The Writers Gateway

I have been using Camtasia for sometime now and I thought I must list down some practical tips on using this tool that might be useful to many others who are new to Camtasia like me. I would like to especially focus on the issues I faced and how I managed to solve it.

One big problem I faced with Camtasia was with  adjusting call-out lengths. In rapid e-learning tools, call-out length indicates the time duration for which the call-out appears onscreen.

I noticed while using Camtasia that some call-outs in the timeline were expandable and some were not. I was puzzled for sometime thinking how to solve this problem.

Here is a screenshot highlighting call-outs that are expandable and non-expandable in the timeline:

In the screenshot above, the call-out marked “Expandable” looks like a rectangle. This call-out can be dragged along the time line and this sets the time duration for which the call-out appears onscreen.

If you notice , the call-out marked “Not expandable” is not a rectangle but a triangle. Such call-outs are not expandable. No matter how much you try, you cannot expand the triangle shaped call-outs.

To make such call-outs expandable, all that you have to do is, use the Zoom In button  in the timeline.

The screenshot below highlights the Zoom In button in red.

If you continuously click on the Zoom In button, you should see the call-outs in the timeline become expandable.

In the screenshot above, you see the call-outs appear as a rectangle. You can now easily expand the call-outs and adjust the time duration of these call-outs.

Hope this tip was useful!

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