Screencasting with Camtasia 2018

​I've been using Camtasia to create screen recording videos since 2011. I learned much of what I know by trial and error, but also got to be a beta tester before the release of Camtasia 8, which included training on some features I'd never thought to use. Fast forward to 2018, and TechSmith has released their first Camtasia Certification process. ​

Camtasia Certification™ Process

For certification, you have the option to go through 10 separate courses and their quizzes - all related to various aspects of screencasting. You can also skip all that and just take the certification test without going through the courses. 

​I opted for the video courses - just in case I might pick up a few new tricks. The courses include some 15 hours of video content. Thank goodness for watching at double-speed. The narrator does get a bit long-winded at times, and not being a beginner, I didn't need to dwell on every explanation. Overall, the certification courses were very helpful and on point (and I did learn a few new tricks). 

The course author's process is much like my own. We'll take a quick look at each of the courses, which walk through the process of creating a screencast.

Preparing to Create Screencasts

No matter which tool you use for screen recordings, you'll want to prepare accordingly - not only with a script and storyboard, but by making sure the environment you plan to record is ready. Turn off notifications and clear your computer desktop of clutter.

Recording Audio and Narration

While Camtasia does offer voice narration tools, like the course author, I find it more efficient to do the bulk of my narration recording outside Camtasia in Audacity. Camtasia's audio editing tools are passable. The one thing in this area that I learned the hard way is that Camtasia does better with WAV files rather than MP3 (as of mid 2018).  

Recording Your Screencasts

When you start a new recording in Camtasia, you have the option to control what you capture with this toolbar. You set your area, as well as controlling whether to include the webcam and audio. I find it much more straightforward to leave the camera and audio off (unless you need to record system audio). But recording audio as you go through the recording process has its merits for some situations. 

There are some handy menu settings you can use before you start recording, including:

• Capture>Lock to application (resizes the window to record to the selected dimensions)
• Tools>Options>Hotkeys (set your own shortcuts for many recording actions)
• Tools>Options>Program (control the recording area appearance and workflow, as well as what happens after stopping the recording

One of the tricks I picked up in the certification course is this option "Restore cursor location after pause". It means that if you pause the recording, move your mouse in the process of whatever you do during the pause, Camtasia will restore the mouse position when you resume recording. I wish I'd known about this time-saving trick sooner!

Editing Screencasts

Once you finish recording, the editing environment allows you to use a number of tools to edit the recording - along with other types of media - into a final video. ​This course/part of the process focuses on cutting and trimming the screen recordings and/or audio or other media. The timeline helps you understand when a particular item begins to show and when it ends. This course also explains how to manipulate items on the canvas.

This course of the certification process is the longest at 3 hours 12 minutes. Part of the reason is that the author chose a really long sample video (about 10 minutes) for the example and practice.  Maybe for version 2.0 of the course, they'll use a shorter example.

Visual Effects

Visual effects include things like annotations, scale, opacity, rotation and position of your media.

​There are six different types of annotation tools. Between the captions, lines and shapes, you are only limited by your imagination (and time you want to spend) to create everything from a speech bubble to a scene with multiple moving shapes - such as a truck driving across the screen. Note that you won't get sophisticated animation possibilities like you could in an animation tool, but annotations are great for conveying conceptual information and adding visual interest. The blur, highlight, and sketch motion tools are great for enhancing screen recordings. And you can easily show that you are pressing a key in your video by adding keystroke callouts. Just select the type and press the keys you want to show.

This course is super short - these items are generally used in conjunction with editing and animating items in the video.

Animating and Moving Elements

We could play with these tools all day, especially the transitions, behaviors and animations. Suffice to say, there are lots of possibilities. What's important to remember is that you can do more than one change with each animation and you can layer multiple behaviors on objects or text to achieve a different effect. Plan some time to design your animations, because this can get time-consuming, depending on what you want to accomplish. ​

Audio Editing

No matter how great the audio is from an external source, you may find the need to add an extra pause or otherwise manipulate the audio. It's a super-short course in the certification process.

Captioning Your Videos

I haven't done much with captioning yet (but I probably should). ​Now I know exactly how to add closed captions or create an SRT file to upload for YouTube.

Effects, Quizzes and Interactivity

Transitions and cursor effects offer more options for editing and enhancing your videos.

I've avoided quizzes and interactivity in videos until now. ​Many of my clients host their videos on You Tube (where these features aren't available), but when the video is hosted on a website, adding interactive elements like quizzes, a table of contents, and interactive hotspots are really great ways to add engagement.

Producing and Hosting Your Videos

The last course in the process is of course discussing the options for sharing your videos.

Now, you've completed all of the courses, and passed each of their quizzes with at least 80% (it's easy to retake a quiz - I did have to retake one because I'm no longer a Mac user and I skimmed over that part). You can now request your certification, which doesn't take long. And you can get the correct settings to use to add it to your LinkedIn Profile.

Camtasia for Customer Education

Camtasia is my tool of choice for creating screencasting videos, although sometimes I use it in conjunction with other tools. And screencasting videos are my favorite form of customer education. They are short, practical, and thanks to Camtasia's updated tools, full of possibilities.

Resources

If you'd like to watch my sample video from which the opening image for this post was derived, you can find it here: ​http://bit.ly/2xKGu24. I'm not the world's best narrator, but it gets the job done.

The Camtasia Certification courses are only available if you have a Camtasia 2018 maintenance plan.  Find out more at TechSmith's site. You can take courses in their new TechSmith Academy (that don't lead to certification) for free.