Help / Making content

Playlists and slides

Make playlists, add slides, and set each slide's timing, transition and motion.

What a playlist is

A playlist is the set of slides a screen plays, in order, over and over. Each slide is on the TVs for a number of seconds, then the next one comes in. A playlist can also have background music and a seasonal effect falling over its slides.

You can have as many playlists as you like: a breakfast menu and a lunch menu, one for the window and one for the counter. Each screen plays one playlist at a time. You choose which, and you can switch playlists by time of day.

Your first playlist becomes the default playlist. Every screen that hasn't been given a playlist of its own plays it.

The Playlists page

Open Playlists from the bar on the left. Each playlist is a row showing:

• Name, with a Default tag on the default playlist.
• Status: Published (with its version number) or Draft if it's never been published.
• Slides: how many it has.
• Loop: how long it takes to play every slide once, in minutes and seconds.
• Plays on: the screens showing it.
• Last published: when it was last sent to the screens, or Never.

Use Search playlists to find one by name, and the Status filter to see only published playlists or only drafts. Click a playlist to open it.

Make a playlist

Press New Playlist. If you don't have any playlists yet, it opens by itself. It asks three questions, one at a time:

1. What should this playlist be called? The name is for you and your team. It never shows on the TVs. Names can be up to 100 characters.
2. How do you want to start? Pick a template, one of the two AI starts, or Blank to start empty and add your own pictures and videos. See Start from a template and Let AI write your slides below.
3. Which screens should show it? Tick the screens that should play it. Next to each screen it says what that screen plays now. Screens that don't have a playlist of their own yet are ticked for you. Press Choose Later to decide afterwards. You won't see this step for your first playlist, because every screen plays that one, or if you haven't added a screen yet.

Press Create Playlist and the playlist opens, ready for slides. A screen shows the new playlist once you publish it.

Start from a template

Templates are ready-made slides with sample words, prices and times for you to replace. There are 31 of them, in six groups: Any Business, Food & Drink, Retail, Fitness, Offices and Seasonal (from New Year to the winter holidays). Pick a group to see its templates, each shown by its first slide.

When you pick a template, Customize Your Slides opens. Here you can:

• Switch to another template with the Template list.
• Choose its Colours: Violet, Midnight, Sunset, Forest or Light. Each template starts in its own.
• Click each slide on the left to change its words. Slides with prices or opening hours have rows: use Add Row and Add Heading, up to 36 rows on a slide.
• Give a slide a Photo: one from your library, a new one with Upload a Photo, or None. Templates don't come with stock photos, so a slide shows your own photo or none.
• Press the bin next to a slide you don't want, to leave it out.

Press Add 3 Slides (the button counts your slides). Pixigns draws each slide at the size of your TVs and adds it to the playlist. To change a template slide later, open it in the playlist and press Edit Design: change its words, colours or photo and press Use This Design, and it's drawn again.

You can add a template's slides to a playlist you already have, too: press From a Template under the slides.

Let AI write your slides

Two of the starts in New Playlist use AI:

• Describe Your Slides. Say what your TVs should show, like “Our fall drinks: pumpkin latte $5.50 and hot cider $4. A welcome slide, and our hours, 7 to 3 every day.” Put in your real prices, times and dates. The AI uses only what you write, and leaves a gap in [square brackets] where a detail is missing. Press Write My Slides.
• From Your Menu. Add a photo of your printed menu, taken flat and in good light. The AI copies every item and price into clean price slides. Press Read My Menu.

Leave Make photos for the welcome and offer slides ticked and the AI also makes up to 3 photos to match. They're added to your library, so you can use them again.

The slides open in Customize Your Slides, where you check and change them before anything is added:

• A slide marked Fill in [ ] still has a gap in square brackets. Replace it with your own details.
• After reading a menu, it says Read from your menu. Check every item and price against it before adding. Do check: AI can misread.
• Use Spread over to put a long menu on more slides, or fewer. Sections stay together. Choose this before you change any words.
• Press Save as a Menu Instead to keep what was read as a menu board, whose prices and sold-out items you can change any time without publishing.
• Press Change Description to ask again with different words.

Add slides

An open playlist has a preview of your TVs at the top and its slides in a row underneath. The last card in the row, Add a slide, has every way in:

• Upload: pick pictures or videos from your computer or phone. Each one becomes a slide once it's been checked.
• From the Library: pick files you've already uploaded. Each one you add becomes a slide at the end; or drag one onto the slides to place it.
• From a Design: add a design you made in the Design section. See Design your own slides.
• From a Template: add a template's slides, as above.
• Canva: bring in a design from your Canva account, each page a slide. See Canva.

You can also drag files from your computer straight onto the slides.

Before you upload, the list above the slides sets how new files use your TVs. With one TV it offers One file per slide or Pictures glide past (train). With two TVs it also offers Each file across both TVs and A different file on each TV, which pairs your files up in the order you picked them. See Slide layouts.

While files upload, their cards say Uploading with a percentage, then Checking file…. A file that can't be used says why on its card. See Why a file is refused.

A PDF or a Google Slides deck in your library adds one slide per page. See PDFs and Google Slides.

Change a slide

Click a slide to open its settings in the panel on the right. Press Done to go back to the playlist's own settings.

Content

• Name: for you, up to 100 characters. It doesn't show on the TVs.
• Layout: how the slide uses your TVs. See Slide layouts.
• Media: what the slide shows. Press Change or Choose From Library to pick another file, or Upload a new one.
• Fill or Fit, for a picture that's a different shape from your TVs. See Fill or Fit.
• Image Motion: a slow move while the picture is on screen. See Image motion.

Timing & Schedule

• Duration: how many seconds the slide stays on, from 1 to 3600 (an hour).
• Transition: how the slide comes in. See Transitions.
• Schedule: the days, times and dates the slide plays. Leave it empty to show the slide all the time. See Show a slide only at certain times.

Press Apply Changes to save. You'll see Changes saved. Publish to show them on the TVs. Press Preview to watch just this slide, with your changes, before you save.

How long each slide shows

Each slide card has its seconds on it, with − and + either side. Press them to change the time a second at a time, or click the number and type a new one. Changes save by themselves.

New slides start with:

When you choose a video for a slide, its duration is set to the video's length and you'll see Duration set to 20 seconds to match the video. (with your video's length). Make a video slide shorter and the video is cut off; make it longer and the video starts again from the beginning.

Transitions

A transition is how a slide comes in over the one before. Each takes one second. Change a slide's transition from the word on its card, or in its Timing & Schedule settings. New slides come in with Fade.

To give every slide the same transition at once, close the slide settings and use Between slides in the playlist's panel. If your slides have different transitions, it says Each slide its own.

Image motion

Image Motion moves a picture slowly while its slide is on screen: Slow Zoom In, Slow Zoom Out, Slow Pan Left or Slow Pan Right. It brings food photos to life. Leave it at None on menus and slides with small words, which are harder to read while they move.

Image motion isn't offered for videos, live content or zones. Trains have their own movement. See Train.

Hide, reorder, duplicate and delete slides

• Hide a slide: open it and turn off Show this slide. Hidden slides stay in the playlist but don't play, and their card says Hidden. Turn it back on to show it again. This is handy for a seasonal slide you'll use again.
• Reorder: drag a slide's card to a new place. Or, with the keyboard, focus the grip on its card and press the left and right arrow keys.
• Duplicate: open the slide and press the copy button at the bottom. You'll see Duplicated and the slide's name.
• Delete: press the bin on its card, or at the bottom of its settings. You're asked first, because this can't be undone. The file stays in your library.

A slide whose card says Needs a picture is missing something its layout needs, such as a picture for the second TV. It isn't published until it's complete.

Show a slide only at certain times

A slide can play only on some days, at some times, or between two dates, while the rest of the playlist plays as usual. Open the slide, go to Timing & Schedule, and under Schedule:

• Days: tick the days it plays. Leave them all unticked for every day.
• Start Time and End Time: the hours it plays. An end time before the start time runs past midnight, so 22:00 to 02:00 plays late into the night.
• Start Date and End Date: the first and last day it plays, such as the dates of a sale.

Times are in your business's time zone, shown above the fields. Outside its times the slide is skipped.

Something falling over the slides

For a season or a holiday, a playlist can have something gently falling over every slide. In the playlist's panel, choose from Falling over the slides: Autumn leaves, Snowflakes, Christmas ornaments, Valentine's hearts, New Year confetti, St. Patrick's shamrocks or Halloween pumpkins. Publish to show them on the TVs. When the season's over, set it back to Nothing and publish again.

Preview your playlist

The preview at the top of a playlist plays your slides as they'll look on your TVs, in the shape of your screen. Use the buttons under it to go to the previous or next slide, pause, or drag along the bar to any moment in the loop. The time shows where you are, like 00:10 / 00:30. Click a slide's card and the preview jumps to it.

Press Preview at the top for a bigger view. Both previews play every shown slide in order and ignore schedules, so you see slides whatever the time. The screens don't change until you publish.

Choose which screens play it

Under the playlist's name, one line says where it shows and whether the screens are up to date, for example:

• Not on any screen yet. Add slides, publish, and choose a screen.
• Will show on Counter once you publish.
• Showing version 3 on Counter. Publish to send your changes.
• Showing on Counter, up to date.
• Counter is offline. It shows version 3 when it's back.

Press Choose a Screen or Change Screens beside it and tick the screens that should play the playlist. Unticked screens go back to the default playlist. A screen that plays the playlist through its group, its location or because it's the default says so, and is changed there instead. See Groups and locations.

The playlist's own settings

With no slide open, the panel on the right shows the playlist itself:

• Status: Draft, Unpublished changes, or Published with its version.
• Last published.
• Default playlist: Yes or No. An owner can press Make default to make this the playlist every screen without its own plays.
• Between slides: one transition for every slide.
• Version history: every published version, and Restore for older ones. See Versions.
• Background music. See Background music.
• Falling over the slides.
• Delete Playlist.

Rename or delete a playlist

To rename a playlist, click its name at the top, type the new one and press Save. You'll see Renamed.

To delete one, press Delete Playlist in its panel. To delete several, tick them on the Playlists page and press Delete. Their slides go with them, and screens playing them go back to the default playlist. The files stay in your library.

The default playlist can't be deleted, since screens rely on it. Make another playlist the default first. If you delete several at once and one is the default, the others go and it stays: Deleted 2 playlists. Kept the default playlist.

If something goes wrong

• The TVs don't show my changes. Changes stay in your draft until you publish. Press Publish (or Publish Changes). See Publish and roll back.
• A slide doesn't play. Check that it isn't Hidden, doesn't say Needs a picture, and that its schedule includes now. The preview ignores schedules, so a scheduled slide can show there and not on the TVs.
• That's the default playlist. Make another playlist the default first. Open another playlist and press Make default, then delete this one.
• A message saying a feature comes with the Basic or Premium plan. Your plan doesn't include it. An owner can choose a plan in Settings, under Billing. See Plans and billing.