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Using Camtasia in PowerPoint
Pricing & Support
Conclusion
Using Camtasia in PowerPoint
Before TechSmith created a Camtasia add-in for PowerPoint,
one had to tweak all capture settings including sound capture
to do a video capture of a PowerPoint presentation. It was
certainly doable, but not too easy. With this new add-in,
TechSmith has made the entire process a no-brainer.
Here's how you could use the add-in:
- Open or create a new PowerPoint presentation - click
the third icon on the Camtasia toolbar within PowerPoint
to change any options if required. I changed the option
to not capture any mouse cursor activity. See
screenshot...
- Click the first icon on the toolbar that allows you to
launch the presentation and start recording (capturing)
at the same time. You might be presented with one or two
dialog boxes before the actual recording begins - choose
options as required.
- Play your presentation as required - if it does not have
automatic slide timings you might have to proceed one slide
at a time. All activities are recorded including the clicked
links to outside applications.
- Once your presentation has finished, press the Esc key
and Camtasia springs up to life prompting you to provide
a name for the unsaved Camtasia project. Save as required
- you can now close your PowerPoint presentation if required.
- Back in the Camtasia Studio environment, you'll be provided
with several options including the choice to output the
presentation capture as a video file.
- For this example, I chose the first option that lets
me produce my recording straight-away to several video
file formats - I selected Windows Media (WMV).
- Camtasia thereafter presents a series of screens including
the option to include an index based on markers. By default
Camtasia creates a marker after each captured slide from
PowerPoint. See
screenshot...
- After this, Camtasia renders the output.
If you want to do more advanced editing, Camtasia Studio
provides a video editing environment that allows you to edit
and add audio, include video transitions and do much more.
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Pricing & Support
Camtasia Studio works on Windows 2000 and XP. The online
price of the product is US$299 and purchases can be made
thriough credit card on a secure server site.
Support is exemplary - detailed tutorials and FAQs supplement
the help files. You can also email Customer Support directly.
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Conclusion
I love using Camtasia Studio for all my video captures of
on-screen activity including presentations. The fact that
it works so well with PowerPoint only makes it more attractive.
I still wish they had a more direct way to burn VCDs and
DVDs but that's still doable using Camtasia captured output
within the software that came with your DVD burner.
Back
Related Link: Camtasia
Creates Movies From PowerPoint
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