Check Your Work

This may sound obvious, but checking your work is vital. Camtasia settings are not saved with Camtasia projects. This means that if you start a project without mouse clicks being indicated, for example, then work on another project that does require mouse clicks to be indicated, when you return to the first project Camtasia remembers the last settings used and enables mouse clicks in your recordings.

Of course this happened to me.

I started a Camtasia project with mouse clicks disabled. I checked the first batch of videos I produced with a fine tooth comb and they were A-Okay. Later, I got to experimenting with mouse and keyboard sounds. On returning to the project in hand, I sprayed mouse clicks everywhere because Camtasia had retained the last settings used.

Rework.

A catalogue of retained settings that meant a whole lotta extra work now follows:

• Mouse click sounds
• Keyboard click sounds
• Highlighted cursor
• Watermark (see note below)
  
• Video resolution

Note: regarding including a watermark in Camtasia Recorder - i.e. as you are actually recording the screen - DON'T DO IT! Doing this causes untold sufferring if you forget you've done it. Those 200 videos you were compressing for Microsoft? Yep, they've got the OpenOffice logo on them. Bill won't be pleased. Including the watermark in Camtasia Recorder permanently burns the watermark onto the video. It can't be removed without some complex chemical process (or maybe some Adobe After Effects masking). Given that you can include your watermark when you are exporting the movie into your desired format, I can't see the need for ever specifying it in Camtasia Recorder. It gives you nothing extra.

To view/amend your current Recorder settings, in Camtasia Studio click Tools > Camtasia Recorder. From here you can access all of Camtasia Recorder's settings. You can get to the sound settings by clicking Effects > Sound. The dreaded watermark setting is viewed by clicking Effects > Options > Watermark. Keep away, keep away.

So the recommendation here is to:

1. Always check your Camtasia Recorder settings before you start recording.
2. Always check the final product. Hopefully following step 1 will reduce the number of duh! moments in step 2.