How To Make Your First Recording With Camtasia

In this video, I want to show you how to make your first recording with Camtasia. This is how to make a very basic recording. However, it’s a method I often use as I like to keep things simple. To be fair, Camtasia has a lot more functionality than what I use most of the time, but I will be creating some more videos on the subject as we go through. I just wanted to start off with a basic video to start with and keep things simple, rather than overcomplicate.
Cleaning Up Your Screen
The first thing I usually do is just to keep people’s attention. Here, I’ve got a bookmark bar. I did make a short video about it earlier, but to remove that bookmark bar, just right-click on “Show Bookmarks Bar” here and get rid of it. Now, if we want to bring it back, we just click on these three dots, go to bookmarks, and then show bookmarks. We click on that, but we’re going to leave it blank. We can just bring the bookmark back at any time, but it just makes it easier rather than having people being sidetracked or anything. They focus more on your video, rather than something irrelevant on your screen.
Opening Camtasia
Let’s open Camtasia, which I’ve got down here. I obviously have to record this with something else because I’m showing you Camtasia. I have to create the recording with another TechSmith product. Camtasia is made by a company called TechSmith, and they also have a simpler product called Snagit, which I’m recording with. So, let’s bring TechSmith up and let’s start recording. Let’s have a look at the Record Bar. I’ve actually got three monitors, so normally, when I’m recording, this will just be in another window, so it won’t show.
Custom Region Or Full Screen?
Here, you can change where you want to record your screen. I’ve got it set for screen one, which is the main middle monitor. You can choose a custom region. If you do a custom region, you can just do it like this. Let’s go back and just select screen one for full screen. There are all sorts of other regions you can choose, like vertical square, etc., but in general, I have it full screen more often than not. Occasionally, I want to hide something because it’s inappropriate to show not related to the video, so that’s when choosing a region is handy.
Audio Setup
Here, I have to turn the camera off because I already have a camera on Snagit; running the two pieces of software together would probably crash the system if I turned the camera on. Now, let’s have a look at the microphones. You may only have one microphone, but I’ve actually got four here. I’m using this headset. Just make sure it’s set to the right one if you’re swapping between microphones. Sometimes, I’ve worn the headset and then found I’ve been connected to one of the other microphones, so you don’t get that crystal-clear sound, which is rather disappointing. It’s important to just make a couple of second checks every time.
Then there is the system audio, which will record any sound playing on your system, like if you’re playing a YouTube video and recording simultaneously. If you don’t want certain sounds, like WhatsApp notifications, to be recorded, you can turn it off. But generally, I leave it on. Some things are new in Camtasia 23, but to be fair, the older versions are very similar unless they’re really old.
More Settings
Here, we’ve got capture options like record screen, record camera (which I’m not using), record microphone, and record system audio. Normally, I’d also have record camera on. Then there are tools, preferences. In the preferences, you can set things like show recorder countdown, recorder cursor location after pause, and not capture the recorder on screen, so it disappears during recording. You can also set it to exit the recorder after the recording has stopped and open the editor after the recording has stopped. I haven’t changed these settings; they are default.
Files settings show where the last file went, the default output folder, and the temporary storage folder. For inputs, I haven’t changed these either because I believe they’re set for the best settings. There are some options for better picture quality, but for most people, I would say it’s absolutely fine as it is. It works okay for me.
Shortcuts are available if you use them. I don’t, but maybe I should be. If a shortcut conflicts with any other software or shortcut, you can change it here.
Adding Photographs To Chrome
So, let’s cancel that, and that’s it. Now, where are we? I tend to, if I’m showing people something, for example, this picture here, let’s put this down here for a minute. I’ve pasted it into a Chrome browser so I can just share it on my screen. I don’t need to put it anywhere else. Like here, let’s go to this Google page. Let’s open up my pictures here. I’m going to drag these pictures from another screen. Let’s drag this across. Here’s a nice sunset of Greece. We can just drag this up here and then enter, and we’ve got a picture of Greece up there.
So, if I’m sharing my screen and I want to show someone a document, I tend to put it up here. You can do many more fancy things with Camtasia, but remember, this is just a basic video of how to use Camtasia. Let’s move that on the other screen. If you haven’t got multiple screens, I can definitely recommend them. It just makes life easier.
It’s Time To Record With Camtasia
Let’s go back here and bring Camtasia up. Let’s go to record. So, I’m going to bring my notes up. Here, for example, I’ve got a load of notes on another screen that I’m glancing at. Now, Camtasia might say you need to do it a more technical way, but I’ve just got simple notes I’ve made in a Word document. Let’s move that again.
It seems to work for me. I’ve got the notes on another screen. Now, you could print these out if you haven’t got another monitor, or you could have them on your phone or on a tablet, but I have them on another screen just to keep things simple. Most of my videos are fairly simple, but simple seems to be good and it works for me.
Recording
So, let’s now make a recording. Let’s bring up Camtasia, click on record, and it gives us three seconds. Now, I’m going to pause this a minute because I don’t want this here. I normally have it in another window. You can have it set so it just disappears, but I haven’t because I’d normally have it in another window. Let’s start that again. The good thing is you can pause it. So, I’m just going to click on resume. Let’s record.
“So, how to make your first recording with Camtasia.” I’m going to keep this recording simple. Now, I’m going to stop that recording there. It’s opened on another screen, but let’s drag that across. You can have different effects here, which I’m not going to go into. I’m just going to keep it like this and go to edit in Camtasia. This is just a simple video. Then, I’m not going to change anything. I’m going to go to export. Actually, let’s play it first.
Exporting Your Video
And that’s it. That’s done. So now, we can export this to wherever we want. You can upload it straight to YouTube, or I normally upload my videos to a separate storage disk on the computer where I have various files for videos. I’m going to upload it just for the sake of this video, I’m going to keep it an untitled project for the moment. Then, we just go export, and in a moment, it will upload really quickly because it’s such a short video. It says open file location, and there’s our file location. I’m going to delete that because I don’t want it.
Uploading to YouTube
And that’s it. That’s how we make a simple video with Camtasia. While I’ve got this up, you can drag any of these videos into YouTube. So, let me just open up YouTube here. YouTube, upload video. So, I could just drag anything into here like this. I don’t want to, but that’s how I do it when I’m uploading a video.
To Conclude
And that’s it. Once the file is saved, and you’ve got your file saved in case you need it anymore, it’s very quick. So, that’s just a getting started video with Camtasia. If you’re interested in purchasing it, they do have special offers on. This is Camtasia; this is Snagit. I don’t use Audiate; it’s quite new. I do have Camtasia and Snagit and have been using them for years. Snagit I’ve been using for longer, probably about 15 years, and Snagit probably about eight years. Both are good tools. They can do a lot more than I know. Like everyone, we keep learning, and I will share some tips and go a bit deeper into how Camtasia and probably Snagit works, but certainly Camtasia to start with.
Anyway, thanks very much for watching. If you’ve got any questions, please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this YouTube video, and I’ll be pleased to try and help. Thanks very much.
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