Since Camtasia played a role in getting me there it was really great to meet TechSmith Chief Evangelist Betsy Weber at AU.
After coming up with the wacky theme for my submission I created the plane in AutoCAD and then a PowerPoint to tell the story. I could have submitted those alone but it seemed like something more was needed. Camtasia came to the rescue as it enabled all the elements to be combined and presented in a single package conveying the idea far better than “static” presentation files.
Betsy was kind enough to give me Camtasia 4 & SnagIt 8 licences to get me up to speed with the latest versions. I’ve been using Camtasia for a couple of years and was aware of SnagIt but never bothered to try it. The main reason was I already used a screen capture utility that is part of Corel Graphics so why bother with another…
It didn’t take long using SnagIt to realise I was wrong in thinking there’d be little difference. A capture is a capture but the difference with SnagIt is how well integrated the processing and use of that capture is once complete. You can add effects, call-outs and various other frills but then it’s time to get that screen-shot to the intended application.
This is where SnagIt 8 shines as in addition to the usual Clipboard, Email, File Save and FTP transfer methods it features application “Accessories”. These have specific capabilities to transfer the screen-shot to the target application. Word, Excel & PowerPoint accessories are installed by default but you can also download others including Flickr and my favourite, shown in action below, MindManager.
This allows a capture to be added to a MindManager Map in the various content forms that MindManager supports for images: Main Topic, Sub-Topic, Floating Topic, Call-out, or Notes. As seen below, once the capture is complete transfer to any of these options is just a click away. It the application isn’t running SnagIt will launch it, if open with multiple documents you can choose the target. Very slick!
In a Screencast about SnagIt it was mentioned there will be more “Accessories” so I’m hoping TypePad (Photo Albums) and BlogJet are on the To-Do list…
If you need screen capture software try SnagIt and be prepared to be impressed.
