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Add Videos

You can use videos in topics that you publish to HTML and HTML5. For other outputs, such as PDF, content will include a link to the video instead.

To use videos, you add a video frame to your topic and then set it to link to a video that is hosted elsewhere. You cannot upload videos to Paligo. For video hosting, Paligo supports:

  • Self-hosted videos

    This is when you host your videos on your own server or hosting space rather than on a third-party video service.

  • YouTube

  • Vimeo

  • Wistia

If you use a different video service, we may be able to support it, but it could require a customization (contact support for advice).

To use videos in your content, you will need to either host the video on your web server or use a video hosting service. Paligo supports videos on YouTube, Vimeo, and Wistia. If you use a different video service, we may be able to support it, but it could require a customization (contact support for advice).

Tip

If you also publish to PDF, the video will appear, but as a hyperlink to the video. By default, the link text will display the url, but you can add a caption in your mediaobject element, an alternative image to display, or the alt or textobject elements (if you don't want a caption in HTML output).

To add a video that is hosted by a video service such as YouTube:

  1. Select a position in the content where the mediaobject element is permitted. For example, between two para elements.

  2. Select Insert and then select image of video icon Video.

    Close up of Insert menu. A callout box highlights the Insert menu and the Video option inside it.

    A video frame appears.

    Video frame in a Paligo topic. It has a gray rectangle to represent the video frame and there is a dialog for entering the link to the video file.
  3. Select the frame to display a popup toolbar and insert the link to the video.

    • For YouTube, use the share link.

    • For Vimeo use the embed link.

    • For Wistia, you can use either the regular Inline embed or the iFrame (fallback) embed link:

      From the script tag in the embed code, locate the href attribute that ends with ?wvideo=<id> or the src attribute that ends in .jsonp. Copy and paste that attribute into the video frame in your Paligo topic.

      Read more about the types here: Inline embedFallback (iframe) Embed.

      Note

      The Wistia video embed is responsive by default, adapting to the size of the screen. But it has a max-width value set to 620px. If you want to change that default width, override this property in your CSS:

      .video-container.wistia{
          max-width: 620px; 
      }
      

      To use the entire screen space, set the value to none.

  4. Select Save. Save icon.

For YouTube and Vimeo videos, you will see a preview in the editor. Wistia and Microsoft Stream videos do not show a preview, but they will work just fine when you publish.

insertvideo.png

When you publish to HTML or HTML5 you should now see the video embedded in your content.

If you publish to PDF, you will see a link to the video (by default).

Note

If you are publishing videos to Zendesk, but cannot see them, you need to enable videos in the Zendesk settings: Why are videos not displaying in Help Center?

Instead of using a video service, you can self-host your videos and link to them from your Paligo topics. For this to work, you need to know where your videos are stored in relation to where your documentation will be stored. You will need to add the path to the video as the link address in your Paligo topic.

  1. Select a position in the content where the mediaobject element is permitted. For example, between two para elements.

  2. Select Insert and then select image of video icon Video.

    Close up of Insert menu. A callout box highlights the Insert menu and the Video option inside it.

    A video frame appears.

    Video frame in a Paligo topic. It has a gray rectangle to represent the video frame and there is a dialog for entering the link to the video file.
  3. For the video link, enter a relative link. This should be the path of the video file in relation to the location of the documentation files when published. For example, let's say you have a folder structure like this:

    • Documentation (folder)

      • out (folder)

        • en (folder)

          • HTML files

      • videos (folder)

        • video files

      Each time you publish from Paligo, you are going to replace the "out" folder with the "out" folder from the publication .zip file. Your videos will remain in the "videos" folder.

    For this type of structure, the link from your Paligo topic to your video file should look like this:

    "../videos/your-video-file.mp4"
  4. Select Save. Save icon.

When you publish to HTML or HTML5 you should now see the video embedded in your content.

If you publish to PDF, you will see a link to the video (by default).

Note

If you are publishing videos to Zendesk, but cannot see them, you need to enable videos in the Zendesk settings: Why are videos not displaying in Help Center?

You can set preferences for the videos that you reference in your Paligo content. For example, you can set a video to start playing as soon as a page is viewed or you can set it to start at a particular time in the recording. The process for setting your preferences varies depending on how you are hosting the video.

YouTube

For YouTube videos, add a "querystring" at the end of the link code (embedcode). For example, to autoplay a video, add this at the end of the link:

?autoplay=1

To add multiple parameters, use an ampersand between each parameter, for example:

?autoplay=1&start=34

In this example, we have set the video to play, starting at 34 seconds into the recording. Note that the start time is in seconds and the parameter does not use any time units.

For a list of the possible video parameters, see the YouTube documentation:  YouTube Embedded Players and Player Parameters .

Vimeo

For Vimeo videos, add a "querystring" at the end of the link code (embedcode). For example, to autoplay a video, add this at the end of the link:

?autoplay=1

To add multiple preferences, use an ampersand between each parameter, for example:

?autoplay=1&#t=1m2s

In this example, we have set the video to play, starting at 1 minute and 2 seconds into the recording.

For a list of the possible video parameters, see the Vimeo documentation:  Using Player Parameters.

Wistia

For Wistia videos:

  1. In Paligo, edit the topic that contains the link to the video.

  2. Select the video and then select the videodata element in the Element Structure Menu.

  3. Select Go to element.

  4. Add the autoplay attribute in the Element attributes panel and set its value to true if you want the video to play automatically. Set it to false if you do not want it to autoplay.

    Note

    Use the autoplay attribute for all parameters, not just automatic video playback.

  5. For any other video parameters, add them after the true or false value and separate them with a semi-colon, for example:

    true;time=0m34s

    This example will set a video to autoplay and start at 34 seconds into the recording.

    For a list of the possible parameters, see the Wistia documentation: Embed Options and Plugin .

    Note

    Take care to use the correct capitalization of the properties.

  6. Select Save. Save icon.

Self-Hosted

If you use self-hosted videos, they will autoplay automatically on Chromium browsers. These are browsers that are based on the open-source Chromium project and include Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. To prevent autoplay on these browsers, you can use the autoplay attribute:

  1. In Paligo, edit the topic that contains the link to the video.

  2. Select the video and then select the videodata element in the Element Structure Menu.

  3. Select Go to element.

  4. Add the autoplay attribute in the Element attributes panel and set its value to true if you want the video to play automatically. Set it to false if you do not want it to autoplay.

  5. Select Save. Save icon.