When it comes to marketing online, content is king. Price PowToon offers, the first of which is free.
This free level is key because you get to try before you buy. One warning, however: once you try, you may find it hard not to buy! How Do You Use PowToon for Business? You can use PowToon to create all kinds of videos including explainers, demos and straight out entertainment. While it would be easy talk about PowToon’s features all day, the best way to show what’s under the hood is by walking you through the creation of a video. During this walk-through, you’ll be learning to create the following video. Click on the three lines to open the menu.
This is your scene navigator. You can view and switch between your video’s scenes here. You can also add new slides and delete ones you don’t need. At the very bottom of this column are some controls used during video creation. Flip is the handiest one — it enables you to horizontally flip any element (you’ll see this in action soon). The canvas is the spot where your video comes together. The timeline is where you control when video elements appear and disappear as well as how they enter and leave each scene.
This is where you can switch between PowToon’s many designs. As you move forward or back, the elements available for you to use change below. These are the elements you can use in your videos. Most of these sections expand and collapse, so there’s a lot you’re not seeing here.
Elements include text, images, animated images, backgrounds and more. This small gray strip is where you click to add your own elements to the video. You can upload images and more to use.
The top bar holds a number of tools. We’ll review the ones on the right in a bit. On the left, you can undo your changes (very handy) and name your video. Last but not least is help. Click the question mark when you get lost. Step 3: Upload Your Images If you plan to use your own images, it makes sense to upload them first so they’ll be there when you’re ready to use them. To do so, click on the “Image” link in the gray strip all the way on the right.
This will open the following screen: PowToon does offer a large variety of images for you to use, some free and some for a small cost. In this case, you’re going to upload your own image so you’ll click “Upload” and then select the file you want to use from your computer. Once the image is uploaded, you can preview it, delete it or insert it: There, now the image is on the canvas. However, since it’s going to be used in the second scene, use the scene navigator to add a new slide and then move the new one to the top: Step 4: Add Text Next, use the “Text Effects” element on the right to add text to your new slide. Powtoon offers a few super-fun effects here — play with them to find the ones you like. You can modify the text both inside and outside the editing screen. To go back into the editing screen, just click on the little pencil icon on the left (shown below).
Here’s an example of changing out text color from outside of the editing screen: Hovering over different parts of an element’s box enables one of three effects:. Resize the element by expanding and contracting the box sideways or diagonally;. Rotate the element; and. Move the element around the canvas. Step 5: Add Other Elements Next add your first non-text element to this scene.
You can hover over any element to see a larger version. This is especially useful when you’re adding animated elements. Once you find an element you want to use, simply click to add it to the canvas: Step 6: Determine the Length of Each Scene The more elements you add to a scene, the longer it should be, especially if they appear one after the other as in the example video. To expand the length of your scene, click on the timeline’s “+” symbol: Step 7: Set Up the Timeline for Each Scene This step can be both exhilarating and intimidating. You’re the director and you determine when things happen but it takes a little time to get it right. Since the text at the top of the scene will be shown throughout, you have to make sure it will reach the end now that you’ve extended the duration.
You do this by first selecting the element, then hovering over the end of the element on the timeline and finally dragging the element end to the end of the timeline: You’ll note that in the example you stop a little before the end of the timeline. This gives the element a chance to execute its transition (more on this in a bit). If you went right to the end, the element would just disappear when the scene ended. Since the first scene element in the example uses a text effect, it doesn’t appear all at once. (Watch the video above to see how this works.) Therefore, you need to drag the red arrow (the “playhead”) across the timeline to discover when the text will be fully revealed: In this example, once you know that the text is fully revealed by the 4-second mark, you can place the the next element on the timeline: As you continue to place the elements in their proper places on the timeline, you also need to consider how each will enter and exit the scene.
You configure this by clicking on the entry and exit transition setting spots: Step 8: Complete All the Scenes You then complete each scene in the same way. The example shows an easy scenario since it only has two scenes. Step 9: Add Sound Next it’s time to add sound to your video. Start by clicking on the “Sound” ink in the gray strip to the far right. This will pop open the sound screen: Here you can upload both a voice-over and your own soundtrack or you can use one of the many soundtracks offered by PowToon. In the example select “As Sweet As Sugar” and click the “Add” button on the right to have it set as the music track. Once it is set, you can opt to have the music track loop, also like the example: You then click the “Apply” button to add the music track to your video.
You can tell that the music’s been added as the sound waves are shown in the timeline: Step 10: Test the Video There are two ways to preview your video. One is by clicking on the “Play and Continue” button on the lower left and the other is by clicking the “Preview” eye-link in the top bar: Close the preview by clicking on the “X” in the top right corner. The preview seems to give the better “real-life” play through, so make sure to use that at least once to test your videos before publishing them. Step 11: Publish the Video There are two options to publish and download your video.
They both take you to the same screen, so feel free to use either one. The option used in the example is “Export or Download”: The next screen gives you a number of options. Select the ones you wish (options can be based on your subscription level) and click the “Next” button: If you chose to download your video on the previous screen, select the format you like here: Finally, select a category for your video, change it’s name (if you’d like), add a description, set some tags and then click the, “Publish” button: Step 12: Share and Download the Video The bow video is published!
On this screen, you can share the video and get the embed code so you can add the video to your site: Since the download option was selected to create the video, you then receive an email with your link a few minutes later: Conclusion Using video is a very effective way to market your small business online. PowToon makes the process of creating, publishing and sharing your videos easier than ever.
More in: 2015-10-26 Editor's Picks.
Is an online tool for creating animated videos. I've been a fan of it for a while, both because I saw nice examples of its use (such as ) and heard from lots of users that it was very to easy to work with.
Recently I've started using it for myself ( from my, for example) and have persuaded my place of work to get the Pro licence which removes the PowToon logo from the corner of the video and allows you to upload the video in HD, among other perks. More on the different licenses below. Here's the first video I created for work, for anyone who wants an example of what you can do with PowToon. 5 top tips Having now used it a lot in the last month, here are some tips for creating a good PowToon video.
T he other rules about making good videos still apply! PowToon makes it easy to create very engaging content, but that doesn't mean the videos can exist in a vacuum separate from the usual good practice. Your PowToons still need to a) hit the ground running with no long intros, b) cover the BENEFITS of what your service does rather than list the features, c) be as short as possible without losing the meaning or value - under 2 minutes is best otherwise people will simply switch off before the end, and d) they need to work without sound as well as with sound, so if you have narration try and get some text on the screen to cover the key points too. Choose the style of PowToon that suits the story you're trying to tell.
This may sound obvious but it bears repeating - choose the visual style that best expresses the information and the message you're trying to get across. Some of the styles and options in PowToon are really nice but may not suit what you're trying to say.
The little animated figures may be appropriate in some contexts and not in others, for example. It's not about how much you like a particular style, it is - as ever - all about your intended audience. Get someone else to check the timings. It's vital that the video zips along, but essential that people can absorb each piece of information before it moves on. When you create a video you become so close to the whole thing that it becomes impossible to judge how long each screen or section should last - I ended up adding several seconds on to some of my screens for the video above, based on feedback after previewing a draft on Twitter.
I knew what the text said because I wrote it, so I was reading much faster than a user, and not leaving nearly enough time for each part. If you're recording narration, do that first! It is MUCH easier to animate your PowToon to suit your narration, than to try and pace a voice-over to match an existing video. (Unlike recording a screen-capture video in something like, where the opposite can sometimes be true.) So write the script with the software in mind, record it, and then create the visual content to suit it. And ideally, as noted in point 1, allow the visual content to work WITHOUT the narration for those who are either hearing impaired or simply watching without sound. The words on screen don't have to match the audio exactly - as long as they convey the message effectively. Put the videos on YouTube and make the most of the opportunity.
You can upload the videos just to PowToon, and it's actually quite flexible - you can link to and embed the video from there. But you'd be wasting a huge opportunity by not uploading it to YouTube as a MASSIVE proportion of your audience will be there already, watching videos anyway. YouTube use is stratospherically high, and it works fine on mobile devices, so get your content on there.
Below is the video's Info and Settings page. Tags are important as they're how people find the videos, so tag your video well, with the kind of info people might search for rather than just the words you personally would use to describe the content. Note that you can choose the thumbnail which displays as a preview of the video when people are searching. It's vital to choose an engaging screen for this! Pricing and licence types The most important thing here is you can use PowToon completely free. This is amazing to me - even three years ago you would have had to pay a video-creation company thousands of pounds to make equivalents of what PowToon allows you to do. Should you choose the free option, the downsides are you don't get HD quality video, you can't download the files (so they can sit on PowToon and be uploaded to YouTube, but you can't get the MP4) and you get the PowToon logo in the corner.
How To Download Powtoon Software Google Drive
If you want a direct comparison, embedded near the top of this post. It was made in my own account and is on my own channel (rather than the work account / work channel) so uses the free licence. You'll see the slightly reduced quality and the logo in the corner which, depending on the size of screen you're watching on, may occasionally obscure some of the content. At work we nearly went with the, which is crazily good value at $2 a month. This gets you more background music choices, more styles of PowToon, a max length of 15 minutes rather than 5 (which you shouldn't need! See Tip 1 above.) HD quality video, the ability to download, a higher level of tech support, and the EDU watermark in the corner which is much more discreet than the regular one.
In the end we went with the Pro Licence because that gets rid the watermark entirely - we're going to use the software a lot so we though that was worth it. It costs $19.99 a month if you go with the annual plan. You don't need separate licences for separate users within the institution. I think this is pretty great value! Pirate movies online for free.
Its a really easy program to use. In the top menu bar of pow toon you can use a texture to text the images. In the left side of the screen show, you can select the themes and bottom line will provide information that when and how each slide will start or exit. And on the right, you have a bunch of built-in characteristics used to animate the presentation or video.
You can easily add pops on images or to slides to create a really fun in videos in no time using pow toon. The different holidays those available even for free of cost helping to make awesome office and greeting cards that you can share with your friends and fellows. Yes it dont even need that actual holidays to use in images because it has animated snow, fire, fog to create any type of congratulations and celebration videos that you want. The biggest use of PowToon is to create gathered images library, I mean wholly cartoons created to sit in one picture. Each image has a self characteristic and each of those characteristic has a set of animated motions plus each star cartoon has a set of sitting & backgrounds and pops in that particular graphic style. PowToon also add its watermark at the bottom and a short its own animation and the last two seconds of your video but you can skip this characteristic. With their cheapest painter cartoon you can add the more image size, more music and a set of important videos from 144 to 720 MP files.
The highest price plan gives you even more music at images plus you will able to export your videos to 1080 P which is maximum resolution or full HD. Probably my biggest concern with PowToon is edit to online only program. If there service ever go down which they have, you can not save your work, your stuck. In this case, you have to sit and wait or loose your changes. This also makes a risk to your work if you have even a small problem in your internet connection.
This problem is also encounters when it comes to giving a presentation in slide show board. If you are in conference hall or somewhere you are not familiar with might have a spotty internet connection your risk is not be able to connect the internet, in this case you will get no presentation. If you want to continue your work in offline mode, then PowToon is not a good option then you will be stuck with only one option that is to wait for proper internet connection as the actual player controls suck. In this case, If you manually click on the arrow button, you will go to next section, you can not use the arrow keys on your keyboard to get same function. This make almost impossible to use a wireless presenter and makes it extremely difficulty to handle if you actually skip this section. This seams like a fairly simple fix if you actually have an offline version of this great PowToon software. And we have done it for you.
How To Download Powtoon Video For Free
Now you can use it in your PC without any cost. Simply click below link and get PowToon offline version.
PowToon is a tool to create presentations which combines two very important elements in this kind of program: It´s easy to use and the results are very entertaining. We will use PowToon directly from our browser. Before starting to create the slides we will have to choose one of the different styles that we have at our disposal. Once chosen we will have a very simple interface, from which we can do any action with just a click of the mouse. We will be able to add all kinds of elements, like images, backgrounds, transitions, markers or texts with just clicking and dragging them to the position where we want it to be. It´s so simple! To start using this application we will have to register first, which will grant us access to a trial account from which we will be able to manage all our projects.
Once finished, we will also be able to export it either in presentation or in video format. And even better we will be able to upload it to YouTube directly.
PowToon is one of the best presentation creating tools that we can find. You won't have to donwload or install programs and everything will be done in the cloud!