← Help center

Whiteboard moves: 5 short lessons

For: all plans

Explaindio can draw your scenes by hand, like a whiteboard video. These five short lessons show the moves: writing text by hand, turning a picture into a sketch, animating your text, finding a picture in the library, and finishing the movie. The businesses here are made up, for show. Each lesson has its own help article, too: Animate your text, Turn a picture into a sketch, Use a picture from our library and Add a transition between scenes.

Lesson 1: Write your text by hand

Where: a text on your scene, in its panel. (Example: "Quillbrook Dental" on the intro scene.)

  1. Click the text you want on the scene to select it.
  2. In its panel, under Animate, open the Enter list.
  3. Under With a hand, pick Write it by hand. A hand writes your text, stroke by stroke, in the caption's font.
  4. Set the Writing speed: Normal, Fast or Slow.
  5. Pick a Right hand or a Left hand, or click Upload my hand to use your own.

Lesson 2: Turn a picture into a sketch

Where: a picture layer, in its panel. (Example: a photo of the shopfront for Ashgrove Bakery.)

  1. Click the picture you want on the scene.
  2. In its panel, find Sketch it.
  3. Choose how much detail: Simple, Medium or Detailed.
  4. Click Make the sketch. Explaindio draws the picture as line art.
  5. When the preview shows, turn on Use the sketch. Leave Fill in the photo at the end on to show the real photo once the drawing is done, and pick a Drawing time.

It works best on photos of people, objects and places. To go back to the plain photo, click Show the photo instead.

Lesson 3: Animate your text

Where: the caption panel for a text. (Example: "Book today" on Tidewater Gym's last scene.)

  1. Click the text, and open its panel.
  2. Under Text animation, set Letters in for how the letters arrive, one by one.
  3. Set Letters out for how they leave.
  4. Add a Text effect for a shadow, a glow or an echo behind the text.
  5. Use Vertical position to place the text in its box: Top, Middle or Bottom.

One note: a counter and a letter animation can't both run on one caption. The counter runs, and the letters are skipped. Turn one off, or put them on two captions.

Lesson 4: Find a picture in the library

Where: a picture layer, in its panel. (Example: Larkfield Cafe's menu scene.)

  1. Click the picture you want to change.
  2. Click Search our pictures, and type what you need, like coffee or cafe.
  3. Click the one you like, and it drops into the scene.
  4. To go back to the picture the template came with, click Use the template's picture.

Lesson 5: Finish your movie

Where: the movie page.

  1. Set Between scenes to a transition, like Fade or Dissolve. Under More you also have Page peel, Clock wipe, Circles and others.
  2. Pick how long the transition lasts.
  3. Next to your music, pick a Fade in so the music eases in at the start, and a Fade out so it eases out at the end.
  4. Set a scene's Voice volume to make its voice Quieter or Louder.
  5. Click Render Movie to see it all in the finished video.