Appendix D: Getting Additional Help

If you’ve gotten this far, you should have a pretty solid sense of what you’re doing. But when working on a project, unforeseen difficulties almost always come up, and it’s often hard to know where you can turn. This appendix is a general outline of the various help options you have at your disposal. First, I’ll talk about the different choices available from the Help menu, and will follow up with some other possible resources to check out.

Every single application in the Camtasia Studio suite of programs (except Camtasia Player, but that’s because it’s a stand-alone product, too) has the same set of options in its respective Help menu. I haven’t covered them anywhere in this book, and here’s as good a place as any. This is what you can find in the Help menu:

• Camtasia Studio Help…. When all else fails, read the manual. This comprehensive document covers every aspect of the program in great detail.

• Support. Choosing this option brings up the Technical Support dialog, complete with a special field that details all sorts of information about your computer and your settings, including your general system information, the audio and video codecs you have installed, the settings of your various Camtasia Studio applications, and your DirectShow filter info. This information helps TechSmith support personnel better target any specific technical issues you may be experiencing. Choose Copy to clipboard to paste this information into an e-mail, or click Save to File… if you’d rather send it as an attachment.

• Check for Upgrade. This option checks online to ensure that you have the most recent version of the application. It’s a good idea to check back every few months to make sure you’re up to date.

• Frequently Asked Questions. This drops you off right at TechSmith’s frequently asked questions page for Camtasia Studio. It has a comprehensive catalog of great tutorials and other info for the uninitiated (which, as a graduate of this book, does not include you, but these documents can be a good refresher nonetheless).

• Tell a Friend. This link sends you to a web form where you can send a Camtasia Studio spam-o-gram to any of your friends (or enemies, for that matter). All kidding aside: Yes, this is blatant marketing, but if the program has added meaningfully to your work or your life, why not return the favor? You’ll evangelize a terrific product and help out a friend or colleague at the same time.

• Quick Start Videos. These are introductory videos made with Camtasia Studio about Camtasia Studio. They’re very basic and aimed at total greenhorns. If you’ve worked through this book, you’re way beyond them.

• TechSmith on the Web. This isn’t really help as much as a few handy links about TechSmith and its products. You’ve got four links: the TechSmith Home Page, the Camtasia Studio Home Page (handy for when you want to make your purchase), Send Feedback (talk back to TechSmith: feature requests, complaints, etc.), and the TechSmith Products Page (find out about the rest of the product line).

• Reset balloon tips. In case you forgot what some of those balloons said, you can revive them.

• About Camtasia Studio. This has both version and registration information about your copy of Camtasia Studio.

But this is not the end of the resources available to you to get help for your issues. For one, TechSmith offers an online forum where users can go to post questions and help each other out:

http://forums.techsmith.com/

In addition to technical help, the forum is loaded with great information about the logistics of completing your projects: third-party software recommendations, workflow suggestions, and various other tips and tricks. There are several denizens of this forum who are extremely knowledgeable about Camtasia Studio and what it can do, so don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions^[*]. You might even find yours truly hanging around.

Finally, if you require any advice about implementing Camtasia Studio for use in your projects, feel free to contact me directly: [e-mail]. While I’m likely to refer you to TechSmith for any technical support issues, I am more than happy to answer workflow and “best practices” type questions about working with Camtasia Studio. If your needs go beyond the general question or two, I am also available on a professional basis for video creation, training on Camtasia Studio, and one-on-one consulting. For more information, go to www.dappertext.com.

So, if your current project presents you with a real stumper, let me know, and I’ll do my best to try to find you a solution. And who knows, perhaps the knowledge gained will find its way into a future revision of this book!

^[*]That is, don’t be afraid to ask questions after following a basic tenet of forum netiquette: Conduct a search of the forum to make sure no one has successfully found the answer to your question before. Sorry, but it’s a pet peeve of mine.