# Getting started

> Create your first timeline, add items to it, and find your way around the viewer.

Timescrolly builds a timeline out of two things: the timeline itself, and the items you place on it. This article walks through creating a timeline, adding your first items, and finding your way around the viewer.

## Create a timeline

From [Timelines](https://timescrolly.com/dashboard/timelines), choose New timeline. A Title is required; the Slug that appears in its URL is generated from the title until you edit it yourself. You can change it later from the timeline's Details tab (Change URL), and links that use the old slug keep working — until the timeline is transferred or deleted. If you belong to a team, an Owner field lets you choose whether the timeline belongs to you or to the team — see [Teams and the Team plan](https://timescrolly.com/help/teams-and-seats).

Visibility decides who can open it: Private, Public, or, for a team-owned timeline, Team. [Sharing and visibility](https://timescrolly.com/help/sharing-and-visibility) covers what each one actually exposes. A Start date is required, and so is an End date, unless you turn on Ongoing for something still happening. [Dates, BCE and fuzzy dates](https://timescrolly.com/help/dates) explains what counts as a valid date.

The rest can wait: a Description, Tags, and a default Date display for the viewer, all editable later from the Details tab.

## Add events and periods

Open the Items tab and choose Add item. Every item is either an Event, something that happened at a single point in time, or a Period, which has its own Start and End (or Ongoing) the same way the timeline does. You choose which when you create it; the kind can't be changed afterwards. A Title and a date are required; the date form asks for a plain Gregorian date until you turn on the Advanced switch beside it, which adds the calendar, the era and a stated uncertainty — [Dates, BCE and fuzzy dates](https://timescrolly.com/help/dates) explains them. Notes, tags, sources and a location are optional, and images and other attachments can be added once the item exists. Star one of an item's images to show it on the timeline next to the item's title.

## Sources and citations

A source is a book, an article, a chapter, a thesis, a report, a paper or talk given at an event, a website, a piece of media or an archival record that you cite. Sources live in one library that belongs to your account, to a team or to the site, not to a single timeline: you add a source once and cite it from as many items, entities and relations as you like, each time with a Locator, such as "p. 42", that says where in it. In the form of an item, an entity or a relation, choose Add citation under Citations, pick a source from the library of the timeline's owner (or of the entity's) or make a new one on the spot, and fill in the locator if you want one. The kind you give a source (Book, Article, Chapter, Thesis, Report, Paper or talk, Website, Media, Archival or Other) decides which fields its form asks for; a paper printed in conference proceedings is a Chapter. The formatted references show under what cites them, and editing a source corrects every citation of it at once.

Choose Sources in the sidebar to see a whole library, with the same Mine, Team and, for site admins, Site tabs as the Entities page. Each source is listed with its kind and how many items, entities and relations cite it, and in a team's library the owner, admins and contributors add, edit and delete them. A timeline's Sources tab lists the sources its items cite; if you can edit the timeline, Whole library next to Cited here shows the owner's entire library instead, and New source adds to it. Readers see only the sources the timeline's items cite, never the rest of the library. A source that anything cites can't be deleted, items in the trash included; Delete stays off, marked In use, until you remove its citations or the items are gone for good. A library holds up to 2,000 sources on Free; on Pro and Team there is no practical limit (the safeguard is 100,000). See [pricing](https://timescrolly.com/plans) for the current numbers.

To bring in sources you already have, choose Import on the Sources page, or in a timeline's Sources tab under Whole library, and pick a CSL JSON or BibTeX file of up to 5,000 entries and 5 MB, saved as UTF-8. Zotero's File → Export Library… → CSL JSON gives the cleanest result; a .bib file works too, with more notes on individual entries. Choose Check file to see every entry before anything is added: entries already in the library and entries that can't be read are listed separately and left out, and you can untick any others you don't want. Nothing in the library is changed or merged, and a field a source has no place for, such as an abstract or keywords, is not imported. Correct an imported source afterwards like any other.

## Nesting an event inside a period

An event whose date falls inside one of the timeline's periods can sit on that period instead of directly on the timeline. You choose the period when you add or edit the event; otherwise it stays on the timeline itself. An item's lane, which row it draws on, is chosen automatically.

## Places and the map

An item can have a location: a point, a route or a region, drawn on a map from the item's form with Add location. Where a place is only roughly known, give a point an uncertainty radius. The timeline's Map view shows every item that has a location as a pin, a line or an area; click one to open the item, and Show on timeline to jump to its moment. The list view shows the place's name beside the item. A location can also sit on a map of your own world instead of Earth; see [Custom maps](https://timescrolly.com/help/maps).

## Find your way around the viewer

Open viewer, on the timeline's page, takes you into it. Drag to pan across time, or scroll — holding Shift moves across lanes instead of through time. Zoom with Ctrl/Cmd and the scroll wheel, by pinching on a trackpad or touchscreen, or by double-clicking (or double-tapping) the spot you want a closer look at; the keyboard's + and - keys zoom too, 0 fits the whole timeline in view, and Home and End jump to its start and end. Press ? at any time for the full list of shortcuts, and / to search the items. Periods draw as bars and events as markers along a lane, and a period can be collapsed to make room. Where items sit too close together to tell apart at the current zoom, they gather into a cluster with a count: hover it to see what is inside, or click it to zoom just far enough for them to separate. A minimap and a search box help you get around a large timeline without scrolling the whole way there. On a phone, the timeline runs from top to bottom instead of left to right.

## Where to go next

Once it looks right, [share it or keep it private](https://timescrolly.com/help/sharing-and-visibility), [talk it over in comments](https://timescrolly.com/help/comments) on the timeline itself, or, on a paid plan, [invite people](https://timescrolly.com/help/collaborators) to work on it with you. To put it on a slide or on paper, see [Printing and images](https://timescrolly.com/help/printing-and-images).