audio editing

The audio editing capabilities in VideoScribe are significantly more advanced than Legacy. You can:

• Add up to 50 audio tracks per project

• Drag tracks on the timeline to change their start and stop points

• Create overlapping tracks which appear in separate lanes for finer control

• Assign audio to a specific scene or to the whole project

• Split a track into two or more parts to remove sections or create precise edits

• Trim the beginning or end of any track

• Fade out tracks for a smooth ending rather than an abrupt stop

See Editing audio for full details.

For a full guide to all audio features see Adding audio.

Preview 

Previewing your project works the same way as in Legacy. New in VideoScribe, you can generate a 'Preview link' to share your project with others for feedback without needing to download or export anything. Anyone with the link can view the video without signing in. See Previewing your project for details.

Publish and share

Publishing in VideoScribe works differently from Legacy and there are a few important things to know before you export.

Downloading your video. VideoScribe exports to MP4 and GIF. MP4 is the most widely used video format, compatible with YouTube, social media, websites and virtually every device and media player, so for most use cases it's all you need. Legacy users familiar with exporting to MOV, WMV, AVI or image sequences should note that VideoScribe exports to MP4 and GIF only.

Sharing a preview link. Rather than downloading and sending a file, you can generate a shareable preview link directly from the publish menu. Anyone with the link can view your video without signing in, making it a quick way to get feedback from colleagues or clients without committing to a full export. Preview links are available on Core and Max plans. Note that the link stops working if your subscription ends.

Sharing an editable project file. There currently isn’t a self-serve way to share an editable version of a project with another VideoScribe user. If you need to share a project for someone else to edit, raise a support ticket and our team can help.

See Publishing and sharing your projects for full details.

What's new at a glance

A quick reference summary of what VideoScribe has that Legacy doesn't:

A few things that work differently

Graphic filters. Legacy has blur, glow, brightness, saturation, contrast and shadow filters available on individual images via the Image Properties dialog. These aren't currently available in VideoScribe. You can still change image colors on supported images via the 'Edit' tab in the right-hand panel. See Changing image colors for details.

Export formats. Legacy exports to MOV, WMV, AVI and image sequences. VideoScribe exports to MP4 and GIF only. MP4 works everywhere but if your workflow depends on other formats this is worth factoring in.

Object limit per project. You can add up to 150 objects per project. 

Project files. Projects are saved to your account rather than as local .scribe files. You can access them from any computer by signing in.

Sharing editable projects. There is no self-serve way to share an editable project file with another user. See the Publish and share section above for your options.

Want to go deeper?

We ran a webinar specifically for Legacy users that walks through the differences between Legacy and VideoScribe in detail. If you want to see everything in action before diving in yourself, this is the best place to start: watch the webinar here.

Still stuck?

If there's something you can do in Legacy that you can't find a way to do in VideoScribe, raise a support ticket and our team will help you out.