I do not think learning how to use a tool is a big challenge. But I guess you need to know how to work with a tool efficiently. Otherwise it might happen that you keep struggling to use the tool.
When you are in an organization, you may not have a choice with respect to using the tool, you are comfortable with or you love to work with. You have to use the tool for which the organization has bought license.
In such a situation it is best to get accustomed to the tool and quickly figure out how to work well with the tool.
I have not worked with many rapid e-learning tools. I have tried Captivate and have always talked in favour of this tool because I have not faced many problems creating quick tutorials for software product using Captivate.
When it comes to Camtasia vs Captivate, I always go for Captivate only because editing is very easy with Captivate. I have heard people say that Captivate generates massive slides and deleting all unwanted slides could be really painful. I have created only short tutorials using Captivate and I have found the tool effective and easy to use.
I like Captivate because it is easy to adjust timelines and callout durations. You can also adjust mouse transitions.
Recently I started using Camtasia and I must say I was flustered the first 2 days when I tried creating a tutorial video. I will not say Camtasia is a bad tool. I would rather say it is not easy to work with and I was not sure how to work with it.
This is what I did
- I recorded all the screens
- I tried editing the video and adding call outs later
Result
I had to split and extend frames leading to whole lot of items in the timeline.
I was not able to adjust the time frame of the call out after I split the frames. So I had to copy callouts onto the extended frames.
It was too much work splitting and extending frames.
What I learnt
I discovered that instead of spending so much time on editing, I must reshoot the entire video giving enough time for every call out and every text I was to put in the tutorial video. I wanted the call out with instruction to appear first and then the mouse action to happen. I kept this in mind and gave enough time for everything.
Deleting portions of the video is easy in Camtasia. So I reshot the whole video giving 10 to 15 secs time for every action, keeping in mind the time the user would take to read text and see the actions performed on screen. You can estimate time by keeping an eye on timer as shown below:
It was very easy after this because after I shot the whole video, all I did was delete portions of the video and insert call outs in appropriate locations. I did not have to extend or split frames because I shot the video in parts and not in one go.
To sum up here are my two top tips to work with Camtasia:
- Always plan your video before you start recording
- Create a storyboard with every little detail including the time needed for each callout and each action on screen
I am a novice when it comes to Camtasia. I am sure there must be better ways to work with Camtasia. In case you are a camtasia expert, please share useful tips to work with the tool.
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