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Making a video
What you can give it
What the create box accepts (a topic, pasted text, or a web link), the size limits, and what openCanviz cannot read.
Last updated
The create box under What do you want to explain? takes three kinds of input: a short topic, a block of pasted text, or a web link. openCanviz works out which one you gave it and changes the button label to match.
Press the button, or use Cmd+Enter (Ctrl+Enter on Windows), to draft the plan.
How your input is read
| You give it | How it is recognized | Button label |
| A topic | Short text | Draft outline |
| Pasted text | More than 280 characters, or two or more line breaks | Draft grounded outline |
| Pasted text with Keep my wording on | Same as above | Structure into chapters |
| A link | A web address or bare domain (https:// is added for you) | Read & draft outline |
A topic
Type what the video should explain, for example "How compound interest builds wealth". The AI writes the story from its own knowledge. A topic can be up to 2,000 characters. For ideas, click one of the examples under Start from an example.
Pasted text
Paste a lesson, README, set of notes or any other text you want the video to be based on. When the text is long, you choose how it is used:
- Rewrite from this: "The AI pulls the key facts and builds a grounded story from them."
- Keep my wording: "Your text becomes the narration, organized into chapters."
With Keep my wording, you don't set a length, since your text is the script. With Rewrite from this, the length slider may suggest a longer video if your text would run long when read aloud. See Length, shape and aspect ratio.
You can paste up to 400,000 characters. Only about the first 120,000 characters are used to plan the video, so for very long material, paste the parts that matter most.
Basing the video on your text keeps the AI close to your facts, but it is not a guarantee. Check names and numbers in the preview before you share.
A link
Paste the address of a web page and openCanviz reads the page's text and drafts from it.
- Only
httpandhttpslinks work. - The page is read as plain HTML, without running its scripts. Pages that only show their text after scripts run may come back empty.
- The page needs at least 200 characters of readable text.
- Very large or very slow pages may fail to load.
If a link does not work, open the page in your browser, copy the text, and paste it into the box instead.
What it cannot read
- No file uploads. There is no way to upload a PDF, Word document, or slide deck. Copy the text and paste it.
- PDF links are refused with a message asking you to paste the text instead.
- Video, audio, image and zip links are refused.
- YouTube links are not transcribed.
Pictures on the create screen
The create screen does let you upload images (PNG, JPEG or WebP), but only as a reference for the drawing style or for a recurring character. They are not read as source material. See Fine-tuning the style.
Cartoon skits
If you choose the Cartoon skit format, the box takes a topic, a story, or a script, up to 6,000 characters. A topic becomes a short original scene, a story is acted out in order, and a script keeps its words exactly. See Editing a cartoon skit.
Drafting limits
Drafting is free, with a limit of 20 drafts per account per day (the day resets at midnight UTC). You must be signed in to draft.