PowerDirector Library Window Overview

Everything you can put on a PowerDirector timeline comes out of the Library Window, the panel running down the left of the editing screen. It is split into nine tabs, and knowing which one holds what saves a lot of hunting: your own footage in the first, and the built-in titles, transitions, effects, overlays and ready-made templates spread across the rest.

The library takes up the left side of the editing window, with its tabs along the top. Whichever tab you're on, the contents work the same way: click something to preview it, then drag it onto the timeline. There's also a My Favorites tab at the end, where anything you star from the other tabs collects, which is worth using once you notice yourself reaching for the same handful of assets.

This is where your own footage, photos, and audio land after you import them, under My Media. It's the tab you'll spend most of your time in.

The same tab also opens the online asset library, a large collection of stock video, images, and backgrounds you can search and pull in without leaving PowerDirector. Handy when you need a filler shot or a background and don't want to go hunting for one elsewhere.

Music and sound effects live here, both the ones you import and the built-in library. There's an AI music generator in this tab too, for when you need a bed of music at a specific length and nothing in the library quite fits.

Ready-made text templates, from plain lower thirds to fully animated openers. Drag one onto the timeline and you can then rewrite the text and restyle it, so these are starting points rather than fixed designs.

The effects that carry one clip into the next: fades, wipes, dissolves, and a lot of more decorative options. Drop one on the join between two clips to carry the first into the second, or on the start or end of a single clip to open or close on it.

Anything that changes how a clip looks, including color styles, distortions, blurs, and film looks. Hover a thumbnail and it previews the effect, which is far quicker than applying each one to find out what it does.

Graphics that sit on top of your footage: stickers, frames, light leaks, particles, and animated decorations. These go on a track above your main clip, so they layer over the picture rather than replacing it.

The subtitle workspace, including AI speech-to-text, which transcribes your audio and lays the subtitles out along the timeline for you. You can also write them by hand or import an existing subtitle file.

Whole pre-built sequences rather than single assets: intros, outros, and short motion-graphic segments with the timing already worked out. Drop one in and swap its placeholder clips and text for your own, which gets you a polished opener without building the animation yourself.