---
title: Edit your overlay
description: The overlay editor - drag, resize, and style your widgets on your overlay's canvas.
---

Click **Edit** on any overlay to open the editor: a canvas at the overlay's own resolution (1920 x 1080 by default, chosen when you create the overlay) showing exactly what OBS will render, with live previews of your alerts and now-playing bar using your real fonts, colours, and currency.

{/* SCREENSHOT /images/overlay/editor.png : The overlay editor with a few widgets on the canvas, the Layers list and Inspector visible in the left sidebar, and the tip alert preview showing "Test User tipped £5". Uncomment the Frame below once taken. */}
{/* <Frame caption="The overlay editor - what you see is what OBS renders.">
![The overlay editor](/images/overlay/editor.png)
</Frame> */}

## The basics

- **Add widget** - pick from tip alert, media player, tip goal, chat, and Emotesplosion. There are layout presets too if you'd rather start from something sensible.
- **Drag and resize** anything on the canvas. The **Layers** list in the sidebar shows every widget with reorder arrows (stacking order - top of the list is on top of the stream), a visibility eye, and a remove button.
- **The eye means invisible, not off.** A hidden widget keeps running on stream - media still plays and you'll still hear it, alert sounds and TTS still fire - it just doesn't render. To turn a widget off completely, remove it from the layout.
- **Inspector** - select a widget to get its settings: position, size, style, colours, fonts, and per-widget options. **Lock position** stops accidental nudges.
- **Grid snap** and **Safe frame** (in the settings gear) help you line things up and keep clear of the edges.
- **Save** - changes apply to the live overlay the moment you save. The overlay in OBS reloads itself; no manual refresh needed.

## Styling your alerts

Select the **Tip alert** widget. You get the entrance **Animation** (Slide up, Rise, Fade, Pop, Drop in, Sweep), **Text motion** (Float, Breathe, Pulse, Wave, Bounce, Shimmer, or none), colours for the donor name, amount, and message, and the **Font**.

One style to rule them all: the alert style, animation, and font you set here also apply to your Twitch alerts, so every alert matches.

The **Donation audio** section controls this overlay's sound: whether tips are read aloud here, whether message text shows, and the volume. Per-event toggles and sounds live on the [Alerts page](/alerts/twitch-alerts); the TTS voice itself lives on the [TTS page](/queues/tts).

## Checking your work

- The canvas previews are static mock data ("Test User tipped £5") so you can style without spamming yourself.
- **Live view** (top bar) opens the real overlay URL in a new tab.
- For the full end-to-end test - through the actual queue, with sound - use [test alerts](/alerts/test-alerts).