Sacred

A manga page lets the reader take in several panels together. A vertical webtoon can hold the next image below the screen, revealing it only when someone scrolls. That difference sounds small until you try to move the same conversation, action sequence, or surprise from one layout into the other.

You can make a digital manga, draw a black-and-white webtoon, or publish a manga-inspired story in either layout. The real question is how readers will read the finished comic and what a later layout change will cost you.

Manga vs webtoon: the difference that matters

Manga is a comics tradition associated with Japan. Manhwa refers to Korean comics. A webtoon describes a digital comic presented for continuous scrolling, especially on a phone. People mix up the terms because one names where a comic comes from and the other names how it is displayed.

Japanese manga traditionally follows a right-to-left page-reading convention. With a vertically scrolling webtoon, the reader advances downward through the artwork.

Neither format requires a particular color palette: a manga-inspired comic can use full color, and a scroll-format comic can use black ink and tones. WEBTOON is also the name of a publishing platform, while vertical scrolling describes the layout itself.

When you make a comic, the useful comparison is between a sequence of individually composed pages and a continuous vertical sequence. The unit you design around changes. For a page, you plan the full arrangement of panels, including any page turn or facing spread. For a vertical comic, you plan around what fits on the reader’s screen.

How page turns and scrolling change the same scene

A character reaches an apartment door. A sound comes from the hallway. The character opens the door and finds something unexpected.

On a manga page, you can place the hand on the doorknob, the sound effect, and the character’s reaction in neighboring panels. The reader sees their relative sizes and positions. If the discovery belongs on the next page, turning that page becomes part of the surprise.

In a vertical webtoon, the door occupies one portion of the scroll, the sound another, and the unexpected discovery a third. You can put the discovery below the visible screen and use the reader’s scrolling movement to reveal it.

Both formats can stretch or compress a moment. A wide page panel stops the eye on a landscape or a sudden expression. A tall scroll panel keeps a scene unfolding beyond one screen. Space between panels also matters: a gutter separates moments on a page, while vertical distance alters the timing between images on a phone.

A long empty gap before a reveal builds anticipation. The same gap between two ordinary dialogue panels makes the conversation slow to read.

Dialogue creates another constraint. A balloon placed too early exposes a response before the reader reaches the reaction. Moving a scene between layouts can mean moving its speech balloons even when the drawings stay the same.

A 2023 eye-tracking study by Ching-Shiuan Chen compared page flipping and scrolling with 20 participants and subsequent interviews, and reported differences in reading and navigation behavior. In another 2023 study, Clare Kirtley and colleagues examined six panel-layout variations in one experiment and found that panel arrangement and the placement of content, including text, affect navigation through comics.

For the apartment-door scene, mark on a page thumbnail the order in which you want the reader to see each panel and speech balloon. On the vertical version, find where the discovery first enters the screen.

Which format fits the comic you want to make?

Start with what you plan to publish. Your taste and the extra work you will accept decide the rest.

For an original one-shot, the choice is straightforward: a physical zine and a phone-native episode give readers different experiences. The hard case is a continuing series that may need both later.

Some artists enjoy composing a full page, balancing several shots and using the turn to reveal the next scene. Others prefer letting a single image extend down the screen and using vertical space as part of the storytelling.

A comic distributed online can still be designed as pages. Guided panel viewing makes traditional pages easier to navigate on a small screen while preserving the page artwork.

Converting manga to webtoon and webtoon to manga

Much of the artwork survives a change in format, but you rebuild the layout. Resizing images leaves the original panel relationships intact. Repaneling changes those relationships to suit a different reading experience.

Converting pages to vertical scroll

Stack the page panels vertically for a first pass. A small close-up that worked beside a large panel becomes tiny on a phone. Balloons sized for the page shrink with the image, and unusual panel shapes leave awkward gaps between scenes. A good adaptation means enlarging panels, spacing them out, moving dialogue and extending backgrounds. Sometimes you also draw new parts of a character. A page-turn reveal needs its own solution when the reader is scrolling continuously.

Converting vertical scroll to printed pages

The reverse direction creates its own composition problem. A tall image becomes two or more panels. Pauses that depend on scrolling disappear once neighboring moments share a printed page. A character framed for a narrow phone screen leaves too little background for a wider print composition.

A writer whose comic appears on Facebook and Webtoon described how collaborating illustrators approached the two formats:

Keep characters, backgrounds and lettering on separate layers, and draw past the crop. That costs time up front, and an elaborate spread or a scroll reveal still needs a new composition. Even so, a later layout starts with more material than a flattened, tightly cropped image offers.

If you want a printed book, plan for it early

Your work has to fit physical pages: trim boundaries, margins, binding, and an intentional sequence of page turns.

A tall webtoon strip can be placed into a PDF, but a good printed edition needs its scenes composed for pages. Long vertical panels get divided, and a pause that scrolling used to create becomes a page turn or a new arrangement of smaller panels.

One creator described the frustration of realizing that their phone-oriented series no longer matched the printed edition they wanted:

Printed adaptations of webtoons exist, and how they look is partly a matter of artistic preference.

Print also adds production rules. Depending on the printer, artwork extending to the page edge requires bleed, and dialogue needs to stay clear within the final trimmed area.

For a planned print edition, make a two-page proof at the size and margins specified by your printing service. Inspect the lettering, the visible space near the binding, and how a scene reads across the page turn.

Canvas size, export files and phone readability

The master artwork preserves layers, fine line work, original resolution, and material beyond the final crop. The upload version is scaled, compressed, and divided into shorter files. Series and episode thumbnails serve their own purposes and need separate images.

Clip Studio Paint documents a webtoon on-screen-area preview and an export process for splitting long artwork into vertical JPG or PNG files.

WEBTOON Academy’s 2024 checklist gave an 800 × 1,280-pixel preparation size for individual episode images. Upload limits and processing rules depend on the publishing destination.

A creator described what happened when exporting much larger working artwork into smaller webtoon images:

The creator’s files shrink from 2400 × 10,000 px to 800 × 1280 px. On a phone, the exported pixel dimensions, resizing process, and displayed size affect how the art appears. DPI metadata serves a different purpose from the number of pixels available on the screen.

Export a representative segment using your service’s file settings, then view it on a phone at its normal reading size. Inspect the smallest speech balloons, line quality, panel joins, and spacing between moments. A file that meets an upload limit can still be difficult to read.

Platforms and reading formats

• MANGA Plus Creators by SHUEISHA supports horizontal and vertical reading formats.
• GlobalComix documents an Interactive Reading Mode for guided panel-by-panel viewing of page artwork.
• WEBTOON CANVAS provides a publishing workflow for vertically arranged episodes.

The MANGA Plus Creators FAQ states that changing a published episode’s reading direction requires deleting and reposting it, which resets its views, likes, favorites, and badges. Before publishing, look up the service’s reading-direction setting and its rules for changing that setting after release.

Test one scene in three layouts

Adapt one short scene three ways before you draw a series. Keep the story the same and change only the layout. Use the apartment-door scene from earlier.

Version A: A composed page

Arrange the door, sound, reaction, and discovery as intentional panels. Decide which panels share a page and whether the surprise waits for the page turn. Letter the scene to follow the page-reading direction you chose.

Version B: The original panels stacked vertically

Separate the panels and place them one beneath another without changing their proportions. Expect the reaction panel to get too narrow for comfortable reading and the surprise to show up on the screen earlier than you want.

Version C: A composition designed for scrolling

Now arrange the scene around scrolling. Make the door a tall image. Give the noise and the reaction their own moments, and position the discovery below the initially visible screen area.

How to interpret the result

Judge the result in this order:

• Reading experience: Does the reveal land where you want it, and can the dialogue be followed in your main format? If the scene fails that requirement, the layout needs work regardless of how much art you reused.
• Extra work: Identify which backgrounds, character crops, balloons, and panels needed adjustment. Count the components that require new drawing or substantial rearrangement.
• If you want both formats: When both layouts read well, compare the extra work of maintaining the other edition. A format that looks excellent alone can demand too much repeated adaptation for the series you plan to make.

If the page version gives the stronger reveal and the scroll version gives clearer lettering on a phone, the version your readers will mostly use decides which strength wins.

Open WEBTOON’s publishing website

Open WEBTOON’s Publish page in a desktop browser, then sign in or create an account. CANVAS is WEBTOON’s free platform for independent creators. Originals is a separate, commissioned program. You publish on the website, because the reader app only reads comics. Confirm your Creator Nickname before you continue. It appears on series and episode pages, your Creator Profile, and comments.

Prepare your series art and episode files

Four kinds of images are involved in publishing a comic. The square and vertical series thumbnails stand for the whole series. An episode thumbnail marks one episode. The episode images are the comic itself.

WEBTOON recommends 202 × 142 px for the redesigned episode list, but the size does not guarantee an uncropped display.

Put the finished artwork in story order, opening panel first. Keep your editable originals separate from the exported upload files so corrections never overwrite the source.

Create your CANVAS series

Your first upload starts with a series, which holds all your episodes. If you already have one, open it from the creator Dashboard and add the next episode there.

WEBTOON’s official publishing guide lists what a new series requires:

1. Enter a series title and summary. These describe the entire comic and are separate from individual episode titles.
2. Choose up to two Categories. Older guides call these Genres.
3. Upload both series thumbnails to their corresponding fields.
4. Review and acknowledge the Community Policy, Privacy Policy, and CANVAS Terms.
5. Complete the Content Rating questionnaire when the publishing flow prompts you, then finish creating the series.

The Last Lantern is a series. Chapter 1 is one episode in it.

One creator’s square thumbnail kept failing on two devices with several different images.

The same image uploaded fine for a friend, and the cause stayed unknown. If yours fails, use the troubleshooting table below.

Complete the required Content Rating assessment

WEBTOON’s expanded Content Rating questionnaire is part of new-series creation and episode publishing. The rollout began April 21, 2026. WEBTOON announced an update on May 27, 2026. Starting June 1, 2026 (Eastern Time), it stopped existing series without the renewed rating from adding episodes.

For an existing series marked Not Yet Rated, go to Dashboard → Manage Series → Content Rating Self Assessment. Creators who completed the older assessment also had to complete the renewed version.

The questionnaire covers Violence, Sexual Content, Nudity, Profanity, and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Substance content. It also asks about relevant sensitive themes, including abuse, bullying, mental-health crises, extremism, and gambling. Answer based on what your series contains. WEBTOON assigns the classification from your responses. When it appears, click Approve to finalize the rating.

WEBTOON uses four ratings: All-Ages for general audiences, Teen (13+) for readers 13 and older, Young Adult (16+) for readers 16 and older, and Mature (18+) for adults. WEBTOON says All-Ages, Teen, and Young Adult series remain visible to readers of all ages, while Mature series cannot be accessed by readers under 18. Not Yet Rated is an interim restricted state that blocks new episodes.

The rating does not exempt any material from WEBTOON’s Community Policy or Uploading Guidelines. If WEBTOON changes or locks your rating, you can appeal through creator support.

Full instructions are in WEBTOON’s Content Rating update.

Upload your episode and preview it

Once the series can accept another episode, open it in the Dashboard or continue from the new-series flow. Enter an episode title, upload the comic images in story order, and add the episode thumbnail to its own field.

If you export five images and swap the third and fourth, the filenames still look tidy, but readers get the scene out of order.

Before release, open the episode in the creator preview, including the mobile view, and look over the resulting sequence:

• Reading order: Follow the scene and speech balloons through to the final panel.
• Lettering: Dialogue should stay legible at the narrow display size.
• Gaps: Look for missing images, abrupt seams, accidental blank space, and cut-off panels.
• Final artwork: Watch for blurry exports, sketch remnants, and unintended marks.
• Title and thumbnail: Both should match this episode.

Choose publish, schedule, or save draft

WEBTOON’s Help Center says saved draft episodes must be published in the order they were saved. If you save Episode 5 before Episode 3, setting dates does not reorder them. Save drafts in the order you plan to release them.

What happens when every Friday update gets drawn that same week? One creator’s answer:

A buffer of finished episodes keeps a weekly schedule easier to maintain.

Fix an upload that won’t go through

If an upload fails, work out whether the problem is a thumbnail, an episode file, or permission to publish. WEBTOON’s file-upload troubleshooting guidance lists specific checks for transfer problems.

Look at the published episode the way readers see it

After you publish, or once a scheduled episode’s release time arrives, open the public series page and look at what readers see. The series and episode list should show the right series title, published episode, thumbnail, and episode order. Scroll through the live episode once on a phone to judge text size, panel spacing, and readability. A saved draft stays private, and a future scheduled episode is not yet available as a published episode.

A correctly sized thumbnail can still show up cropped, as this post shows:

Why isn’t my series showing up in WEBTOON search?

Apostrophes and ampersands in a title can interfere with WEBTOON search. Search for another word from the title without those characters, or open your public series page to see whether the episode is available.

What size does WEBTOON CANVAS require for each image?

Each episode image can be up to 800 pixels wide and 1280 pixels tall. The limit applies per image, so a scrolling episode can run far beyond 1280 pixels when it’s built from several consecutive images.

WEBTOON uses several image assets. A series cover has different dimensions from the artwork inside an episode, and publishing a series requires both the square and the vertical thumbnail.

The file-size and image-count limits come from WEBTOON’s Before You Publish Checklist, which covers the 2024 rules. The creator dashboard decides which files the uploader accepts when you publish.

WEBTOON’s New Series Home announcement, updated June 24, 2025, encouraged creators to prepare 202 × 142 images for a wider display. That makes 202 × 142 a recommendation for the wider display. Older app layouts crop thumbnails differently.

An 800 × 1280 episode export has different proportions from the square and vertical series covers. Decide which asset you’re making before you enter dimensions in your drawing app.

Should you draw at 800 pixels wide or work larger?

An 800-pixel-wide file works as the finished upload. It’s cramped for detailed artwork. A larger editable canvas gives you more pixels, which helps with small figures, thin lines, and lettering.

One Clip Studio Paint creator works on a 1600 × 2560-pixel canvas. Halving both dimensions gives an 800 × 1280-pixel export with the same proportions. The 1600-pixel width is the artist’s own choice.

That gives you two files with different jobs:

• Editable master: The layered artwork, where you refine lines, move lettering, adjust colors, and fix mistakes.
• Delivery image: The smaller rendered file at WEBTOON’s upload dimensions.

Some artists go taller. Another Clip Studio user demonstrated a 1600 × 25,600-pixel canvas.

The trade-off is memory and editing performance: a simple drawing works at 800 pixels wide, while a complex scene needs the extra room.

One Krita user hit a pixelation problem while drawing a small scene on an upload-sized canvas:

The figures sit in a small corner. A face that fills a tiny fraction of an 800-pixel-wide image has few pixels for its eyes and mouth.

DPI adds to the confusion. The quoted canvas is 800 pixels wide whether its metadata says 350 DPI, 300 DPI, or another value. Changing the metadata without resampling adds no detail.

Before you commit to a long chapter, draw a small detail on your planned working canvas and view a test-size export.

Resize, crop, or slice?

Resizing, cropping, and slicing solve different problems. The wrong choice distorts your comic, cuts off its edges, or splits it in unexpected places.

A working image measures 1600 × 5000 pixels. Cut the width to 800 pixels, a 50% reduction. With the proportions locked, the height drops to 2500 pixels.

Slice that 800 × 2500 export vertically into two consecutive files:

1. First slice: 800 × 1280 pixels.
2. Second slice: 800 × 1220 pixels.

The combined height stays 2500 pixels. A shorter last image is normal and needs no stretching.

If you change a 1080-pixel-wide canvas boundary to 800 pixels and leave the drawing at its original scale, you lose artwork at the sides. If you force width and height into unrelated proportions, circles turn into ovals. Link width and height when you scale the image.

A panel can cross a slice boundary. The exported pieces display one after another in the scrolling episode, so a single illustrated panel can span several upload images.

WEBTOON also optimizes and splits long uploaded images automatically. For manual control, the Clip Studio Paint Webtoons manual covers File > Export webtoon, output-width adjustments, vertical division, and numbered files.

Keep your layered master intact and convert a separate copy. Open the exported segments in order before you submit them.

PNG or JPEG, and how to stay under the size limits

A file with the correct pixel dimensions can still exceed an upload limit on size.

PNG and JPEG behave differently:

• PNG: Test it when clean line edges, flat colors, and lettering matter. Expect larger files.
• JPEG: Adjustable compression reduces file size for detailed or photographic images. Aggressive compression adds artifacts around lines and text.

Clip Studio Paint’s Prefer quality setting for reducing comic images affects how downscaled artwork looks.

Export the same finished image as PNG and as JPEG at the required pixel dimensions. Compare the lettering and line edges, then read off each file’s size. If a file exceeds the limit, adjust its export compression and compare again.

For a multi-image episode, add up the file sizes and count the files too. Every image can fit its limit while the whole episode goes over 20 MB.

Square, vertical, and episode thumbnails

Each thumbnail needs its own composition, so make a separate file for each one. A square cover, a tall cover, and a wide episode thumbnail each frame the focal point differently.

Stretching one image into all three shapes distorts a character, and cropping can cut off a face or title near the edge. Put a portrait near the center of the square cover. Use the vertical cover to show a full pose or costume. Give the wide episode thumbnail a tighter crop.

One creator described trying seven versions of a thumbnail:

Commenters pointed to file size, and a simpler composition changes both the focal point and the compressed size.

For each finished thumbnail, measure its dimensions and its size in KB, then confirm the focal point survives the display crop.

Panel spacing, lettering, and the reader’s mobile view

Read the full exported episode in WEBTOON’s mobile and desktop previews. Make sure balloons read in order, the text is legible, and the scenes flow with the pauses you intended.

Fine lettering gets hard to read at phone size even when the export meets its pixel requirements. A comic that reads well on a large drawing monitor can need different lettering or spacing on a phone.

Spacing between panels sets the pause before the next scene.

Why does the uploaded Webtoon look blurry even when the dimensions are right?

If your original art looks sharp but the uploaded episode looks soft, find the first stage where the look changes. That stage tells you which setting to adjust.

A MediBang user tried the 1600-to-800 workflow and still got a blurry upload:

The author’s local 1600-width PNG looked clean, and the softness appeared in the WEBTOON preview.

A second creator compared the saved file with the uploaded version and noticed something about browser zoom:

Commenters pointed to 125% Windows display scaling.

If the softness appears only in the browser, sort out the display setting before you re-export a whole chapter. If the local export already looks soft, work on its conversion settings.

Upload rejected or image cropped?

If an image is rejected or looks cut off, start with the exact error message or symptom. A correctly sized image can still be too large in KB, use an unsupported format, crop badly, or run into a separate publishing requirement.

The 2024 checklist asks for English letters and numbers in the filenames of square series and episode thumbnails. If a thumbnail fails to load, look at its filename.

Sort out which error you have before you change any files. If the cause stays unclear, upload a simple image that meets the dimension, format, and file-size requirements. If that fails too, with no message about the file, look at the creator dashboard or publishing workflow next.

WEBTOON’s official upload troubleshooting guide, updated April 22, 2026, names a content-rating questionnaire as one reason a new episode can be blocked. Your images can be compliant and the episode still stays blocked until you complete that questionnaire.

Start with a webtoon you can finish

For a first webtoon, pick one small story you can finish, from sketch to published episode. You need a character who wants something, an event that changes the situation, and an ending that rewards the reader for scrolling.

A vertical-scroll comic reveals its panels as the reader moves down a phone screen. A fixed-page comic can show several panels together and can use a page turn as a reveal. WEBTOON CANVAS is a publishing service for comics. The term webtoon also covers a broader format.

Use this original practice scene: a musician stands outside a closed practice-room door, certain an audition went badly. A shadow moves inside. Just as the musician reaches for the handle, a folded note slides out beneath it. The note reads, “You’re in.”

Black-and-white or limited color is fine. You don’t need a set panel count or a cliffhanger. Pick your reading format and your publishing platform early, because both shape the files you prepare.

Write the scene before drawing panels

Write only what the artist draws and the reader reads. A few story beats are enough for a first episode.

Those beats become five shots:

1. A wide shot shows the musician, guitar case, hallway and closed door.
2. A close-up shows the musician’s hand reaching toward the handle.
3. At floor level, a folded note slips through the gap beneath the door.
4. The musician crouches and picks up the note, keeping its message hidden.
5. A close-up of the paper opening reveals “You’re in.”

Sketch those shots as rough rectangles with stick figures, camera angles and space for balloons. The story is cheap to change at this stage. A missing action, such as the note jumping from the floor into the musician’s hand, shows up right away in the sequence.

When a writer works with an artist, approve this rough strip together before finished drawing begins. The storyboard shows who appears in each shot, where the dialogue goes and exactly when the reader sees the message.

Design the scroll

Vertical spacing controls when the next image appears on a reader’s screen. Use it to separate a quick action from a pause and to hold the answer to a visual question until the right moment.

Reveal in the same screen

If the approaching hand, the note and the words “You’re in” sit close together, the reader sees the answer while the musician is still reaching for the door. The scene makes sense, but the suspense is gone.

Reveal after a scroll

Now put the hand and the slipping note on the first screen and hide the message. Leave enough vertical space that the unfolded paper comes into view on a later scroll. The reader discovers the result along with the musician.

Short gaps suit continuous motion or rapid conversation. A wider pause suits an important discovery. Very long empty stretches make ordinary actions tedious to scroll. Clip Studio Paint’s vertical-webtoon guide covers the phone viewport and how the space between images changes the reading experience.

For English-language dialogue, place balloons and reactions in reading order as the page moves downward. A tall image lets the reader travel through one continuous setting. Separate panels make changes in camera angle, place or moment easier to spot.

Scroll both rough layouts at your intended viewing width and keep the one where the pause and the discovery land where you want them.

Choose a drawing workflow and a working canvas

Choose tools that handle a small editable comic, legible lettering and usable exports on the device you own. Clip Studio Paint, Krita and MediBang Paint all work for webtoons.

You can build the episode on one long canvas or in several shorter segments:

• Long editable canvas: It makes the overall vertical sequence easier to see, but large files can strain some devices.
• Shorter working segments: They’re easier to handle separately, but you have to watch the joins and the story’s continuity when you assemble them.

A large editable master gives you room to draw and revise. Exports can be smaller, because the publishing service only has to display the finished work. For screen images, pixel width and height determine the delivered pixel count. DPI metadata alone does not set on-screen sharpness.

Make one small test panel, save it with editable elements, reopen it and export a separate image. It shows whether your device and software cope before you commit to a full episode.

Make the artwork consistent without overbuilding it

Give the musician a reference showing the hairstyle, coat, guitar-case shape and a few expressions. Then sketch the practice-room doorway from the angles the scene needs.

Draw from roughs to clean lines and add color or tone where it helps the story. Any reused background or prop assets should be yours or properly licensed.

Keep the character recognizable in the wide hallway shot, the hand close-up and the reaction to the note. Look at those recurring details across three panels before you spend time on decorative detail that will disappear on a phone.

Letter for the phone screen

Lettering belongs in the composition from the start. A balloon that fills the editor window at high zoom can look cramped at phone width.

Put “I blew it” with the musician’s waiting shot. Reserve “You’re in” for the final close-up of the unfolded note. The distance between those lines is part of the story. A balloon that appears too early spoils the visual reveal even when the drawings are in the right order.

Leave a margin between the text and the balloon edge, keep the contrast strong, and place each speaker’s words along the reading path. If a balloon covers the artwork, add a panel. Split long speeches where the thought changes.

Read the lettered episode at phone size without zooming in. Follow each balloon in sequence and make sure every word is comfortable to read.

Export the episode without damaging the artwork

The editable drawing, the image you export, the file the publishing service accepts and the picture a reader sees are four different states. When an image looks distorted or soft, compare them one by one.

In Clip Studio Paint’s WEBTOON-oriented export example, prepared segments are 800 pixels wide and up to 1,280 pixels high. Those are example upload dimensions for WEBTOON. Other platforms set their own limits.

Keep proportions unchanged when you reduce an image. Forcing a wide drawing into a mismatched width and height stretches faces and balloons, and cropping removes whatever falls outside the crop. To control the breaks between panels, export numbered segments yourself. WEBTOON also described automatic optimization and slicing of long uploads in a 2021 platform notice. If you use an automated upload, use the platform preview.

PNG and JPEG trade file size against visible image quality differently. Choose a format the platform accepts.

When the saved image looks fine but the upload looks soft

A beginner in r/WebtoonCanvas described the difference between a crisp local file and its uploaded appearance:

The author reported a difference between the saved PNG and the platform preview. The cause was unresolved. To find where your version changes, compare the same detail in a small sample at each stage:

1. Open the exported image outside the drawing editor at its display size and look for blur, distortion, clipped edges and unreadable dialogue.
2. Compare the export with the editable master. If the difference is already there, look at your export and scaling choices. If it appears only in the uploaded preview, look at the processed output and display conditions.
3. Change one setting in a new test export and compare the same region again before you redo the full episode.

Preview the whole episode and protect your files

Read the complete uploaded sequence in the platform’s preview, from the first panel to the final message. WEBTOON CANVAS offers both PC and Mobile previews, and its WEBTOON CANVAS episode-preview guide lists several problems to catch before you publish.

• Sequence: Confirm that every image appears in the right order, with no missing movement and no duplicated segment.
• Unwanted marks: Look for hidden guide lines, unfinished layers, opacity errors and rough sketch remnants in the rendered images.
• Spacing: Make sure the panel gaps set the reading rhythm you want and don’t interrupt a continuous action by accident.
• Clarity: Make sure dialogue, line work and important objects stay visible in the final preview.

In the musician example, say a faint construction line shows up behind the finished note after export. Fix the source file and replace that image before you publish.

Keep a backup of the editable project, separate from the publication files. One episode folder holds the source project and exports named episode_01_001.png and episode_01_002.png. Open a saved copy of the project to confirm the backup works. The final PNG files alone don’t keep editable text or original layers.

Publish and choose a schedule

A finished episode needs series information and separate publishing assets. On WEBTOON CANVAS, the publication flow runs through the website’s creator tools: sign in, set up the creator identity and series, enter a title and summary, select up to two categories, then prepare the episode.

WEBTOON requires different images for a series listing and an individual episode. The WEBTOON thumbnail guidance, updated July 22, 2026, specifies:

The guide accepts JPG, JPEG and PNG thumbnails and specifies English letters and numbers for episode-thumbnail filenames. Thumbnail dimensions apply to promotional images. Episode art follows its own export requirements.

The WEBTOON publishing process also requires the content-rating questionnaire and an assigned rating. The WEBTOON CANVAS publishing instructions cover series setup, episode upload and the choice to publish or schedule.

Choose a release interval from measured work

In an October 2023 creator article, WEBTOON recommended launching with three episodes and left the number to the creator. For a first pilot, finish one complete episode before you commit to a release rhythm.

Record the time you spend on scripting, thumbnails, artwork, lettering, export and final review. Add those up to get your production time for the pilot, then compare it with the hours you can reliably give comics each week. If an episode took 12 hours and you have 6 hours a week, that’s 2 weeks per episode. Plan around your own measured numbers, not an assumed industry average.