- [Instructor] You can customize the Camtasia
recorder settings to work the way that you need 'em to work.
Now, the most basic customization is turning on
or off the various types of content that you'll be recording
such as clicking on the audio button here
to disable your microphone or clicking on it again
and you'll turn that setting back on.
Now, that's pretty straight-forward,
but if you click on the Tools menu here
and then select Options,
there's a whole set of hidden settings
that you can customize.
Let's have a look at the most common settings.
On the General tab, these top two items
under the Help section are really helpful
when you're just getting started,
but you'll likely wanna uncheck both of these options
as you get more comfortable using the recorder
and you don't need the tool tips as often.
In the Capture section,
the option for capturing layered windows means
that if this option is checked then all of the windows
on your screen will be captured.
Unchecking the option will only capture the current,
active window while you're recording.
I'm gonna leave this option checked
so that everything on my screen gets recorded.
Then next option is really nice to leave on
since Camtasia will track your key presses
and you can use the keystroke call outs
that we'll look at in a later movie
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.
Now, under the Saving sections,
you have two options of file formats
that you can record to, the .TREC file,
which is the native Camtasia file format, and .AVI.
Now, in general, you'll always wanna record
in the .TREC format
unless you're shipping your screen captured recordings over
to another editor such as Premiere Pro CC,
DaVinci Resolve, Avid, or Final Cut Pro,
in which case you may wanna select the AVI file format
just to save yourself a few steps.
I'll leave mine set on the TREC file format.
I would suggest clicking on this File Options button
and then changing this setting to this first option here
for Ask for File Name.
This way at the end of each of your recordings,
you can choose what file name that you want Camtasia
to save that file as instead
of this Rec, Month, Day, Year format.
This is by far the easiest way to create custom names
for your clips inside of Camtasia.
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 any recordings from now on.
I'll click the OK button
and then let's go over to the Inputs tab.
This first option here allows you to set
what frame rate you want Camtasia
to capture your footage in.
Now, I'd suggest always leaving this option set
on 30 frames per second
to give yourself the most flexibility when you're editing.
Notice that the buttons for Video Settings
and Audio Settings are both grayed out.
If you go back over to the General tab
and you change your Saving file format to AVI,
and then you go back to the Inputs tab,
you can see that both of these options are available
to you now.
If you're sending your files directly over
to one of those other editors,
you may wanna come in here and customize some
of these settings here and that's how you get into that.
For now, I'm gonna go back to the General tab
and change my settings back to the TREC file format.
On the Hotkeys tab,
you can customize the common keyboard shortcuts
if you find the defaults are already in use
by the application that you're recording.
Adding a modifier key such as Control
and/or Shift is usually all you need to do.
I'll restore my settings back to the default settings
by clicking this button.
On the Program tab,
you have some settings here that are used
when you're choosing a custom record region
that is selected down here in the main window,
as opposed to making a full-screen recording.
Now, the glowing Glowing Capture Rectangle option
simply helps you identify the area of your screen
that's being captured during a recording.
The next option, make sure that any pop up dialogues boxes
are forced fully into the recording region.
This last option ensures the pixel grid being captured is
at a proper multiple of four to ensure smooth edges
around your recording.
In this Workflow section,
I'd suggest leaving this first option checked all the time.
Once you're comfortable making multiple recordings,
you may want to disable the Show Countdown Before Recording
to speed up your process a little bit.
However, I think this countdown timer is extremely helpful
as it gives you just that extra couple of seconds
to take a deep breath, relax, and focus you mind
on the recording that you're about to make.
I'm gonna leave this option checked for mine.
The Restore Cursor Location After Pause is crazy helpful
if you're in the habit of pausing your recordings
using your F9 key.
When you press F9 a second time
to begin your recording again,
Camtasia will automatically jump your mouse
to the previous location so you can keep recording smoothly.
This little gem of a feature has saved me more times
than I can count.
Now, if you would like to preview your recordings
after you make them,
you can uncheck this box here.
In previous versions of Camtasia,
this was the default action
so it's something that if you're used to it
from an older version,
then here's where you turn that back on at.
I find the preview a bit distracting
and it tends to break my workflow up,
so I'll leave this option checked.
Finally, you can choose where you want Camtasia recorder
to be minimized to during your recordings.
Now, I prefer to set mine to minimize to my system tray
as opposed to my task bar.
I think this makes it a bit less distracting for my user
and I can still access the recording controls
if I need them.
Okay, that's all the setting changes we need to make.
Click the OK button and lock in all of those changes
that you made.