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How to use layouts in Tella

Layouts are one of the most important features for customizing the look of your videos in Tella. They allow you to control how your camera feed, screen recording, or both are displayed in your final video, giving you the flexibility to emphasize different aspects of your content. This guide will explain how to use layouts, customize them, apply them across multiple clips, and when to take advantage of Multi-layouts.

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What are layouts?

In Tella, a layout determines how the visual elements in your video—such as your camera feed and screen recording—are arranged. Depending on the type of clip you’ve recorded, you’ll have different layout options available. For instance:
  • Camera-only recordings offer layouts focused on just the camera feed.
  • Screen-only recordings provide layouts that showcase only your screen content.
  • Screen and camera recordings allow for a variety of layouts that combine both elements in one view.
These layout options give you control over how your viewers engage with the content. For example, you might want to prioritize your screen when showing detailed demos, or feature yourself more prominently when explaining concepts.

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Screen and camera layout options

When you record with both screen and camera, Tella offers several layout styles:
  • Camera Bubble — your camera appears as a small bubble over the screen recording.
  • Side-by-side 50/50 — splits the frame evenly between your screen recording and camera. In landscape videos the split is horizontal, with a Left/Right control under Customize layout for which side your camera sits on. In portrait and square videos the split is vertical, with a Top/Bottom control for which half your camera sits in.
  • Perspective side-by-side — angles your camera and screen toward each other, with your camera in front where the panels meet. Choose whether your camera appears on the left or right.
  • TV Presenter — available for landscape videos, it places your camera prominently with the screen floating alongside it. The “Full” variants fill the entire canvas with your camera while the screen floats on top, giving a broadcast-style look.
  • Screen-dominant — the screen takes up most of the frame with a smaller camera feed.

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Choosing a layout

To select a layout: 1. Open your video in Tella. 2. Click Layout in the sidebar. The layout picker opens with a Presets tab listing the available layouts for the type of clip (camera-only, screen-only, or screen and camera). If you have saved layouts, they appear under Favorites. 3. Browse through the presets and select the one that best suits your needs. For example, if you are recording a product demo with a screen and camera setup, you may want to choose a layout that gives equal importance to both elements, like the side-by-side layout. Alternatively, if your focus is more on the details of your screen, choose a layout where the screen is dominant and the camera feed is minimized.

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Screen fit: Fill vs. Fit

When you select a fullscreen layout or the Full Camera Bubble variant, you can choose how your screen recording fits the canvas using the screen fit control.
  • Fill — scales your screen recording to fill the entire canvas area. If the screen’s aspect ratio differs from the canvas, the edges are cropped. This is the default and gives a clean, edge-to-edge look.
  • Fit — scales your screen recording to fit entirely within the canvas without cropping. If the aspect ratios don’t match, you’ll see bars (letterboxing) around the content.
To switch between Fill and Fit: 1. Select a clip that includes a screen recording. 2. Open the Layout panel in the sidebar. 3. Choose a fullscreen layout or the Full Camera Bubble variant. 4. Open Customize layout and use the Fill / Fit toggle next to the screen fit control.
Use Fill when you want a polished, full-bleed look. Use Fit when it’s important that every pixel of your screen recording stays visible — for example, when showing code editors or dashboards with content near the edges.
The screen fit setting persists when you change canvas size or switch between landscape, portrait, and square orientations.

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Make your camera smaller (or larger)

To make yourself appear smaller in the video, shrink your camera bubble. Tella lets you resize the camera directly — you don’t need to use zoom or re-record. 1. Open your video and click Layout in the sidebar. 2. Choose a Camera Bubble layout (your camera appears as a smaller bubble over the screen, rather than filling the frame). 3. Open Customize layout and use Camera size to choose S, M, or L. Choose S to make yourself as small as possible. For a size between the presets, you can also drag the corner handles of the camera on the canvas to resize it freely — this turns it into a custom layout that you can save to your Favorites.
The Camera size control is the direct way to shrink your camera. Zoom is a separate feature for punching in on screen content during a moment — it is not how you make your camera box smaller.

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Position your camera bubble

For Camera Bubble layouts, you can place your camera in any of nine positions on the canvas using the 3×3 position grid: four corners, four edges, and the center. TV Presenter layouts use a simpler left/right position control. 1. Open Layout and choose a Camera Bubble layout. 2. Open Customize layout and use the 3×3 grid to pick where your camera should appear. The full grid and size selector work for landscape, portrait, and square orientations.

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Customizing layouts

One of the most powerful aspects of Tella’s Layouts feature is the ability to customize layouts. While Tella provides a set of preset layouts, you can move, resize, and fine-tune elements within those layouts to create something more personalized. Here’s how to customize a layout: 1. After choosing a preset, open Customize layout from the sidebar to access the layout’s controls (style, variants, camera position and size, screen fit, and more). 2. Drag and adjust the position of the camera feed or screen recording on the canvas to fine-tune the composition. 3. Once you’ve adjusted the elements, Tella will indicate that you are using a custom layout instead of a preset. You can save this arrangement to your Favorites to reuse it across videos — see Saved layouts for the full workflow. Custom layouts are especially useful if you want a non-standard arrangement, such as placing your camera in a corner or resizing the screen recording to fill more of the frame.

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Set and apply the base layout

Every clip has a base layout. It fills the gaps between the layout sections you add to the timeline. Click a bare gap to select the base layout, then choose a preset. The selected preset shows a Base badge so you know you are changing the clip’s default rather than one layout section. To use that base layout on other compatible clips: 1. Select a base-layout gap and choose the base layout you want. 2. Open the ⋯ menu in the Layout sidebar header, or right-click the base-layout gap. 3. Select Apply to all clips. Tella applies the base layout to other clips with the same compatible recording setup. Explicit layout sections that use a different layout stay in place.

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Work with the layout timeline

When the Layout panel is open, the timeline shows layout sections over the clip’s audio waveform, with the transcript underneath and a time ruler on top. Each card is an explicit layout section; the gaps between cards use the base layout. Move around
  • Scroll to pan along the clip.
  • Hold Cmd on Mac or Ctrl on Windows and scroll to zoom in and out, centered on your pointer. Shift + scroll over the timeline zooms too.
  • Use the zoom slider next to the timeline, or press = and -.
  • Hover over the waveform or transcript to preview that frame before you click.
Select what you want to change
  • Click a section to select it.
  • Drag across the timeline to select a time range.
  • Hold Shift and drag to add more ranges, so you can change several places at once.
  • Hold Cmd on Mac or Ctrl on Windows and click sections to select them individually, or drag to sweep across several.
  • Click a word in the transcript row to select it, or drag across words to select a phrase.
  • Press Escape to clear explicit ranges and multi-selected cards. The layout under the parked playhead can become active again immediately.
Adjust a section
  • Drag a section to move it, or drag its edge to resize it.
  • Sections snap to word boundaries, other sections, and the playhead. Hold Option on Mac or Alt on Windows while dragging to turn snapping off.
  • Where two sections touch, the shared edge becomes a seam. Drag the seam to move the boundary between them with both sections staying joined, or hold Option/Alt and drag to pull them apart and open a gap.
For precise timing, click a section’s edge or a seam, then press the left or right arrow key. Each press moves it by one pixel at your current timeline zoom. Hold Shift while pressing an arrow key to move it by 10 pixels.
Right-click for more Right-clicking gives you different options depending on what’s under your pointer:
  • On a layout section — Customize layout, Split at playhead, and Delete layout. If the section contains media, you also get options to trim, mute, adjust the volume of, replace, or remove it.
  • On a selected range — Add layout and Cut selection, plus Create zoom, Add blur, or Add highlight when the clip is compatible. The last actions switch you to the matching tool, so you can start in the Layout timeline and finish elsewhere.
  • On a base-layout gap — Add layout here (or Add layout from selection), Apply to all clips, and Reset layouts. Add until end also appears when no time range is selected.

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Use multiple layouts

Multiple layouts let you add different layouts to one clip. This is useful when the visual focus should change at specific moments. For example, you might start with a camera-only layout for an introduction, then switch to a screen-and-camera layout when you begin demonstrating something on your screen. Later, you could switch to a screen-only layout to highlight specific details. To add a layout section: 1. Drag across the time range you want to change, or select the matching words in the transcript. 2. Choose a preset. Tella creates a layout card for that range. 3. Move the card or drag its edges to fine-tune the timing. You can also place the playhead and click Add layout. Without a selected range, Tella creates a short section using your last non-base layout. Hold Cmd on Mac or Ctrl on Windows to change the action to Add until end. Multiple layouts are particularly effective when you want to switch the visual focus between different elements throughout a single clip.

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Apply a layout in multiple places

You can select several timeline ranges or existing layout sections and update them together.
  1. Open the Layout panel.
  2. Select every place you want to change:
    • To select time ranges, drag across the first range. Then hold Shift while dragging each additional range.
    • To select existing layout sections, hold Cmd on Mac or Ctrl on Windows while clicking each section. You can also hold the same key and drag across several sections.
  3. Choose a layout preset. Tella applies it to every eligible selected range and every selected section.
New sections created from eligible selected ranges stay selected as a group, so another layout pick updates the same group. Undo or redo treats the whole change as one action. If you move or resize a selected range, undo restores both its timing and the selection you started with.
Selected ranges shorter than 0.2 seconds are skipped. Other eligible ranges and selected layout sections are still updated. If nothing can be updated, regular layout presets show a warning; Media layouts don’t create a section.
To create sections with a non-base layout before choosing another preset, click Add layout. Tella creates one layout section for each eligible range, usually using the last non-base layout you chose.

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Split a layout at the playhead

You can split a layout section in two from the Layout toolbar, the same way Split works in the Cut tool. 1. Select the layout section you want to divide. 2. Move the playhead to the point where you want the split. 3. Click Split in the toolbar, or press X. The section is divided at the playhead and the new right half stays selected, so you can immediately apply a different layout to it. Split is disabled when no section is selected or when the playhead is outside the selected section.

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Delete a layout section

Select a layout section in the timeline, then click Delete in the Layout toolbar or press Delete or Backspace on your keyboard. To remove several layout sections at once, hold Cmd on Mac or Ctrl on Windows while selecting them, then delete the selection. Your video always needs a base layout, so you can’t delete the base section. If you drag across the timeline to select a time range instead of selecting a layout section, Delete remains disabled and your footage stays unchanged. Open the Cut tool when you want to remove part of the video.

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Copy, cut, and paste layout sections

You can reuse one or more layout sections elsewhere in your video without rebuilding them.
  1. Select a layout section in the timeline. To select several sections, hold Cmd on Mac or Ctrl on Windows while clicking each one. You can also drag across a time range to include the layout sections it overlaps.
  2. Press Cmd/Ctrl + C to copy the selection, or Cmd/Ctrl + X to cut it.
  3. Move the playhead to where you want the copied sections to start.
  4. Press Cmd/Ctrl + V to paste.
Tella keeps each section’s duration and the spacing between selected sections. Layout styling and any media in those sections are copied too, including media framing and volume settings.
If the copied group would run past the end of the target clip, Tella moves the group earlier so it fits. If the group is longer than the clip, Tella shows a warning and does not paste it.

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Adjust transitions between layouts

Whenever you add multiple layouts to a clip, Tella automatically inserts a smooth transition between them. This creates a seamless shift from one layout to another, enhancing the viewing experience. You can customize how a selected layout starts and ends: 1. Select a non-base layout card. 2. Open Customize layout. 3. Under Animations, set Intro and Outro to Smooth or Hard cut. The first layout has no editable Intro, and the last layout has no editable Outro. Use the ⋯ menu beside Animations to Set as default for future layout sections, or Apply to all transitions in the current clip. This is separate from the base layout’s Apply to all clips action. For example, a smooth transition works well when switching from a camera and screen layout to a screen-only layout, while a hard cut might be more appropriate for switching between two very different sections of the video.

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When to use one layout or multiple layouts

Deciding whether to use one layout or multiple layouts comes down to the style of your video:
  • Use single layouts if your content stays consistent throughout the clip (e.g., a straightforward screen recording or a talking-head video).
  • Use multiple layouts to create variety and highlight different elements within the same clip (e.g., switching between a detailed screen focus and a camera view).
For longer videos, you can also combine multiple clips, each with different layouts, to make the video more engaging while keeping your recording sessions simple.

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Layouts on imported clips

Uploaded videos have fewer recording-layout options because Tella receives one combined video track. You can still add a second visual with a Media layout, but arrangements that independently position your recorded camera and screen require recording both tracks in Tella. This is because Tella needs access to the separate video tracks to arrange them into custom layouts.