It’s easy to create a timeline on Timetoast. Learn how to make your first timeline, add events and images and edit timelines.

From your Timeline dashboard, click 'Add Timeline +'. This will pop up the timeline editor. You can get to the Timeline dashboard by clicking on ‘Dashboard’ at the top right of the Timetoast homepage when signed in.

In the timeline editor, create a title for your timeline. Remember, there’s a 255 character limit for your title. You can see the number of characters you have left below the text field.

When you create your timeline, you can choose whether to make it public or keep it in draft/unpublished. This is the publish status. When the timeline is in draft, it is only viewable by you or members you choose and is not on the public website. When the timeline is published, it is listed on the public website. Public timelines are ranked in public search engines such as Google and can be viewable by all visitors to the Timetoast website.

Published timelines will be marked with a green published button on your Timeline dashboard.

On the free plan, you can have one draft timeline, but an unlimited number of published timelines. Can’t choose to make the timeline draft? It may be that you have already reached your draft timeline limit. If you want to create more draft or unpublished timelines, you can look at our premium plans.

Timetoast allows you to collaborate on timelines and choose who can edit your timelines. If you have a premium account, you have the option to make it editable by all account members or only editable by you.

If a timeline is editable by other account members, it will also be included in their list of timeline projects. If you set it to just editable by you, then it will only show up for you and they won't be able to edit it.

If you’re on the free plan, there’s just one account member. Only the Editable by Account members option is available in this case.

To make the timeline easier to find or group it in the right place, you can add a Category relevant to your timeline. For example, if you are writing a timeline about space exploration, you might categorize it under Science and Technology. You can also choose to keep it uncategorized.

You can add a photo or image if you’d like. Just press on the box under ‘Photo’ and a photo editor pop up will emerge. Just drag and drop the photo file that you would like to upload. The maximum photo size is 10 MB.

To finish creating your timeline, press the ‘Create timeline’ button. The timeline is now created and you will be taken to the Timeline editor.

You’re all set to add events or timespans to your timeline.

First, make sure you’re in the Timeline Editor for your timeline. You can access your timelines on your Timeline dashboard. To edit a timeline, click on the three dots to the right of your timeline in your timeline dashboard and choose ‘Edit’. This will take you to the Timeline Editor for your timeline.

In the Timeline Editor, click ‘Add Event’. An Event Editor window will appear.

Add the details for your event. Add a title (remember the 255 character limit) and Description. The description box will display up to 500 characters. To format the description and add links, you can refer to our formatting guide. This will show you how to bold or italicize texts, add lists or bullets, add quotes and links to other websites.

The ‘Preview’ tab shows you how it will look once you’ve written your description.

Add a date to your event. This could be when the event happened or a target date, for example, if you are planning a project.

Timetoast timelines support several date formats for your events. You can specify the day, month, year, or alternatively, you can specify just the year. BCE or BC era dates are also supported. You can mix and match between the different date types on a timeline.

Month and day fields are optional, so you can just fill in the year when editing timeline items.

Dates before 600 CE/AD are year-only.

You can create events with BCE/BC era years, just check the checkbox next to the date input. The furthest back date we currently support is 271820 BCE.

What’s the difference between event dates and timespans? Timespans have both a start and end date and no image. You can use it to mark an era, for example, the Middle Ages, with multiple events happening within a timespan.

As you work on and finish your timeline, you can make changes and view the timeline.

To edit an event that you’ve already created, just click on the event in the timeline. this will bring up the Event Editor. You can make the changes you’d like, and press ‘Update event’. To delete, the event, press ‘Delete event’. This will present a window asking if you are sure. Press ‘OK” and the event will be deleted.

From your Timeline Dashboard, click on the triple dot icon next to your timeline title and choose ‘View’.

You can view your timeline either as a list or as an interactive timeline. At the top right of the timeline, you can toggle between the two views by pressing ‘Timeline’ or ‘List’.

You can also change the size of the view by toggling between default, wide view and large view. Large view will display the timeline in fullscreen mode if your web browser supports it.

Published timelines are listed on the site and all site visitors can view them. They can be indexed by search engines.

Draft timelines are not listed on the site.

You can publish timelines directly from your timeline dashboard page or the timeline edit page.

To view the print-friendly list version of the timeline, tap or click the triple dot icon in the timeline header and select "Print". This will open your browser's print dialog.

To share your timeline, tap or click the triple dot icon in the timeline header and select ‘Share’. This will bring up a window to share or embed. Embedding timelines is available on our premium plans (link).

If your timeline is published, you can copy the public link and share this.

If you are in a group, you can share the timeline with the rest of the members of the group. Premium account holders can share their timelines with individual users.

You can also see your currently granted permissions in this window.

You can create as many published timelines as you want. The number of draft/unpublished timelines depends on the type of plan you are on.