We've created a migration tool to convert your legacy projects so they can be used in the latest version of VideoScribe. This will bring across all the project assets, including audio and images, and most of the settings from the original project. But it's not perfect, so you will need to do some tidying up. This article takes you through this process.
There are two stages to this process:
Please note: If you are not familiar with the new version of VideoScribe yet, we suggest you read our Switching from VideoScribe Legacy Guide first.
Migrating your project
Saving your legacy projects as local .scribe files
The migration tool uses local scribe files, so the first step is to make sure your project has been saved locally.
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If you already have the .scribe files for your project then you're good to go
- If your project was saved online in VideoScribe Legacy then you'll need to save it locally
- Open VideoScribe Legacy and click on the 'Online Scribes' tab
- Find your project and open it
- Next click the 'Save as' icon in the top menu and make sure the 'My Computer' tab is selected
- Click 'Select file location' and choose a location on your computer to save your project
- Click 'Save'
This will create a local .scribe file that you can use with the migration tool.
Migrating your project
- Open the latest version of VideoScribe - you can use the web app or the desktop app
- From the home screen click on the Account Menu in the top right and select 'Migrate Legacy project'
- You can then either 'Browse for a .scribe file' or simply drag and drop it here
The next screen explains that there are certain limitations with the migration process:
- You'll get a close copy of your project, not an exact one. You should expect to spend a little time tweaking.
- Layout and colors are preserved, but images may shift slightly in size and position. Some SVG strokes may draw differently.
- Charts become static images and can no longer be edited. Background colors carry over; background textures do not.
- Camera positions and timings are kept - each animated element gets its own camera.
- Unsupported animations, effects, filters, custom hands and inline text formatting are replaced with VideoScribe defaults.
- Click 'Convert' to initiate the process and when it's finished you'll have the option to 'Open project'
- You'll also find the project in your 'Projects' list
Tidying up your project
As stated above, the migration process is not perfect as there are some differences between the two versions.
The first step is to preview the migrated project in the latest version of VideoScribe to see if there are any issues. In many cases there will be a few or no issues, but depending on how much you used certain features in VideoScribe Legacy, there may be more.
Below is a list of the possible issues you may find with the migrated version of your project, and suggested steps to resolve these.
- Text elements using different fonts
- Elements brought in at wrong scale
- Morph animations
- Removing duplicate cameras
- Adding a zoom out at the end of your project
- Issues with large projects
- Unsupported features
- Project limitations
- Need help
Text elements using different font
The conversion tool will try to match the fonts used in VideoScribe Legacy. However, if it can't do this, for example if you have used an imported font, then it will use the default font. Here are the steps on how to resolve this:
- In VideoScribe Legacy:
- Open the 'Text Properties' screen for the text element and select the 'Edit text' tab
- Make a note of the font name
- In the latest version:
- Check the font library to see if this font is present
- If not, you will need to use the 'Add custom font' option - you can download a large range of font files from Google Fonts
- Next you will need to re-apply the correct fonts to all the effected text elements
Top tip: In the latest version of VideoScribe you can multi-select text elements and apply the new font settings in batch.
Elements brought in at wrong scale
In some cases you'll find that some of your images or text elements have shifted or are at a different scale. These elements will need to be re-scaled and re-positioned.
- In VideoScribe Legacy:
- Double-click on the element in the timeline - this will zoom your view to the camera position at this point in the video
Top tip: It may be useful to take a screenshot of the canvas so you can use this as a background reference image to help you re-scale and re-position your elements in the new version.
This method is described in detail in our Re-creating your legacy projects in the latest version of VideoScribe article. Bear in mind that you won't need to add any of the cameras or elements, as in this case these will all have already been migrated, but you can still use the principles described to help recreate your exact layout.
- In latest version:
- Double-click on the camera element
just before the relevant element in the timeline - this will zoom your view to same camera position as above - Re-scale and re-position the element so it appears the same as the original - you can either do this by eye, or you can use the screenshot method suggested above
- Double-click on the camera element
Morph animations
The Morph animation method from VideoScribe Legacy is not currently available in the latest version so any elements in your project which used this method will now simply draw following the migration process, and the original element will not be removed. However, we have written the following articles which show you how you can create similar effects using the new Emphasis and Exit animations:
- Create Morph animations in VideoScribe: A step-by-step guide
- Creating stop motion videos in VideoScribe: A step-by-step guide
Removing duplicate cameras
In VideoScribe Legacy, every element has it's own camera position associated with it, whereas in the latest version the cameras are separate elements on the timeline which are also visible and editable on the canvas - for more details on this see the 'Cameras and scenes' section in our Switching from VideoScribe Legacy Guide. For this reason, the migration process will create a separate camera for each of the elements in the project, placing these just before the element.
For projects where the camera moves between every element, such as with whiteboard collage videos, this makes sense. However, if your project contains scenes where the camera position remains constant as several elements are animated, then some of these camera elements will technically be redundant.
Please note: Removing these is an optional step as these extra camera elements do not cause an issue, and the video will still look the same if you ignore them. The only reason to remove them would be to tidy up and simplify your project.
Important: If you decide to remove these, you will also need to make some adjustments to the element timings - see below.
Follow these steps in the migrated version of your project to remove redundant camera elements:
- Double-click on the first camera element in the timeline to zoom the canvas to your first camera position
- Next double-click on the next camera element on the timeline:
- If the camera position shifts, then you need to keep this camera element
- If the camera position does not move (i.e. if the canvas does not shift on your screen) then this is a redundant camera and it can be removed - but don't delete it just yet
- First look at the Camera settings in the right-hand panel and make a note of the 'Duration' time (the 'Pause time' will always be zero as this is a new option)
- If the duration is zero, then you can simply delete the camera using the 'Delete camera' option in the right-hand panel (or using the 'Delete' key)
- Otherwise you're going to need to add this duration time to the 'Pause before next element' time in the preceding element (the element just before the camera) before deleting the camera
- Repeat these steps for each camera in your project
Adding a zoom out at the end of your project
If your legacy project used the 'Zoom at end' option, you will need to add a final camera at the end of your project to re-create this effect.
Please note: If your project did not use this effect you will still need to extend the 'Pause' at the end of the last element in your timeline. Look at the 'Transition time' in the last element in your original legacy project to see how much time you need to add to this pause.
- Open the migrated project using the latest version of VideoScribe
- Highlight the zoom control in the bottom right corner of the canvas and select the 'Zoom to fit' option
- Click the 'Camera' button in the Left-hand panel and select the 'Fit to view'
option - Make sure this new camera is at the very end of the timeline
- Re-scale and re-position this final camera as required
- Set the camera 'Duration' to be the same as the 'Transition time' in the last element in your original legacy project
Issues with large projects
If your project is very large, and takes up a lot of space on the canvas, the migration process will re-scale (shrink) the entire project in order to fit everything on the canvas area in the latest version of VideoScribe. This may cause issues with some of the cameras in the migrated version. This is because there is a minimum camera size in the latest version. This issue only occurs if some of the cameras in the original project are very small compared to the overall size of the project, meaning that during the re-scaling process these cameras cannot be reduced beyond the limit, and so they appear too large in the migrated version of the project.
Below are a few suggested ways you can resolve this issue:
1. Re-scaling the elements in the affected cameras
The first approach is to increase the size of the elements that appear within the affected cameras so that they are at the correct scale.
- To do this first make sure that none of the elements are locked
- Next select all the elements within the camera area (excluding the camera itself) and drag this group of elements to re-scale and re-position as required
Note: In the example below we have already removed all the duplicate cameras to simplify the timeline - see above
- You may also need to re-organise some of the other elements in the project to make room for this larger camera
Top tip: You can easily select all of the elements in other camera views (this time including the camera itself) to re-scale and re-position these (similar to the process above) in order to re-organize them and make space for everything on the new canvas.
2. Splitting the migrated project into scenes
The second method is to split your migrated project into a number of separate scenes - see our Adding scenes article for more details on using scenes.
- First think about how you can divide the project up into a number of separate sections
- Make sure that none of the elements are locked and then select all the elements (including the cameras) in each of the sections and cut and paste them into new scenes
Please note: You can leave the first section in Scene 1 and create new scenes for each of the additional sections.
- Once you have done this, you will have more canvas space to play with for each of the new scenes allowing you to scale everything up so that it's larger
Top tip: To select all the elements in a scene simply press Ctrl + A (Cmd + A on a Mac). You can then re-scale (enlarge) and re-position all the elements at the same time.
- Now that everything is bigger on the canvas, you can re-scale (shrink) any affected cameras so they are at the correct scale again
Adding scene transitions
- Next you can set the scene transitions - see our Scene transitions article for details
- You can set a 'Scene entrance transition' in the right-hand panel for each new scene in your project - select a transition that matches the style of your video, for example 'Fade' or 'Slide in'
Top tip: If your project is based on the whiteboard style, then you can use 'Slide in' to emulate a camera pan to a new areas of canvas. You just need to select an appropriate 'Direction' based on how your elements are arranged - for example, select the Left arrow to emulate a pan to the right, or the Up arrow to emulate a pan down.
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You may have noticed that your new scenes all start with two camera elements. This is because the new scenes will have already had a default camera, but you also copied one in with your new set of elements.
- So what you'll need to do is to copy the 'Duration' time from the C2 camera to the 'Duration' of your scene transition, and also remove it from the camera element (this will maintain the overall timings of your project)
- You can leave the extra camera in the timeline if you wish as it won't interfere with the project, but to make things neater you can follow these steps to remove one of them
- As you can't remove the C1 camera, you'll need to re-scale and re-position it to match the C2 camera
- Once you've done this you can remove the C2 camera
- You'll need to repeat the above steps for each new scene in your project
3. Splitting the original legacy project into multiple scribe files
The third option would be to divide your original project in VideoScribe Legacy into several smaller scribe projects, and migrate each of these separately. Then finally you would need to re-combine them into one new project using a new scene for each.
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Open the project in VideoScribe Legacy and think about how you can divide the project up into separate sections
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Make sure that none of the elements are locked and then select all the elements in each of the sections and cut and paste them into new blank scribe projects
- Next make sure that each of these new scribe projects is saved locally - see the Saving your legacy projects as local .scribe files section above for details
- Now you need to migrate each of these files separately - see the Migrating your project section above for details
Note: Because each of the new projects is smaller (compared to the original full project) the cameras should all be at the correct scale now.
- Next you will need to re-combine all of these sections into one project
- You can use the project containing the first section as the target project - you can 'Rename' this if needed, and you might want to 'Make a copy' of it
- Next open the project with the second section of your video and copy all the elements (including the cameras) - you can use Ctrl + A (Cmd + A on a Mac) to select all the elements in the scene
- Close this project and open your target project and add a new scene - see our Adding scenes article for more details on using scenes
- Next paste all the elements from your second section into this scene
- Repeat these steps for the rest of the projects containing the remaining sections of your original project
- The last step is to add scene transitions to your new project - follow the steps in the Adding scene transitions section above
Unsupported features
Some of the features from VideoScribe Legacy are not currently supported in the latest version. These include the following:
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GIF animations will play with infinite looping behavior
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Chart elements will be converted to static images and will not be editable
- Background colors will be preserved, but background textures are no longer supported
- You will find a large range of textures in the 'Backgrounds and Scenery' category in the image library which can be used as background images - don't forget to look under the 'Graphics' tab as well as 'Illustrations'
- Morph animations are not currently supported - see the Morph animations section above
- Color effects (Outline Greyscale and Silhouette) are not currently supported
- If you've used silhouette versions of shapes as background images, you can replace these using the new 'Shapes' option from the Left-hand panel
- Text animation effects (Rain drop, Punch, Fade wave, and Typewriter) are not currently supported
- Custom hands will be replaced by the default hand
- Graphics filters are not supported
- Inline text color formatting is not currently supported - text elements will adopt the color of the first character in each text box
Project limitations
The latest version of VideoScribe includes a few project limitations, some of which are based on the subscription tier - see our Subscription plan benefits and limitations article for more details.
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There is an image limit of 150 images per project. If the number of image elements exceeds 150 the project cannot be downloaded.
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Users are advised to reduce the number of image elements before the project can be downloaded.
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Video duration is limited as follows: Lite - 5 minutes; Core - 10 minutes; Max - 20 minutes.
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Users are advised to reduce the duration of their video or upgrade before the project can be downloaded
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Need help
If you have any questions about the migration process, or if you need help with any of the steps in this article, please raise a support ticket and our Customer Success team will be happy to assist you.