![]() ![]() After hitting the stop button, a standard file naming and saving box will open, and the movie will be saved. The standard recorder buttons are on the toolbar. When you've finished recording, pause the recording session and then double-click the application icon in the system tray. Just be sure to carefully plan what you are going to do before you set the mouse in motion. You can pause recording and restart it by subsequently pressing the hot key. By default, a left-click gets a red circle, while a right-click gets a blue circle. You can select color and shapes for the cursor highlight, and color and size of the rings that appear when you click the mouse. To start recording, press the hot key-which is by default-and your every mouse movement (or whatever is happening on the screen) will be recorded.Ĭamtasia's ability to highlight cursor movements and mouse clicks makes it easy to focus the end user's attention. Once you define the area to record, minimize the program to the system tray. You can also record the whole screen, a window, or a region, just like in SnagIt. For example, in Camtasia you can use a hot key to start and pause the recording session. If you have used TechSmith's most popular program, SnagIt, recording desktop motion will be easy, because there are many similarities. You could also show it to other support techs or to the vendor of the problematic program. The resulting movie can then be saved to disk and taken back to the shop to help diagnose the problem. With Camtasia, you can make a record of exactly what happens to cause the error and the resulting error message. Imagine a recurring error that you've been called in to troubleshoot. I set Camtasia to highlight both the cursor and its clicks.Īlthough training documentation is probably the most apparent use for Camtasia, this handy software package also has the potential to be a troubleshooting tool. I've produced an animated GIF of the example mentioned above for your review. Once the process is saved as an AVI file, it can be cleaned up in the included Camtasia Producer video-editing program and then saved as an animated GIF file for viewing across the corporate intranet. But some end users have difficulty connecting the screen shots into a continuous process.Ĭamtasia lets you show all the steps in this process in an animation it even allows you to highlight some of these actions as they are presented. You might include a screen shot of the Tools menu open to show Internet Options at the bottom, and a shot of the Internet Options window. If you were writing documentation for this example, you would probably include screen shots of some of the pertinent windows. Click the Home Page button in Internet Explorer and the new home page should appear. When the Internet Options window opens, change the information in the Home Page Address field. Open an Internet Explorer window or session. Often the task is simple and straightforward, but if the user rarely has a need to do the task, they forget the steps involved.įor example, a common help desk call might come from an end user who wants to change the home page that shows up when he or she starts Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, support departments don't always have time to walk each end user through a particular task.Īnother point of frustration for help desk staff is when they are called upon to describe how to do something for a user over the phone. Most people would agree that users learn best by doing what they're being trained to do. If pictures tell stories, do animations tell stories better? ![]() ![]() As I tried out the software, I came up with a few ideas on how this could work for your help desk. You can download a trial version of the software to see how it works. It's a utility that brings the simplicity of SnagIt to animated screen shots. TechSmith's Camtasia offers this capability and more. The ability to capture cursor movements, mouse clicks, and the resulting effects could make training documentation more informative and speed up the troubleshooting process for some problems. ![]()
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