Openshot Guide

[Ammiano Hibbert]

Ifyou prefer to learn by watching videos instead of reading, we have many official video tutorialsthat cover a wide range of beginner and introductory topics. These videos are a great next stepon your way to master OpenShot Video Editor!

Before we can begin making a video, we need to import media files into OpenShot. Most video,image and music file formats will work. Drag and drop a few videos or images and a music filefrom your Desktop to OpenShot. Be sure to drop the files where thearrow in the illustration is pointing to.

Next, drag each video or photo onto a track in the timeline (as seen in the illustration).The timeline represents your final video, so arrange your photos (i.e. clips) in whatever sequence you wantthem to appear in your video. If you overlap two clips, OpenShot will automatically create asmooth fade between them (only affects the image, and not audio), displayed by blue rounded rectanglesbetween the clips. Remember, you can rearrange the clips as many times as needed by simplydragging and dropping them.

To make our creation more interesting, we need to add some music. Click on the musicfile that you imported in step 1, and drag it onto the timeline. If the song is too long, grabthe right edge of your music clip, and resize it smaller (that will make it end earlier). Youcould also insert the same file multiple times, if your music is too short.

You should now have a basic understanding of how OpenShot works. Importing,Arranging, Previewing, and Exporting. Hopefully this tutorial took less than5 minutes for you to complete. Please read the rest of this guide for a moredetailed understanding of OpenShot and its advanced features.

OpenShot is officially distributed on Linux as an AppImage (and also as a PPA). This document will assist with downloading, installing, running, and uninstalling the OpenShot AppImage.

The key idea of the AppImage format is one app = one file. Every AppImage contains an app and all the files the app needs to run. In other words, each AppImage has no dependencies other than what is included in the targeted base operating system(s). Learn more about the AppImage project.

If you plan on using OpenShot often, you will probably want an integrated launcher for our AppImage. We recommend using AppImageLauncher, which is the officially supported way to launch (and manage) AppImage files on your Linux desktop. If you are on a Debian-based distro (Ubuntu, Mint, etc...), there is an official AppImageLauncher PPA:

Once AppImageLauncher is installed, it will now assist you when launching an AppImage. You will receive this prompt on first launch of the OpenShot*.AppImage. Click the Integrate and Run button to install a launcher (*.desktop) on your Linux desktop for future use. Or click "Run Once" to launch the AppImage without installing a launcher.

If you would like to remove the installed OpenShot AppImage from your Linux desktop, simply right click on OpenShot in your distros launcher, and choose "Remove AppImage from System". This option is provided by the AppImageLauncher mentioned previously in this guide.

Once you click "Remove AppImage from System", it will display the following confirmation. Note: Only "installed" AppImage applications can be removed using this method. If you are not using AppImageLauncher, and/or did not choose to install the AppImage, you can simply delete the AppImage file.

Want to help improve OpenShot (and make some friends in the process ?)? Please consider joining our open-source team by filling out this quick contributor form and introduce yourself! All volunteers are welcome, regardless of skills or skill level. Let's build something amazing!

OpenShot uses both Inkscape and Blender for advanced features, by executing those programs in the background while OpenShot is running. Each Operating System has different ways of installing these 2 programs, and this guide is designed to provide notes and best practices.

For reasons outside the scope of this guide, Ubuntu installs snap packages of many programs installed from the Ubuntu Software store. This is not currently supported by OpenShot, due to different working/home directories and various snap-related quirks. If you are not able to launch the Advanced Editor (i.e. Inkscape) or use the Animated Titles feature (i.e. Blender), please uninstall the Ubuntu Software versions (i.e. snap packages), and use the following command to install the pre-packaged versions:

Once installed, open up the OpenShot Preferences and click the Browse button next to each one. Each folder (usually located in C:\Program Files\..., and should have an .exe at the end of the file name):

Once installed, open up the OpenShot Preferences and click the Browse button next to each one. Each folder (usually located in /Applications) is an installed App bundle. NOTE: If the Inkscape *.dmg download is not compatible with your version of Mac OS, it can also be installed using brew install inkscape (See ). If you use the brew version of Inkscape, simple enter inkscape in the OpenShot Preferences for the path... it does not need a full path.

OpenShot has many easy ways to adjust the start and end positions of a clip (otherwise known as cutting). The most common method is simply grabbing the left (or right) edge of the clip and dragging. Here is a list of methods for cutting clips in OpenShot:

Next, drag each photo onto the timeline (as seen in the illustration). The timeline represents your final video, so arrange your photos in whatever sequence you want them to appear in your video. If you overlap two clips, OpenShot will automatically create a smooth fade between them, displayed by blue rounded rectangles between the clips. Remember, you can rearrange the clips as many times as needed by simply dragging and dropping them.

To make our photo slideshow more interesting, we need to add some music. You should have imported a music file in step 1. Click on the music file and drag it onto the timeline. If the song is too long, grab the right edge of your music clip, and resize it smaller.

Click on the Export Video icon (the large red button) at the top of the screen (or use the File > Export Video menu). We recommend using the settings shown below when exporting videos. Once you are ready to export click the Export Video button.

You should now have a basic understanding of how OpenShot works. Importing, Arranging, Previewing, and Exporting. Hopefully this tutorial took less than 5 minutes for you to complete. Please read the rest of this guide for a more detailed understanding of OpenShot, and its advanced features. Enjoy!

OpenShot is a free and open source video editor that is available for all major operating systems, including Linux. It has a simple interface that provides all basic features you'll need for basic video editing operations: slicing and mixing videos, changing video speed and audio volume, operating multiple tracks of video and audio, generating titles, exporting projects to several formats, among other things.

In this guide, you'll learn how to use OpenShot to edit videos on Ubuntu Linux. We'll see how to install, how to add media to your project, how to slice videos and change video speed, how to change audio volume and how to export videos for YouTube.

When installing OpenShot on Linux (Ubuntu), you have the choice of using an AppImage package or installing OpenShot through its official PPA with apt. Choose only one method to avoid issues where you have multiple OpenShot versions installed on your system.

Installing from the AppImage is the easiest way to get started, and you should be able to get the latest OpenShot version this way. The downside is that sometimes applications installed with this method are a bit more unstable, and you may experience some interface weirdness such as differences in menu and icon sizes compared to other applications installed on your system.

Then you should get a dialog asking if you want to have a desktop file installed for this OpenShot version. Choose "yes" to get OpenShot added to the system shortcuts, so you can hit the "window" key and search for OpenShot in the quick finder menu.

The advantage of installing from an official PPA is that you get an overall more stable installation on your system. That is why I prefer this method over using a PPA. You'll need to run a few commands from your terminal to get it done.

Any media files that you plan to use in the project should be added to the Project Files area before being included in the video tracks. To add media files, use the green circle button with a + on it.

As most video editors, OpenShot offers multiple tracks that can be used both for video and for audio. You can think of tracks as layers within a video timeline. Tracks are useful for combining multiple media files and using transparent overlays such as titles, images, logos, and watermarks. Using multiple tracks is not required, you may work with a single track for simplicity.

I would generally advise leaving one free track at the top so that you can still include transparent text or other elements on top of your video in case you need it later on. I usually work on "Track 4" and use "Track 5" for overlays.

Slicing / cutting videos is probably the most important part of video editing, allowing you to remove sections that aren't interesting or contain mistakes and reorganize your video content to really tell a story exactly the way you want. There are different ways to slice / split videos in OpenShot. I will show how I like to do it: first I pause the video exactly in the point where I want to split, then I go right-click on the video and select "Slice" on the menu. There are three options under this menu: "Keep both sides", "Keep left side" and "Keep right side". These are pretty self-explanatory.

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