University Library
Piktochart Tutorial
Written by: Esther Lu, Reed Scriven, Allen Brown, Bryan Tor, Nirupama Chandrasekhar | Fall Quarter 2021
Contents
Piktochart is an online infographic application which allows users without intensive experience as graphic designers to easily create professional-grade infographics using themed templates. The program provides tools to add interactive maps, charts, videos and hyperlinks.
However, Piktochart is limited by the variety of its templates. If you’re looking for a truly unique design for your infographic, then Piktochart may not be your first choice. There are also a few issues with editing the size of items on the infographic, as well as relatively minor restrictions on what you can do with the free version of Piktochart.
Once on the site, click “Sign Up” where you will be prompted to create a username and password. If you already have a Facebook account or Google account you can simply sign in to Piktochart via your Facebook username and password or Google username and password.
Once inside, on the left hand side of the window you will see nine tabs:
The Dashboard is where you will find your saved work if you create a project in Piktochart. You can Edit or Preview your work. To save your work to the Dashboard, click on the save button in the top right of the editor. You can also preview your work, download it as a png image, or share it on social media.
1. Begin by opening up a template for any type of media. The same editor is used for all types of media!
2. Next to the canvas page is a small set of icons, marked in the image below. The button with the plus sign is to add another page to your canvas, if needed. The up and down arrows flanking the box with the page number in it, is how you move pages around each other, if you want to change the order of the infographic's pages. The box with an image of two boxes inside is a cloning device, so you can clone the selected element (text box, image box, logo, pattern, etc.) on the page. The box with the 'x' in it is to delete the selected element (text box, image box, logo, pattern, etc.) on the page.
3. In the graphics tab on the left side of the screen, there are options for Shapes and Icons, Lines, Photos, and Photo Frames. These are all elements provided by Piktochart to use on your page. Add one to the canvas, and resize and rotate it to familiarize yourself with the controls.
4. Design Components are a series of organized content that will make your visual look better in a more efficient way. It can be lists, comparisons, or simply put - content! To use, select one of the types. insert the design component by dragging it to the canvas, and edit as you wish.
5. You can also upload files from your computer to use as a graphic. Another resource to find transparent custom icons or images to place on your infographic is TheNounProject.
6. Backgrounds can be applied by simply clicking it once. In some templates, images will be on top of the background and you won't be able to see the changes.
7. You can add text like you add any other visual element. To gain access to the text-edit options, like font, font size, paragraph styles, and colour, click on the textbox, and look up to the top of the page, as marked in the image below.
8. Under "Color-Scheme, you have the option to give the page a set of theme colors (which will change all the default boxes to a complementary color-schemescheme, instead of requiring you to change every element yourself). Free users can choose from the Built-in Color Scheme options whereas paid users can make their own custom color schemes that can be saved and used for later projects.
9. Under "Tools", you can add embedded maps, charts, videos, and tables. You can import your chart data from an external source, using a .xlsx formatted or a .csv formatted data, from chart-making softwares like Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice Calc. You can also embed videos from Youtube and Vimeo with just a link. You CANNOT import any map data from websites like Google Maps or OpenMaps, however.
10. In the top right corner, you can save your project and click "Download" to export your project. There will be an option to "Download as Blocks", which you should only tick if you want to print out your infographic on multiple sheets of paper. If not, exporting as an image or pdf without blocks is the best way to export a purely digital image. There is also a limited amount of download credits. Each Workspace starts with 2 free download credits. 1 credit is equal to 1 download and this count does not reset. To obtain more downloads, you can buy a specific amount of more downloads or pay for Pro to get unlimited downloads.
11. You can also click "Share" if you want to publish your graphic online. When making the link public, you can change the title which will be reflected in the link URL and cannot be changed after being made public. You can also share through social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest or use the embed code to embed it into your website of blogpost.
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The land acknowledgement used at UC Santa Cruz was developed in partnership with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band Chairman and the Amah Mutsun Relearning Program at the UCSC Arboretum.
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