About the Preview Pages

In Anitype, the term Preview Pages refers to the two pages where you can view your text outside the main editor:

  • Animation Page — where you can play and interact with your text animation
  • Static Preview Page — where you can view the final layout as static text (no animation)

These pages let you review your work in different ways depending on what you need: timing, layout, screen-recording, or exporting static text.

The Animation Page

To open the Animation page, click the Start Animation button on the main page.

The page appears immediately and your animation begins playing automatically. If you haven’t changed the default colors, the text will appear in white on a gray background .

The Static Preview Page

To open the Static Preview page, click the Static Preview button on the main page.

The Static Preview page shows the completed animation as static text, without any movement. It also displays three margin guides (dashed green lines for the left, top, and right margins), which you can toggle on or off using the Show/Hide margin guides button

The Static Preview Page is useful when you want to:

  • Check the final layout without waiting for the animation to finish.
  • Prepare static text for use in video projects, as an alternative to Shotcut’s Text: Simple or Text: Rich filters.
  • Work with large blocks of text while having full control over line spacing, paragraph spacing, alignment, outlines, shadows, font size, and more than 1,900 Google Fonts.

The Preview Pages Buttons

Buttons visibility

The drop-down menu for the Show buttons on Preview pages option on the main page lets you choose how the buttons are displayed in the Preview pages:

  • Always

    The buttons are always visible.

  • Never (Use Esc to go back)

    The buttons are completely hidden. This is useful when screen-recording your animation, since it prevents the buttons from appearing in your capture and avoids cropping them out later in Shotcut.

    If you choose this option, you will need to use the keyboard shortcut specific to each button (see the buttons descriptions below).

  • On cursor hover

    The buttons remain hidden until your cursor moves over their usual location.

Buttons position

By default, the buttons appear along the bottom edge of the screen.

You can move them to the top by checking the Buttons at Top checkbox next to the button row.

If you use an external software to capture your screen, changing the position of the buttons bar can be helpful depending on the software you choose. For example:

  • ShareX places its recording controls at the bottom of the screen, so keeping the Anitype buttons at the bottom reduces mouse movement.
  • Windows Snipping Tool places its controls at the top, so positioning the Anitype buttons at the top may be more convenient.

Buttons Descriptions

arrow_left_alt Back
Keyboard shortcut: Esc

Returns you to the main settings page. You can press this button at any time, even in the middle of an animation.

(Screen Recorder)
Keyboard shortcut: (None)

Click this button to start the Anitype built-in Screen Recorder. It will pulsate while recording. Click again to stop.

Playarrow_right(V)
Keyboard shortcut: V

Starts the forward playback of your text animation. You can press it at any moment; if the animation is already in progress, it restarts immediately.

arrow_leftPlay  (F)
Keyboard shortcut: F

Plays your animation in reverse using all the same animation settings you applied for the forward playback. The animation begins in its completed state, and the characters are removed one by one according to your chosen effects (Slide, Zoom, Letter Spacing, etc.).

This creates a true reversed version of your animation — useful for building an outro that mirrors the style and timing of your intro.

arrow_left_altSwipe (G) (Right to Left)
Keyboard shortcut: G

Removes all characters one by one, starting from the last character and moving toward the first.
Swipe Outros ignore animation settings such as Slide, Letter Spacing, or Zoom.

You can customize the swipe speed and toggle the random removal of characters in the Options section of the Anitype main page. More details here about Swipe Outros customization.

Swipe arrow_right_alt  (H) (Left to Right)
Keyboard shortcut: H

Same behavior as the previous button, but characters are removed from first to last.

Static (P)
Keyboard shortcut: P

Stops any animation in progress and switches to the Static Preview Page.

Show/Hide Margins (M)
Keyboard shortcut: M

Toggles the margin guides on or off on both Preview Pages.
These guides reflect the margin settings from the main page and help you visualize how your text layout is affected.
More info here about the Margins.

arrow_downward_alt Download
Keyboard shortcut: (None)

Starts the process of converting and exporting your animation as a MOV video clip with transparency.

For full details, see the Convert Animation to Video instructions.