TikiToki is a web app that makes it dead easy for people to create interactive multimedia timelines in their browsers. Images, text and even videos (YouTube, Vimeo and AVIs) can be embedded in TikiToki timelines.
The timelines created by TikiToki can be shared with families, friends and business contacts, and if you haved signed up with one of our paid-for accounts, you can also embed your timelines on your own blog or website. We have also recently launched 3D timelines for Tiki-Toki.
To get an idea of what people are doing with TikiToki, we recommend that you take a look at these timelines that have been created by our users: The Live of Mary Kearns, History of the Tower of London in 3D and Category Band Timeline.
The short answer is anyone. Whether you are journalist wanting a new way to present a series of events, a teacher keen to explore the life of a historical figure with your pupils, or you are simply looking to keep an online diary of your life, or create a multimedia presentation for your business colleagues, TikiToki should be the perfect tool for you.
Please note that under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, under-13-year-olds would need to obtain patental consent in order to sign up for an account on Tiki-Toki.com and create timelines. You can find out more about parental consent here.
No, you don't have to pay for TikiToki. We offer a free account that provides full functionality, with the following limitations. You can only create one timeline. You cannot embed timelines on your own website. You can't activate Group Edit that allows your friends and colleages to add to your timeline. You can't upload images for hosting by us. And you are limited to a maximum of 200 events on your timeline.
Our free account is aimed primarily at giving people a chance to try out our software and its features, with the hope that they will be so thrilled by it that they will want to upgrade to one of our premium accounts.
Yes, we have a desktop version for Max OSX. You can find out further info about our desktop app here. Please note our desktop app cannot be used to create web-based timelines.
Everything on a timeline can be reached from the keyboard:
Tab: the first stop is Skip to story navigator, which takes you straight to the list of stories.
Story navigator: the up and down (or left and right) arrows move between stories, Home and End go to the first and last, Page Up and Page Down jump 10 stories, and Enter opens the story.
An open story: Esc closes it and takes you back to where you were. The arrow keys scroll the text, and in the enlarged picture viewer the left and right arrows move between pictures.
Date slider: the left and right arrows go to the previous and next story, Page Up and Page Down move a tenth of the way through the dates (Fn+up and Fn+down on a Mac laptop), Home and End go to the first and last story, and Enter opens it.
Controls menu: the arrow keys switch tabs, Enter opens, and Esc closes.
Our keyboard guide has more detail.
Tiki-Toki timelines and the editor work with the keyboard. Tab moves between links, buttons and fields. See What keys can I use on a timeline? for the rest.
On a Mac, Safari and Firefox are set up by default so that Tab only moves between text boxes and lists, skipping links and buttons. Chrome and Edge don't need any change. To make Tab reach everything:
Safari: choose Safari > Settings > Advanced (Safari > Preferences > Advanced in Safari 14 and earlier) and turn on Press Tab to highlight each item on a webpage. Or press Option+Tab instead of Tab.
Firefox: choose Apple menu > System Settings > Keyboard and turn on Keyboard navigation, then quit and reopen Firefox. On older versions of macOS it's System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts, Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls. Option+Tab doesn't help in Firefox.
Firefox, without changing macOS: type about:config in the address bar, accept the warning, search for accessibility.tabfocus, and set it to 7. If it isn't there, add it as a Number. It works straight away.
iPad and iPhone with a keyboard: go to Settings > Accessibility > Keyboards and turn on Full Keyboard Access.
To sign up with TikiToki, navigate to our home page - www.tiki-toki.com - click on 'Free sign-up' in the menu at the top and enter your username, email address and password in the panel that drops down (if you are a school pupil and your teacher has given you a class code, you can also enter that, automatically upgrading your account).
Next agree to our terms and conditions by clicking the checkbox to the left of the 'I agree to terms and conditions' text. Finally, click on the 'Sign up' button.
You can now start creating your first timeline by following the instructions on the page.
Please note that under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, under-13-year-olds would need to obtain patental consent in order to sign up for an account on Tiki-Toki.com and create timelines. You can find out more about parental consent here.
You log in to TikiToki by clicking the 'Login' menu option at the top right of the screen. You should then enter your username and password in the pop down panel that appears and click the login button. Assuming, you have entered all the details correctly, you now be logged in and able to start editing and creating timelines.
If you do not have one of our premium accounts, you will be presented with a panel outlining our premium account options. Simply close this or select the free account option, if you do not want to upgrade now.
You'll then see a list of your timelines and a form for creating a new one. Open one of your timelines and the editor appears on its page. See the answers for the new editor or the old editor below.
Firstly, you should select the 'Forgotten login details' link at the bottom of the login panel (which you can open by clicking on the 'Login' menu option at the top right of the screen). You will then be asked to enter the email that you used to sign up to TikiToki. Enter your email and click the 'Submit' button.
We'll then send you an email with your username and a new password. You can then login with this password and then change the password by going to the 'Account Settings' panel on the home page when logged in or My account in the editor on a timeline page (in the new editor, choose your name at the bottom of the side bar, then My account; in the old editor, it's the 'My Account' tab).
If you don't receive an email from us or can't remember the email address you used to sign up with, then drop us an email at help@tiki-toki.com and we'll do our best to recover your details for you.
Firstly, you should follow the instructions in the above two FAQs (How do I log in to TikiToki? and I've forgotten my login details. What should I do?). If you still can't login then drop us an email at help@tiki-toki.com and we'll do our best to help you.
Our free account is great. It allows you to create a fully-functional and customisable timeline featuring text, images and videos. But it does come with some limits. You can't create more than one timeline. You can't add more than 200 stories. You can't embed a timeline on your blog or website. You can't group edit a timeline. And you can't upload images for hosting on our servers.
To take advantage of these great features, you will need to upgrade to our Bronze, Silver or Teacher (only available to teachers) accounts.
Please note that our hosted accounts cannot be used commercially to create timelines for other companies. Digital, communication and advertising agencies who want to create timelines for their clients should contact us at hello@tiki-toki.com.
If you would like to pay for a full year or more at once, please contact us at hello@tiki-toki.com. Otherwise, to sign up for a monthly subscription via PayPal, follow the below instructions.
1Firstly - if you haven't already done so - you will need to sign up for a free account with TikiToki. Click here for instructions on how to sign up.
2Now ensure that you are logged in to your account. You should now be on a page that lists your timelines and has a form to create a new timeline. Scroll down to the bottom of this page and you will find a list of account options.
3Click the 'Buy now' button against the account you are interested in and you will be taken to the PayPal site where you will be asked to sign in to your PayPal account or enter your credit card details.
4Once you have finished the payment process, make sure you click the link to bring you back to Tiki-Toki.com where a 'Thanks for signing up' message should be shown to you. Your account is now upgraded and you can immediately take advantage of your new premium features.
If you are not taken back to TikiToki, get an error message or can't access the premium features, please drop us an email at help@tiki-toki.com and we'll upgrade your account manually as soon as possible.
Please note that our hosted accounts cannot be used commercially to create timelines for other companies. Digital, communication and advertising agencies who want to create timelines for their clients should contact us at hello@tiki-toki.com.
Please note that under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, under-13-year-olds would need to obtain patental consent in order to sign up for an account on Tiki-Toki.com and create timelines. You can find out more about parental consent here.
Yes, you can do this. Please email us at hello@tiki-toki.com telling us how long you would like to sign up for, and we'll email you an invoice and payment instructions. For a full year or more subscription, we can accept payment by PayPal and international bank tramsfer.
We currently offer three paid accounts: Bronze ($9.50* a month - for individuals and small community groups only), Silver ($25 a month) and Teacher ($150 a year - for teachers only), all of which allow you to create multiple timelines, group edit timelines and embed timelines on your blog or website.
You can also buy a license to install a timeline on your own web server. See below for further information about these options.
*Our Bronze account is available at a reduced rate of $7.50 a month for school and university students. Find out more here.
Please note that our hosted accounts cannot be used commercially to create timelines for other companies. Digital, communication and advertising agencies who want to create timelines for their clients should contact us at hello@tiki-toki.com.
Please note that under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, under-13-year-olds would need to obtain patental consent in order to sign up for an account on Tiki-Toki.com and create timelines. You can find out more about parental consent here.
Our Bronze account ($9.50* a month) allows you to create up to five timelines, embed timelines on your blog or website (up to 5,000 monthly views) and use group edit to allow your friends or colleagues to contribute to your timeline. The Bronze account is only available to individuals or small community groups. If you are buying an account on behalf of a company, you should purchase our Silver account.
The Bronze account offers the following features:
1Create up to five fully functional timelines featuring images and videos .
2Loads of customization, from choosing a background image for your timelines to color coding your stories into different categories.
3Integration with YouTube and Vimeo, allowing you easily to add your photos and videos to your timeline.
4Embed timelines on your blog or website. You get 5,000 monthly embeddable views.
5Group editing of your timelines, allowing your friends and colleagues to contribute to your timelines.
6Access to the new features we are regularly rolling out for the software.
7Upload up to 100 images per timeline to our servers (in addition, you can display images from the web or your servers using our image url functionality).
*Our Bronze account is available at a reduced rate of $7.50 a month for school and university students. Find out more here.
Please note that our hosted accounts cannot be used commercially to create timelines for other companies. Digital, communication and advertising agencies who want to create timelines for their clients should contact us at hello@tiki-toki.com.
Please note that under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, under-13-year-olds would need to obtain patental consent in order to sign up for an account on Tiki-Toki.com and create timelines. You can find out more about parental consent here.
Our Silver account ($25 a month) allows you to create up to 25 timelines, embed timelines on your blog or website (up to 20,000 monthly views) and use group edit to allow your friends or colleagues to contribute to your timeline. The Silver account is aimed at businesses and professional bloggers.
The Silver account offers the following features:
1Create up to 25 fully functional timelines featuring images and videos .
2Loads of customization, from choosing a background image for your timelines to color coding your stories into different categories.
3Integration with YouTube and Vimeo, allowing you easily to add your photos and videos to your timeline.
4Embed timelines on your blog or website. You get 20,000 monthly embeddable views.
5Group editing of your timelines, allowing your friends and colleagues to contribute to your timelines.
6Access to the new features we are regularly rolling out for the software.
7Upload up to 200 images per timeline to our servers (in addition, you can display images from the web or your servers using our image url functionality).
Please note that our hosted accounts cannot be used commercially to create timelines for other companies. Digital, communication and advertising agencies who want to create timelines for their clients should contact us at hello@tiki-toki.com.
Please note that under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, under-13-year-olds would need to obtain patental consent in order to sign up for an account on Tiki-Toki.com and create timelines. You can find out more about parental consent here.
Our Teacher account ($150 a year) is aimed squarely at helping teachers create timelines with their pupils. At a massively reduced price, the account provides the teacher with a Silver account and up to 50 of their pupils with free Bronze accounts. The Teacher account is only available to individual school teachers. The Bronze free pupil accounts are only available to current pupils. For site wide educational licenses, please contact us.
The Teacher account is only to be used for educational purposes. It is strictly not to be used by colleges, universities or schools for marketing or other non-educational purposes.
The Teacher account offers the following features:
1Perfect for a teacher creating timelines with their pupils. The class can either create a single timeline together using the group edit functionality or each pupil can create his or her own timelines using their free Bronze account.
2Loads of customization, from choosing a background image for your timelines to color coding your stories into different categories.
3Integration with YouTube and Vimeo, allowing you easily to add your photos and videos to your timeline.
4Embed timelines on your blog or website.
5Group editing of your timelines, allowing classes to work together on creating timelines.
6Access to the new features we are regularly rolling out for the software.
Please note that our hosted accounts cannot be used commercially to create timelines for other companies. Digital, communication and advertising agencies who want to create timelines for their clients should contact us at hello@tiki-toki.com.
Please note that under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, under-13-year-olds would need to obtain patental consent in order to sign up for an account on Tiki-Toki.com and create timelines. You can find out more about parental consent here.
TikiToki's hosted timeline solutions are not suitable for high volume websites (+20,000 monthly views). To include TikiToki timelines on such sites, you will need to purchase a license to install our timeline software on your own servers.
Prices start at US$2,000 for a single timeline license. Please email us at hello@tiki-toki.com for further information.
Sorry. Something must have gone wrong with the upgrade process. Please drop us an email at help@tiki-toki.com and we'll manually upgrade your account.
There are two ways you can do this. You can either cancel your subscription via your PayPal account. Or you can email us and we'll cancel your subscription ourselves. Please confirm your username in the email. Either way, we do not give refunds for periods already paid. New charges will however stop immediately. You can also upgrade and downgrade to and from the premium options whenever you want to, with the above proviso that we won't refund you for periods you have already paid for.
If you would like to delete your Tiki-Toki account, please email us at help@tiki-toki.com. We will then ask you a few questions to confirm the account is yours and then delete it.
You can change your password in the Account Settings section of your account page. The Account Settings section can be found by scrolling down past the 'Create new timeline' form.
That's cool. If you need a handful more than 50 pupil accounts, we'll provide that at no extra cost. If you need lots more accounts, there would be a modest add-on to the annual fee. If you tell us how many pupil accounts you need, we can provide a quote.
Once you have signed up with a Teacher account, you should receive an email containing your special 'class code'. You can also find the class code in the 'Account Settings' panel on the home page when logged in or My account in the editor on a timeline page (in the new editor, choose your name at the bottom of the side bar, then My account; in the old editor, it's the 'My Account' tab).
You need to provide your pupils with the special class code for them to get their free Bronze account. If the pupil does not already have a TikiToki account, when they sign up (see here for instructions on signing up), he/she will need to enter their class code in the 'Enter class code' field of the sign-up panel. Once they have completed the sign up process, their Bronze account will be activated.
If a pupil has already got an account with TikiToki and wants to continue using that account, then they need to access the 'Account Settings' panel on the home page when logged in or My account in the editor on a timeline page (in the new editor, choose your name at the bottom of the side bar, then My account; in the old editor, it's the 'My Account' tab). Then they should click on the 'Activate free pupil account' option and enter the special class code that you have given them. Their Bronze account will then be activated.
Please note that under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, under-13-year-olds would need to obtain patental consent in order to sign up for an account on Tiki-Toki.com and create timelines. You can find out more about parental consent here.
You can find the class code in the 'Account Settings' panel on the home page when logged in or My account in the editor on a timeline page (in the new editor, choose your name at the bottom of the side bar, then My account; in the old editor, it's the 'My Account' tab). The editor appears on your timeline pages, so if you are not on one, open one of your timelines first.
There are two main ways you can use Tiki-Toki with your pupils:
1Group Edit functionality
Group edit (available with our Teacher, Bronze and Silver accounts) allows you to set a secret word for a timeline that you create. You then give this secret word and the web address of the timeline to your pupils. They can then contribute to your timeline (without having to get their own account) by opening your timeline in the browser (by entering the web address) and entering their name and the special word in the Group Edit box that appears on your timeline.
2Pupil accounts
If you sign up for a teacher account ($150 a year), you get 50 free Bronze accounts for use by your pupils. These allow pupils to create their own timelines. They would send you the url to their timelines so that you could look at them but you would have no control over their accounts.
Option 1 is probably best with younger pupils. It is a quick and easy way of getting pupils involved in creating a timeline - we recommend you regularly change the secret word to prevent malicious pupils deleting content.
Option 2 would be suitable for more mature students.
Please note that under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, under-13-year-olds would need to obtain patental consent in order to sign up for an account on Tiki-Toki.com and create timelines. You can find out more about parental consent here.
Each timeline has a unique web address (the text in the browser address bar when you are on the timeline page). The web address will look something like this: http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/43/Beautiful-web-based-timeline-software/. You can email this web address to your pupils and they will be able to open the timeline up in their browser.
It can also be worth while to use a url-shortening service (such as Bitly.com) to reduce the length of the url, as some email clients mangle long urls.
Follow these steps:
1Firstly, set a secret word for your timeline. In the new editor, choose Share in the side bar, then Group edit. In the old editor, it's in the Advanced Settings panel (accessible from the Settings tab for your timeline).
2Next, email or share with your pupils your timeline's unique web address. See the above entry on sharing your timeline.
3Your pupils can now open your timeline in their browser, enter their name and secret word in the panel, and start contributing to your timeline.
4We recommend that you regularly change the secret word to prevent malicious pupils deleting content.
If you haven't yet created an account with Tiki-Toki, do so now - see here for how. If you have, then please ensure you are logged in.
1Now navigate to the Tiki-Toki home page (www.tiki-toki.com). Here you will find a list of timelines you have already created and also a form for creating a new timeline.
2Enter the required information. The timeline's title, start and end dates and introduction text must be provided. All other fields are optional. If you are not sure what to enter into any of the fields, then roll over them with you mouse and a popup help panel will appear with instructions.
3Once you have filled in all the information, click the "Create new timeline" button at the bottom. Your timeline will now be created and you will be taken to the timeline's unique page on the web. You can share the url of this page with your friends and colleagues. You will now want to create a story for your timeline - see How do I create my first story? for the new editor or the old editor.
It is potentially possible to have more than 1,000 stories on a timeline but we don't recommend having more than 500. More than that and the timeline may take some time to load and may animate not so smoothly.
Some websites such as Google, Flickr and Facebook do not allow images they host to appear on third-party sites such as Tiki-Toki. To use such images on a timeline, you would need to download them to your computer and then upload them to your own website or - if you have a Tiki-Toki premium account - to our web servers. Please only do this with images that you own or have permission to use.
Our 3d view uses HTML5 and javascript. No Flash or other plugins are required to view the 3d view.
The 3d view works on all modern browsers; Chrome, FireFox, Safari and IE9+. It even works on mobile Safari on the iPad and iPhone. For old browsers - such as IE6-8 - the default 2d view is displayed in place of the 3d view.
Contributors can only create and edit their own stories. They cannot delete other people's stories or change the settings for a timeline.
People need to log out of their existing TikiToki account before they can group edit someone else's timeline. They can log out by clicking the 'Logout' option at the top right of the screen. Once logged out, they will be able enter their name and secret word given to them by you and start contributing to your timeline.
This will depend on what type of account you have. The Bronze account offers 5,000 monthly views. Our Silver account gives you 20,000 monthly views.
If you go over your monthly embeddable views, the timeline will not appear. In its place will be a message and link to the timeline on TikiToki.
Contact us at hello@tiki-toki.com and we'll outline the different options available, from our single timeline licenses (which allow you to host a single timeline on your servers from $2,000) to more advanced options.
By default, our timelines will capture the mouse scroll event to allow people to navigate the timeline using their mouse wheel. In certain cases, this can cause issues on the page the timeline is embedded on. Users may not be able to navigate to parts of the page using their mouse wheel. You can prevent this by disabling mouse wheel scroll navigation on the embedded timeline. To do this, just add '#disable-mouse-scroll' to the timeline source url in the iFrame embed code.
This is probably a caching issue with your browser. Simply refresh your timeline in the browser and all your stories should reappear again.
Here's a list of things we're aiming to add in the future.
Open nearest story by pressing a key
Support for zooming into seconds
Automatic refreshing of feeds
Forum
Regular newsletter
Better printing
Integration with more image and video services
Custom units
Wide date span
Allow events to be attached to duration events
Allowing user to specify a value between 0 and 100 for each story that would position it vertically as a percent from the bottom.
Downloadble version of the software for creating timelines on your PC
Here's some new features we've recently added to the software.
Password protection of timeline
Image expander to show images at full dimensions (not cropped)
Account management functionality replicated on the home page when logged in
Option for lazy loading of images - useful for timelines with lots of stories with images
Category filtering
User controls for zooming, filtering and searching timelines
Hot linking to stories and dates
Sound Cloud Integration for audio
Timeline range expanded massively to cover billions of years BC and AD
Short youtu.be links now work for youtube videos
Duplication of timelines
When teacher clicks on pupil, show popup showing a clickable list of pupil's timelines
Export data to csv
Improved printing, including images, correct sorting of BC dates, date formatting and translated dates
Option for whether group edit user's names should be included
Date picker widget
Translation support
Option to hide the translucent date stripes
Improvements to the Flickr image selector
Audio support
New view type showing duration of events
Create timelines from RSS, YouTube and Twitter feeds.
JSON export improvements
New timeline view - Category Bands - that allows you to split the timeline into horizontal bands.
Equal Spacing modes - prettify your timeline with a new mode that eliminates clutter and story overlap.
Date formatting - far more options for customizing how dates appear on your timeline.
Keyboard control - use the left and right arrow keys to navigate through a timeline's stories.
Teacher account, providing a cheap option for teachers and their pupils to create timelines together.
Group edit functionality, allowing groups of people to edit a single timeline.
Email us at hello@tiki-toki.com and we'll consider adding the suggested feature to our roadmap.
A list of known bugs.
No known bugs at the moment
Please email us the details at hello@tiki-toki.com and we'll try to get it fixed as soon as possible.
These answers are for the new editor: the white panel on the right of your timeline page, with a side bar of sections. Using the grey panel at the top right instead? Go to the old editor answers.
The new editor is the white panel on the right of your timeline page. You see it when you're logged in and looking at one of your own timelines. Down its left edge is a side bar with a button for each part of the editor:
Stories: add, find, change and delete stories.
Details: the timeline's title, start and end dates, introduction and introduction picture.
Look: layout, 3D view, background, main colour, spacing and zoom.
Categories and Periods: group stories by colour, and mark stretches of time.
Share: the timeline's link, group edit, embedding, printing and exports.
Settings: everything else, such as language, timeline controls, fonts, date formats and privacy.
Help opens these FAQs. The button with your name opens My account, My timelines, Use the old editor and Log out.
Changes show on the timeline as you make them, but nothing is kept until you press Save at the bottom of the panel. Undo puts back what was last saved. If you try to leave something you haven't saved, the editor asks whether to save or discard it.
Hide, at the top of the side bar, tucks the editor away so you can see the whole timeline. Press Show to bring it back.
In the new editor, choose your name at the bottom of the side bar, then Use the old editor. For now there's also an Old editor button in the side bar.
In the old editor, choose Try the new editor under the grey panel's toolbar.
Your browser remembers your choice, so the timeline opens in the same editor next time. Both editors save to the same timeline, so you can switch at any time.
Everything is still there, under plainer names:
Stories tab: now Stories. A story opens as one page instead of four tabs, and Extra info is now More detail.
Settings tab: split in two. Details holds the title, dates and introduction, and Look holds layout, colours, background, spacing and zoom.
Advanced settings: now Settings in the side bar. You can also open it from More settings at the bottom of Look.
3D settings: 3D view in Look, with a 3D settings link under it for the rest.
Spans tab: now Periods.
Feeds tab: Add stories from a feed, under the story list in Stories.
Embed, Print, PDF, CSV and JSON: all under Share.
Group edit tab: Share, then Group edit.
My Account tab and My timelines: the menu under your name at the bottom of the side bar.
Pop-up help: hints now sit under each field, and Help opens these FAQs.
Yes. On a small screen the editor takes the full width. Press Hide to see the timeline, and Show to go back to editing. On smaller laptop screens the editor uses a more compact size, so more of the timeline stays in view.
Yes. Every part of the new editor works from the keyboard, and it's built to work with screen readers and with zoom up to 400%. Tab moves between controls. In the story list, the arrow keys, Home, End, Page Up and Page Down move between stories, and Enter opens one. In the colour picker and the picture position preview, the arrow keys move the selection.
If something doesn't work for you, please tell us at hello@tiki-toki.com.
1Go to the Tiki-Toki home page (www.tiki-toki.com) while logged in. You'll see a list of your timelines.
2Choose Edit next to the timeline you want. Its page opens with the editor on the right. You can also move between timelines from the editor: choose your name at the bottom of the side bar, then My timelines.
3Use Stories to add and change stories, Details for the title, dates and introduction, Look for how it looks, and Settings for everything else, including date formats.
4Press Save at the bottom of the panel to keep your changes.
Choose Details in the side bar. This is what visitors read first: the Title, the Starts and Ends dates, the Introduction, About this timeline and the Introduction picture with its credit. Opens at sets where on the timeline visitors start. Press Save when you're done.
Choose Look in the side bar. Pick a background from the swatches, or choose Or any colour. Set Main colour for the colour used around the timeline.
Pressing the coloured square in front of a colour box opens a colour picker. It shows Suggested colours, colours Already used in this timeline, and Mix your own, with a shade pad and a hue slider. The timeline shows the colour as you choose it. Press Save to keep it.
More colour options are in Settings in the side bar:
Slider: the background, text, details and dragger colours of the slider along the bottom.
Header: the background and text colours of the header at the top.
Duration story: the text colour of duration stories, which helps on a white or light background.
Other colours live with the things they belong to. Each category's colour is in Categories. Each period's overlay colour, opacity and text colour are in Periods. The 3D view's colour is under 3D settings in Look.
Choose Details in the side bar. The Starts and Ends dates each have Day, Month, Year and AD or BC boxes. Fill in the year at least, or use Pick from a calendar. Then press Save.
If you give a story a date outside the timeline's span, the editor asks whether to extend the timeline. If you say yes, it saves the new span straight away.
Choose Look in the side bar, then set Zoom when it opens. The timeline shows the change straight away. Press Save to keep it.
Zooming is particularly useful if your stories are clustered close together. Another option is Spacing between stories, also in Look. It can space stories out equally, whatever their dates, so they don't overlap.
There are two ways to do this: when you first create the timeline, or afterwards.
1When you first create a timeline (see here for how), the form on the home page lets you choose a background image. Enter the image's web address, or press the magnifying glass for other options.
2For a timeline you've already created, open it (see How do I edit my timelines?), then choose Look. Under Colour, picture and spacing, type the picture's web address into Background picture. Or press the picture button in front of the box to choose one, or to upload one if you have a premium account. Then press Save.
It can be tricky to find an image that works well with a timeline. Avoid images that are very busy or have a lot of contrast, with very dark and very light areas.
You can use a plain colour instead. In Look, choose one of the background swatches, such as Black, Midnight blue, Slate grey, Parchment or White. Or choose Or any colour and pick your own. Under the swatches, the editor tells you whether story text will be easy to read on that colour.
Once you have created your first timeline (see here for how), you'll probably want to add your first story.
1Open your timeline's page (see How do I edit my timelines?) and choose Stories in the side bar.
2Press Add a story. Give the story a Title and say When it happened. If you only know the year, just fill in the year. You can also type or paste a whole date into Day, like 14 Oct 1066 or 14/10/1066.
3Press Add to timeline. The story appears on the timeline straight away.
4Now add as much or as little as you like: an Introduction (every story needs one), pictures, video or sound, a category, tags, a web link and More detail for longer stories.
5Press Save at the bottom of the panel. To add another story, press Add a story again. It always starts a new story, so you won't change an existing one by mistake.
Each date has Day, Month, Year and AD or BC boxes. Only the year is needed. If you leave out the day, or the day and month, the timeline shows just the parts you gave.
You can also type or paste a whole date into Day, such as 14 Oct 1066, 14/10/1066 or 1066-10-14, and the editor fills in the boxes. Type years as they are, for example 100 or 44 BC. You don't need leading zeroes.
Pick from a calendar opens a date picker. Add an end date makes the story last over a stretch of time, Add a time adds hours and minutes, and Change the date format changes how this story's date is shown.
Choose Stories in the side bar, then choose the story in the list. To find it quickly, type part of its name or year into Find a story. You can also open a story from the timeline itself: press the Edit story button on its card.
Make your changes and press Save. The arrows at the top of the panel take you to the previous or next story, and All stories takes you back to the list.
Using a keyboard? The story list is one stop when you press Tab. Then the up and down arrow keys move through it, and Enter opens a story.
In the story list, press the bin button next to the story. Or open the story and choose Delete this story at the bottom of its page. The editor asks you to confirm first.
From the keyboard, press the right arrow on a story to reach its bin button, or press the Delete key.
1Open the story (see How do I edit my stories?).
2Under Pictures, video and sound, press Add a picture, video or sound.
3Make sure Type is set to Image. Type the picture's web address* into the box, or press the picture button in front of it to choose a picture. If you have a premium account, you can upload one from your computer. Index sets the order: the picture with the lowest number is the story's main picture.
4Press Save at the bottom of the panel.
*Check that the address points to the image file itself, not to a web page that contains the image. An image file's address usually ends in jpg, gif or png. To find it, you can often right-click the image on its page and choose to open it in a new tab. The image's address then shows in the browser's address bar.
Some websites, such as Google, Facebook and Flickr, may not allow their images to appear on other websites. They block them completely or use addresses that stop working after a short time.
Please only use images that are your own, open source or that you have permission to use.
1Open the story and, under Pictures, video and sound, press Add a picture, video or sound.
2Set Type to Video.
3Find the video on YouTube, Vimeo or DailyMotion, and paste the address of its page into the box. A YouTube address looks like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xdKW75J49s, and a Vimeo one looks like http://vimeo.com/18008261. You can also paste a link to your own flv or mp4 file.
4Press Save.
Tip: YouTube and Vimeo let you add captions to your videos. That way people who can't hear the sound can follow them too.
1Open the story and, under Pictures, video and sound, press Add a picture, video or sound.
2Set Type to Audio.
3If your audio is on SoundCloud, paste its SoundCloud address, which looks a bit like http://soundcloud.com/user123/recording-on-friday-1. Otherwise, put the audio file (in MP3 format) on the web and paste the file's address.
4Press Save.
Choose Categories in the side bar and press Add a category. Give it a name and choose a colour, then press Add and Save.
To put a story in a category, open the story and choose one of the coloured category buttons under Category. A story can be in one category. To group stories in more ways, use Tags, which you'll find further down the story's page.
Open the story. Web link adds a Read more button that opens the page you give. For a longer story, write it in More detail, under the introduction. Leave a blank line between paragraphs.
To put a link inside More detail, write [link text](https://example.com). If you'd rather use HTML formatting, you can turn it on in Settings.
Periods are what the old editor called spans. They mark a stretch of time on the timeline, such as a reign or a war. Choose Periods in the side bar and press Add a period.
Choose Stories in the side bar, then Add stories from a feed under the list. YouTube feeds work with every account. RSS needs a Bronze account or above, and JSON needs Silver. Feeds come from other services, so they may not always work.
Stories from a feed are marked Feed in the list and can't be edited.
Press Add a story in Stories, fill in a title and a year, then press Add to timeline. If the editor shows a message instead, it says what needs fixing, such as a missing year.
Free accounts can have up to 200 stories on a timeline. If you've reached that, see how to upgrade.
There is no fixed size for a story image, but squarish images of around 280 x 280px (at 72dpi) generally work best. The timeline crops pictures automatically to fit the places it shows them. The size it shows them at depends on several things, including the size of the timeline and how close together the stories are.
To see how a picture is cropped, and change it, press the picture button in front of its web address and choose Position. See The heads of people are cropped off.
For the background, you'll likely need a larger image. The best size depends on how big the timeline will be when you embed or show it. We have found that 1,200px by 800px works well.
If your timeline's images take a long time to load, they probably haven't been optimised for the web. Story images should be no more than around 50k each, and the background image no more than 350-500k. If your images are bigger than this, we advise you to resize them.
If you have lots of images, you may also want to turn on Lazy image loading. Choose Settings in the side bar to find it. The timeline then loads faster, because it only loads images when they're about to be shown.
The timeline crops pictures to fit a number of set sizes. You can't turn cropping off, but you can choose which part of the picture stays in view.
1Open the story and press the picture button in front of the picture's web address.
2Choose Position. You'll see a large preview of the picture as it appears in an open story, and the smaller places it shows underneath.
3Drag the large preview to the position you want, or use the arrow keys (hold Shift for bigger steps). Or choose one of the nine Keep in view buttons, such as Top or Centre.
4Press Done, then Save.
Pictures are shown as big as possible within the set sizes, so a landscape picture can only be moved from side to side, and a portrait one only up and down. Only story pictures can be positioned. The introduction and background pictures can't.
Each picture, video or sound has an Index number. Lower numbers come first, and the one with the lowest number is the main image in the story's bubble on the timeline.
Choose Look in the side bar. Under 3D view, choose:
Off: no 3D.
3D button: the timeline opens as normal, with a button at the bottom left to switch to 3D.
Opens in 3D: the timeline starts in 3D, with a button to switch back to 2D.
Then press Save. The 3D settings link under the choice has the rest of the 3D options. 3D is only available with premium accounts.
The 3D view can be quite demanding on your computer. If your 3D timeline runs slowly, there are a few things you can do.
1Update your browser to the latest version.
2Zoom out, so fewer stories are on screen at once. You'll find the zoom in Look, under 3D settings.
3Make the timeline window smaller, or embed the timeline at a smaller size. The smaller the timeline, the faster it draws.
For the whole timeline, choose Settings in the side bar. Story date format, Slider date format and Top date format set how dates show on the stories, the slider and the scale along the top.
For one story, open it and choose Change the date format under its date. Pick a ready-made format from Show the date as, or choose Custom format and type your own. The editor shows how the date will look. Use the automatic format takes you back to the timeline's own format.
For one story, fill in only the year and leave the day and month empty. The timeline then shows just the year. To show only years for every story, set Story date format in Settings.
By default, years are shown with at least four digits, so 100 AD shows as 0100 and 10 BC as 0010 BC. To prevent the leading zeroes, choose the "no leading zeroes" option in the date formats in Settings.
You can also edit the format and replace YYYY with yyyy. To change this for the scale along the top of the timeline, change Top date format.
When you enter dates in the new editor, type the year as it is (100, or 10 with BC). You don't need leading zeroes there.
When a timeline has a lot of stories, they can overlap and the timeline can look cluttered. This happens most when a timeline covers a long stretch of time but many events happen close together. Here are several ways to prevent it, all in Look:
1Zoom out with Zoom when it opens, which leaves more space between stories.
2Use an equal spacing mode in Spacing between stories. This spaces stories out equally, whatever their dates.
3Use a top to bottom mode in Spacing between stories. This arranges stories in rows, so more of them fit without overlapping.
4Under Layout, try Duration or Category bands. They use smaller story markers, which helps prevent overlap.
5Try the 3D view, which is also good at showing lots of events. See How do I activate the 3d timeline view?.
For more information and a video, see this blog post.
Search and category filtering are part of the timeline controls, which visitors open with the spanner icon at the bottom right of the timeline. To turn them on:
1Choose Settings in the side bar.
2Set Timeline controls to enabled, and save.
3The icon now appears at the bottom right of the timeline. If the editor covers it, press Hide at the top of the side bar.
4Press the icon to choose from a number of options, including search and category filtering.
Please note that search only covers timeline content that has loaded. A story's More detail text only loads when someone opens that story.
Group edit lets other people add stories to your timeline. It's available to Bronze, Silver, Teacher and Pupil members.
1Choose Share in the side bar, then Group edit.
2Enter a Secret word. Only give it to people you trust. Choose whether to Show who added each story, then press Save. These settings are also in Settings.
3An Edit this timeline panel now appears on your timeline. This is where people enter their name and the secret word.
4Send contributors your timeline's link, which you'll find under Share link in Share, along with the secret word. They open the timeline, choose Edit this timeline, enter their name and the secret word, and start adding stories.
To turn group edit off, clear the secret word and save. More about group edit, at the bottom of the Group edit panel, explains it step by step and links to a demo timeline.
Once you've entered your name and the secret word, the editor opens with Your stories: the stories you've added to this timeline. Press Add a story to add one, or choose one of yours to change it. You can't change other people's stories or the timeline's settings.
Choose Settings in the side bar and set Timeline status to Private. If you'd rather share it with only some people, choose Password protected and set a password.
Choose Share in the side bar. Print gives you a page of your stories, ready to print. PDF or image explains how to save the whole timeline as a PDF or a picture. Export to CSV downloads your stories as a spreadsheet file, and Export as JSON gives you the timeline's data for developers.
Embedding is only available with our Bronze, Silver and Teacher accounts. See above for how to upgrade. If you already have a premium account:
1Choose Share in the side bar, then Embed on a website.
2Enter the width and height you want for the embedded timeline.
3Press Copy the code and paste it into your website or blog.
Timeline status in Settings must be set to Public, or the embedded timeline won't show.
These answers are for the old editor: the grey panel at the top right of your timeline page, with tabs for Stories, Settings and more. Using the white panel on the right? Go to the new editor answers.
1Navigate to the Tiki-Toki home page (www.tiki-toki.com). Here (if you are logged in) you will find a list of timelines you have already created and also a form for creating a new timeline.
2Click on the 'edit' button and you will be taken to your timeline's unique page on the web. On this page, you add new stories to your timeline. You can also change all the timeline's settings, such as background image, introduction text, zoom and so on from the 'Settings' tab. Further options including date formatting can be accessed by clicking on the 'Advanced settings' button in this tab.
You can change the start and end dates for your timeline from the 'Settings' tab in the gray admin panel at the top right of the screen. You may need to ensure your timeline is selected first. Remember to click the 'Save' button when you are finished.
Go to the 'Settings' tab for your timeline. You can find this in the gray admin panel at the top right of the screen (you may need to select your timeline first). Towards the bottom of the 'Settings tab' is the zoom setting. Click on a zoom setting to zoom in and out of the timeline.
Zooming is particularly useful if your stories (events) are clustered close together. An alternative to zooming is the 'Spacing' option which can be used to force equal spacing between stories (regardless of their date) and thus prevent overlapping and clustering.
There are two ways that you can do this; when you first create the timeline; and after you have already created it.
1When you first create a timeline (see here for how to create a timeline), you are given the option of selecting a background image for your timeline. You can either enter the url of the image you want to use. Or you can click on the magnifying glass button for other options.
2If you have already created the timeline, then you will need to initially go to the timeline's page (see 'editing a timeline' above). Then, click on the 'Settings' tab for your timeline. Here, you are given the option of selecting a background image for your timeline. You can either enter the url of the image you want to use. Or you can click on the magnifying glass button for other options.
It can be quite tricky to find an image that works well with the timeline. You should avoid images which are very busy or have a lot of contrast (very dark and very light areas). An alternative to using an image is to simply set the background of your timeline to a particular color - this can be done in the 'Settings' tab for your timeline or when creating the timeline. Click on the coloured block and choose the color you want to use.
Once you have created your first timeline (see here for instructions on creating a timeline), you will probably want to create your first story.
1Firstly, ensure that you are on your timeline's unique page (see 'How do I edit my timelines' above). There should be a gray admin panel at the top right of the screen. Also make sure you have the 'Story' tab selected in the admin panel. Now click on the 'Create new story' button at the bottom. The new story form and a story of your timeline should then appear.
2Enter all the required information into the form. The date field is initially set to timeline's currently-selected date - you will probably want to change this. The title and date fields are mandatory. The rest are optional. To put your timeline into a category, you will firstly need to have created some 'Categories' - you can do this from the 'Categories' tab.
3Once you have finished entering information for your story, click the 'Save' button.
4You may now want to add images or videos to your story, or provide some accompanying formatted text. See below for instructions on how to do that.
5If you would like to create another story, make sure you click the 'Create new story' button again, else you may end up inadvertently editing an existing story.
When you create stories for your timeline, they appear in a list in the 'Stories' tab for your timeline. Simply click the 'Edit' button for the story you want to edit, and update the details in the form. Click the 'Save' button when finished.
1Initially, select the story to which you want to add images. You do this by clicking on the 'edit' button for the story in the list of stories (under the 'Stories' tab for your timeline).
2Now open the 'Story media' tab and click on the 'Add new media' button. A form will now appear.
3Fill in the form with the relevant details. Make sure the type menu is set to 'Image'. In the source field, you can either enter the url* to an image (for instance if you have the image saved on your own server) or click on the magnifying glass to open up other options. The index field is used to determine the order in which images appear for a story. If you want the image to be the story's main image, set it to the lowest value.
4Once you have filled in the form, click the 'Save' button and the image will be added to your story.
*You may wish to check that the src url actually points to an image file, rather than an HTML page that contains an image. An image file will usually end with jpg, gif or png. To get the url of an image that is on an HTML page, you can often right click on the image, and then choose open image in new window or tab. Then, the url of the image will be displayed in the browser address bar at the top.
Please note that some websites - such as Google, Facebook and Flickr - may not allow images from their servers to appear on other websites, by blocking images completely or using urls that expire after a short period.
Please ensure that you only use images that are your own, open source or which you have permission to use.
1Initially, select the story to which you want to add videos. You do this by clicking on the 'edit' button for the story in the list of stories (under the 'Stories' tab for your timeline).
2Now open the 'Story media' tab and click on the 'Add new media' button. A form will now appear.
3You should now find the video on either Youtube, DailyMotion or Vimeo and then paste the url of that page into the source field in the form. The url for a youtube video will look like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xdKW75J49s - a Vimeo one will look like: http://vimeo.com/18008261. A DailyMotion one will look like: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x129qen_title. You can also paste in a link to an flv/mp4 file of your own.
4Make sure the 'type' menu in the form is set to 'Video'. The index field is used to determine the order in which videos appear for a story. If you want the video to be the story's main video, set it to the lowest value.
5Once you have filled in the form, click the 'Save' button and the video will be added to your story.
1Initially, select the story to which you want to add audio. You do this by clicking on the 'edit' button for the story in the list of stories (under the 'Stories' tab for your timeline).
2Now open the 'Story media' tab and click on the 'Add new media' button. A form will now appear.
3You now need to enter the source of the audio in the 'Source' field. If you have uploaded the audio to the popular SoundCloud.com audio hosting service, then enter the SoundCloud url for your audio. The url will look a bit like this: http://soundcloud.com/user123/recording-on-friday-1. If you are not using SoundCloud, then you will need to upload the audio file (in MP3 format) to the web, and enter the url of the file in the 'Source' field.
4Once you have filled in the form, click the 'Save' button and the audio will be added to your story.
You create categories in the 'Categories tab' for your timeline. Simply enter a name and choose a colour to create a category. You can then set a story's category by following the 'How do I edit my stories?' instructions above.
You need to click the 'Create new story' button each time you want to make a new story. Otherwise, you may end up endlessly editing the same story.
There is no fixed size specified for a story image but generally squarish images of around 280 x 280px (at 72dpi) work best. The software auto crops images to display the images in their various contexts. The size at which these images are displayed depends on a variety of factors, including the dimensions of the timeline, the closeness of timeline stories, etc. You can see how images appear - and adjust how they appear - in the different contexts by clicking on the Magnifying glass icon to the right of the source field for an image, and then clicking on image positioning.
For the background, you will will likely need a larger image. The best size of this image will depend on what size you aim to embed or display the timeline. We have found that a 1,200px by 800px image works well.
If your timeline's images are taking a long time to load, it is likely that you have not optimised them for the web. Your story images should be no more than around 50k each. The background image shouldn't be much more than 350-500k. If you images are larger than this, then we advise that you resize them smaller.
If you have lots of images, you may also want to enable Lazy Loading in the Advanced Settings panel (accessible from the Settings tab for your timeline). This will help your timeline load faster by only loading images when they are about to be displayed.
Our software automatically crops images to fit a number of set dimensions. You cannot turn off cropping. However, you can reposition the image - click on the Magnifying glass to the right of the image source field, then click on the "Image positioning" button at the bottom. Here, you will see the image in its different contexts. Drag the image in the middle to the position you would like. Bear in mind that our software displays images as big as possible within the set dimensions, so a landscape image will only be positionable horizontally and a portrait image only vertically. Once you have positioned the image, close the lightboxes and click the 'save' button for the image.
You can order images in a particular story using the Index field for the image media item - images with a lower value for this field will appear before those with a higher value. The image with the lowest Index value will appear as the main image in the story bubble.
To activate the 3d timeline view, you need to open the 3d Settings panel. This can be accessed via the Settings tab for your timeline. In the 3d Settings panel, you should change the Status to "Enabled" or "Default". A button will then appear at the bottom left of the screen allowing you to switch between 2d and 3d views of your timeline. The "Default" option will display the timeline in 3d by default when it is loaded. This option is only available with premium accounts.
The 3d timeline view can be quite demanding on your computer. If you find your 3d timeline is running slowly, there are few things you can do.
1Upgrade your browser. The 3d view works particularly well in Chrome and IE9/10.
2Zoom out (via the 3d settings panel) so you are displaying less stories on the screen at the same time.
3Reduce the size of your timeline window (or reduce the size you are embedding the timeline). The smaller the timeline size, the faster it renders.
Tiki-Toki provides lots of customisation options for dates - see the Advanced Settings panel (accessible from the Settings tab for your timeline).
You can do this using the date formatting options in the Advanced Settings panel (accessible from the Settings tab for your timeline).
By default, years are displayed on a timeline as a minimum of four digits. So 100 AD would be 0100 and 10 BC would be 0010 BC. To prevent the leading zeroes, select the "no leading zeroes" option from the date formatting options in the Advanced Settings panel (accessible from the Settings tab for your timeline).
You can also edit the format and replace YYYY with yyyy to prevent leading zeroes on years between 999 BC and 999. To change this for the scale along the bottom of the timeline view, change the Top Date Format option.
Please note that when entering dates into our admin interface, you will still need to enter the year with a minimun of four digits. So 100 AD would be 0100 and 10 BC would be 0010 BC.
When you have a lot of stories on a timeline, the timeline often becomes quite cluttered, with stories overlapping each other. This is especially the case with a timeline covering a wide span of time but which has a high concentration of events in a small space of time. Here, we outline several methods of preventing clutter in your timeline.
1You can zoom out of the timeline using the Zoom functionality (see Settings->zoom), creating more space between stories.
2You can use our Equal Spacing modes (see Settings->spacing) to space out your stories equally, regardless of when they took place in time.
3You can use our Top to Bottom spacing modes (see Settings->spacing). These arrange stories in rows, from top to bottom, and allow more stories to fit in the timeline stage without overlapping.
4You may also want to check out our Duration and Category Band timeline view types (see Settings->View types). These use smaller story markers and therefore help prevent story overlap.
5Our 3d view is also good at displaying lots of events. You can activate this from the 3D Settings panel (accessible from the Settings tab).
For further information and a video, see this blog post.
Search and category filtering for your timeline are available via the timeline contols, which can be opened by clicking on the spanner icon at the bottom right of your timeline. You will need to activate the timeline controls before the icon appears. You can do this by following the below instructions.
1Open the Settings tab for your timeline in the grey admin panel, and click the Advanced Settings button.
2In the Advanced Settings panel, set the 'Timeline controls' option to enabled.
3An icon will now appear at the bottom right of your timeline. You may need to minimise the admin panel to reveal it.
4Click on the icon and you can now choose between a number of different options, including search and category filtering.
Please note that the search option will only search timeline content that has been loaded. The full text content for stories (see the Extra Info tab) is only loaded when a story is clicked on and the content panel is opened.
You can now get others to contribute to your timelines via Tiki-Toki's group edit functionality (available to Bronze, Silver, Teacher and Pupil members). To activate group edit for a timeline, follow these instructions:
1Your first task is to choose a secret word for your timeline. Others will use this secret word to login and contribute to your timeline.
2Once you have chosen a secret word, go to the 'Settings' tab for your timeline. Now click on 'Advanced settings', scroll down to 'Group edit options' and enter the secret word in the 'Secret word' field. Finally, click the 'Save' button.
3A panel entitled 'Edit this timeline' will now appear on your timeline. This is where people will enter their name and the secret word that you have given them and start editing your timeline.
4The final step is to email contributors the web address of your timeline. They can then open the timeline in their browser, enter their name and the secret word, and start contributing to your timeline.
To prevent others from viewing your timeline, set the 'Timeline status' setting for your timeline to 'private'. You do this in the 'Advanced settings' panel, accessible from the 'Settings' tab for your timeline.
Embedding is only available with our Bronze, Silver and Teacher accounts. See above for instructions on how to sign up for a premium account. If you already have a premium account, follow these instructions:
1Open the 'Embed' panel for your timeline by clicking on the 'embed' option. This can be found under the admin panel on your timeline page when you are logged in.
2In the panel that pops up, enter the width and height that you want for the embedded timeline. You may want to click the 'Preview' button to check that the timeline works at the size you have chosen.
3You should now copy the code in the 'Embed' box and paste it into your website or blog. Please note that the 'Timeline status' setting for your timeline must be set to 'public' for your embedded timeline to work (see 'Settings' -> 'Advanced settings').