Customizing Camtasia Recorder settings - Camtasia Tutorial

- [Instructor] You can customize the Camtasia Recorder settings to work the way that you need them to work. The most basic customization is turning on or off the various types of content that will be recorded, such as clicking the option for audio on to turn your microphone off, or clicking it again to turn the recording of the microphone back on. Now, that's pretty straightforward, but if you click on Tools and then select Options, there is a whole set of hidden settings that you can customize. Let's have a quick look at the most common setting changes that you're likely going to want to make. Here on the General tab, these first two options are really helpful when you're just getting started, but you'll likely want to uncheck both of these options as you get more comfortable using the recorder. In the Capture section, the option for capturing layered windows means that if this option is checked, all open windows on your screen will be captured. If you uncheck the option, then only the active window that you're working in will be recorded. I'll leave mine checked. The next option here is really nice to leave on, since Camtasia will track your key presses and you can later use the keystrokes callout to automatically show your keyboard shortcuts to your viewers. Disabling the screensaver during capture prevents your screensaver from accidentally turning on in the middle of a recording. Under the Saving section, you have two file formats that you can choose from: .trec, which is the native Camtasia file format, and .avi. Now, in general, you'll want to always record in the .trec format, unless you're shipping your screen capture recording over to another editor, such as Premiere Pro CC, DaVinci Resolve, Avid, or Final Cut Pro, in which case you may want to choose the AVI format. Now, I would suggest clicking on the file options button here and then changing this first setting to ask for file name. That way, you can name your recordings as you make them. Now, this is by far the easiest way to create custom names for your clips inside of Camtasia. And for the rest of this course, I'll have this option selected so you'll start to see the custom save dialogue box after I complete a recording. Now, on the Inputs tab, you can choose your recording frame rate, and I suggest leaving this option set on 30 frames per second all the time to give yourself the most options while editing. Now, the buttons to customize both your video and audio settings are both grayed out here when you're using the .trec format. But, if you go back to the General tab and you change the dropdown for Record to to AVI, then go back to Inputs, both of these buttons become active and you can now customize your specific video recording settings here and your audio settings here. I'm going to go back to my General tab and reset my settings back to .trec. On the Shortcuts tab, you can customize the common keyboard shortcuts for your Camtasia Recorder if you find that the default settings are already in use by the application that you're trying to record. Simply adding a modifier key, such as Control, Shift, or Alt, to one of the default keys is usually all you need to do. I'll restore my settings back to the defaults by clicking this button. That way, we can both use the same keyboard shortcuts throughout the rest of this course. Now on the Program tab, you have some settings here that are used when you're choosing a custom record region as opposed to making a full screen recording. The glowing regions helps you to identify what is being captured during a recording. The next option makes sure that any popup dialogs are forced fully into the recorded region, and this last option ensures that the pixel grid being captured is a proper multiple of four to ensure smooth edges of your recordings. Now, in the Workflow section, I suggest leaving this first option checked all the time, and once you're comfortable making multiple recordings, you may want to disable the countdown. However, I think that the countdown is extremely helpful, as it gives you just that extra couple of seconds to take a deep breath, relax, and focus your mind on the recordings that you're about to make. So I'm going to leave this option checked. The restore cursor to location after pause option is crazy helpful if you're in the habit of pausing your recordings using the F9 key. Now, when you press the F9 key a second time to begin recording again, Camtasia will automatically jump your mouse to the previous location so you can keep recording smoothly. Now, if you'd like to preview a recording after you make it, you can uncheck this box here. Now, in previous versions of Camtasia, this was the default action, so if that is something that you're used to from older versions, then here's where you turn that feature back on. I find it a bit distracting, so I'll leave this option checked. Finally, you can choose where you want the Camtasia Recorder to be minimized to during your recordings, either to your Taskbar or to your system tray. Now, I prefer having this option set to minimize my recorder down to my system tray, 'cause I find it a bit less distracting for my viewer and I can always access it during the middle of a recording if I need to. Whenever you make any changes inside of your Tools Options, always remember to click the OK button down at the bottom of the window to close the window and lock in your changes.