Camtasia Studio 6: The Definitive Guide [Paperback]

I need to use Camtasia at work. I looked for an instruction book, and found that this is really the only choice available. Fortunately, Daniel Park did a great job writing it. It covers the program in great detail. It's written in a very conversational style. For example, these lines are taken from page 19 and 20:

"And here's another blow to the prescriptivists: Whether doing stand-up technical trainings or writing documentation, I generally find it preferable to address the learner in an informal, conversational tone. In this book (and in other manuals I've constructed), I tend to write like I talk, which I believe makes the text a lot more approachable. But it also means that I freely start sentences with conjunctions, end them with prepositions, and occasionally make use of puns and other corny humor that some may find off-putting. If these sorts of things bother you, then you are more than welcome to go write your own book. . ."

Although I have not yet read the entire book from cover to cover, I've read enough to know that he obviously understands the program very well, and he is a talented enough writer to be able to entertainingly share his information with the reader.

Here's a list of the Chapters:

Unit I: General Introduction
Chapter 1 - Introduction to Camtasia Studio
Chapter 2 - About This Book
Unit II: Prep-work: What to Do before Making Your First Recording
Chapter 3 - Quick and Dirty Curriculum Design
Chapter 4 - Scripting and Storyboarding
Unit III: Recording with Camtasia Studio
Chapter 5 - Recording Your Screen
Chapter 6 - Special Effects of the Camtasia Recorder
Chapter 7 - Recorder Tools Options
Chapter 8 - Recording Your PowerPoint Presentation
Unit IV: Editing within Camtasia Studio
Chapter 9 - Working with Camtasia Studio
Chapter 10 - Working with Other Media: Audio, PIP, and Title Clips
Chapter 11 - Editing Effects
Unit V: Sharing Your Videos with Others
Chapter 12 - The Production Process
Chapter 13 - CD-based Videos with Camtasia MenuMaker
Chapter 14 - Web-based Videos with Camtasia Theater
Chapter 15 - Other Output Options
Chapter 16 - Post-Production Customization
Appendix A - Tips for Reducing Your File Size
Appendix B - Recording Alternative Platforms
Appendix C - Equipment Buyer's Guide
Appendix D - Getting Additional Help

If you are interested in learning Camtasia Studio 6, then I highly recommend you buy this book. It will tell you everything you need to know.

The folks that bring you Camtasia (let's give TechSmith some credit) have pretty good online tutorials but I think this user guide picks up where the tutorials left off. It is filled with useful information and tips for beginners to more advanced users. It may be difficult to assimilate all of the information presented here, especially if you are not especially knowledgeable about making screencasts (I never heard the term "codec" prior to using Camtasia). I think Mr. Park's tone (at times, light and personal) and approach helped make the material more accessible -- not your usual dry technical manual. Most importantly, I feel the book answered so many of my questions and helped me create a presentation that I could be proud of, and more importantly, not afraid to submit to my boss for approval! I didn't find the attached CD especially helpful/useful though. I hope that I will continue to use this guide to investigate the other wonderful features that Camtasia Studio has to offer (PIP, SCORM -- the possibilities and list of acronyms seem endless)!

As is common with a lot of software these days, Camtasia comes with extensive on line documentation and tutorials. But there are some of us, old fashioned perhaps, who still like to have a manual printed on paper. This book is a good example of how a computer manual should be written. While it covers everything the software will do, it also gives you some personalized hints and tips that go beyond the raw software to tell you what the author has discovered through his own trial and error to come up with the best ways to do things.

Mr. Park spent some years actually working for the Camtasia developers using the product to develop sales and training packages. Subsequently he left the company to start his own and can talk about the product as he sees it instead of having to keep the company president happy.

Mr. Park further has an interesting writing style. As he says, he writes like he talks, not necessarily with the best possible English, indeed sometimes with improper sentence structure. Whatever the reason, I found his writing style to be quite a bit more entertaining than the standard computer manual.

If you need to learn Camtasia, here's an excellent way to start.

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