Chapter 9: Working with Camtasia Studio

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By working through the previous unit, you’ve probably managed to create some quality footage of your favorite applications. If you’ve been smart, you’ve been doing your recording in a lot of smaller pieces in order to set up the best possible shot for the segment in question. It’s now time to put all those little pieces together. Camtasia Studio offers what is called a non-linear editing system, meaning that the different clips in your presentation don’t have to be laid out in a particular order on the fly. They can be cut, moved, and reordered an infinite number of times, at your leisure. This gives you the incredible flexibility to experiment until you get it just right.

If you’ve worked with Windows MovieMaker or other mid-level timeline-based editing systems, you’ll probably find Camtasia Studio’s layout pretty similar to what you’re used to. If you’ve never used a video editing application of any sort, not to worry: The learning curve is comparatively light. But before we get down to the business of editing and importing your clips, let’s take a quick gander at the user interface of Camtasia Studio.

The Camtasia Studio User Interface

When first opening the application, you’re presented with a Welcome dialog that gives you four initial choices for how to get started:

• Start a new project by recording the screen. We’ve already been here. If needed, check out Chapter 5 for a refresher.

• Start recording a PowerPoint presentation. This is also fairly well-covered territory. The principal difference here is that selecting this option will automatically launch PowerPoint as well as prompt you to open the desired file. From there, just do what you practiced in the previous chapter.

• Start a new project by importing media files. Assuming you’ve already done your recording, this option will let you bring all these gorgeous files into Camtasia Studio for editing. This handy command will bring in all associated media files at once: video files (.camrec, .avi, .mpeg, .mpg, .wmv), audio files (.wav, .mp3, .wma), and images (.bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png).

• Open an existing project. If you’ve already created a project in Camtasia Studio, you can skip the File menu and get right to business.

Go ahead and click Close for now. Here’s a quick breakdown of the Camtasia Studio interface:

1. Menu bar, 2. Main toolbar, 3. Task List, 4. Clip Bin, 5. Video Preview area, 6. Playback controls, 7. Timeline/ Storyboard toolbar, 8. Timeline/ Storyboard, 9. Status bar.

Here’s a brief description of each of these interface parts:

1. Menu bar. As with most applications, Camtasia Studio’s menu bar contains almost all the available commands of the application, split up into six handy menus.

2. Main toolbar. The most often-used menu commands are present here so that you can more easily access them. If you don’t use the toolbar and wish to turn it off to conserve space, you may toggle it by choosing Toolbar from the View menu.

3. Task List. This special pane allows access to groups of commands for special purposes. It is divided into five sections:

   • Record the screen. Starts the New Recording Wizard. It’s designed to be a “Press here if you don’t know what you’re doing, dummy” kind of button, and is obviously aimed at the greenhorns. That’s why it’s so big and bold and shiny.

   • Record PowerPoint. This is a similar option for people who want to start recording a PowerPoint presentation. It launches PowerPoint and prompts you to open the file you want to record.

   • Add. Lets you import the various kinds of media supported by Camtasia Studio. Also used to create title screens, record voice narration, and capture camera video.

   • Edit. All of the spiffy special effects we’ll be covering in Chapter 11 are present and accounted for here.

   • Produce. This section is all about sharing your content. You can produce a video here, as well as access menu creation tools for both CD-ROM and the web. Camtasia Studio’s batch production tool is also available here.

   • Camtasia Studio Tips. Sports direct links to several of the more common tips located in the Camtasia Studio help file.

   If you have no use for a particular set of functions, note that each of these individual sections can be closed by clicking its corresponding arrow button ( ). The Task List can be closed entirely by clicking the X in the Task List title bar, or it can be toggled on and off by choosing Task List from the View menu.

4. Clip Bin. This is a sort of holding area for any imported media, including Camtasia Recorder (CAMREC) files, title clips, images, audio, and video. Each of these media types appear in the Clip Bin, split into their own categories. There are also different views available to you should you wish to use them. I’ll show you how in a moment.

5. Video Preview area. Depending on your actions, the preview area will show either the contents of the Timeline/Storyboard or a particular Clip Bin item. It’s useful for viewing your editing changes and examining the flow of your developing video in general, so that you have a sense of what it’s going to look/sound like before you produce it.

6. Playback controls. These DVD-like controls allow you to navigate the current contents of the Video Preview area. You can also view both the elapsed time and total running time of said contents.

7. Timeline/Storyboard toolbar. This toolbar offers basic controls for editing the contents of the Timeline or Storyboard. The toolbar will look slightly different based on which view you’re currently using.

8. Timeline/Storyboard. This area offers two different views for working with your video content: Timeline view and Storyboard view. Both views have their uses, and in a moment you’ll learn how to leverage the power of each.

9. Status bar. Displays the definition of the currently selected item from the menu bar or Main toolbar. Simply mouse over an item you wish to learn more about. If you don’t use the Status bar, you can turn it off to free up a little extra space by choosing Status Bar from the View menu.

Don’t worry that we’ve only glossed over some of these items. Most of them will be covered in much greater detail a bit later on. For now, though, I think we’ve learned enough to start importing our work.