How to insert a title at the start

[bernieraffe]

I would like my slideshow to have a title at the very start, before the video actually starts running.

When you 'Apply' a title it puts it on one of the video tracks and so overlays it with the slideshow. Is there a quick way of getting the title to be at the start? The only way i've found is to select the whole video and move it over, then move the title, them move the slideshow back. Then in doing that, I lose the 'Titles'' workspace and PRE9 just shows the templates again!!

What am I missing?

Cheers,
Bernie

[Dave McElderry]

If you drag your title to the very beginning of your video, in the same track as your video against the left end of the timeline, the program will automatically move everything over to make room for the title. (In Windows hold the Ctrl key while you do it to keep the other tracks from getting out of sync.) I usually like to put anywhere from 2 to 5 seconds of black video at the beginning of every project anyway. It gives a little cushion as the video begins. If you have the black video ahead of everything else then you can just insert your title right after the black video.

[bernieraffe]

Thanks Dave that works,

I'd tried that already but then couldn't get the Titles editor workspace back up again, so I ended up using the 'Apply' button.

Took me a while to work out you could double-click the Title to get the editor workspace up again!

[Dave McElderry]

Oh, sorry - I should have mentioned that. I might also mention that if you right-click your title in the Project panel and select Duplicate you will get another title just like it that you can use as a template, instead of creating a new one from scratch. Very handy when you have a lot of similar titles to create. Note that this is not the same as making a copy. If you change a copy of a title it changes the original too. If you change a duplicate you have a new and individual title that you can then edit and rename to your convenience.

[bernieraffe]

Ha! Shame you didn't post that half-hour ago....

I copied and pasted a title, then made changes to the new one, only to find that both of them had changed.

Great tip about the duplicates, thanks, i've just learnt the hard way that's what I needed.

[Dave McElderry]

Maybe we should start this whole thread all over again. It'll go much smoother next time!

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Maybe we should start this whole thread all over again. It'll go much smoother next time!

[Bill Hunt]

What was done with the Copy/Paste operation was that an Instance of that original Title was placed on the Timeline. All Instances of a Title are linked, so any change will be global over all Instances. This can be very useful, if one has added 40 Instances of a Title, like the old silent Western's "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch." Let's say that one made a mistake, and typed "Meanwhile Back on the Ranch," and then caught the error. With those 40 Instances, changing one, changes the other 39, instantly.

As Dave pointed out, the Duplicate function creates a new Title, but based on an existing one. Now, changes to one, will not affect the other, as they are seen as totally separate Titles.

Good luck,

Hunt