{ claus.conrad }

Snagit Certification

https://certification.techsmith.com/path/snagit-certified/

Welcome & Resources

Additional Resources

Snagit Fundamentals

Introduction to Visual Communication and the Snagit Interface

1.1 What is Visual Communication?

  • Types of communication
    • Verbal (talking)
    • Written
    • Non-verbal (body language)
    • Visual (images, videos, typography, animation) is the most popular and effective
  • Screenshots and screencasts can be shared and distributed
  • What Snagit can help with:
    • how-to documents with a series of screenshots
    • informal demonstrations with screen recordings
    • professional-looking graphics to enhance presentations

1.2 Get to Know Snagit

  • Three ways to capture your screen using the Capture Window:
    • All-in-One - select the area first, then select between image, video or scrolling capture
    • Image
    • Video
  • The Snagit Editor can annotate and modify the capture after taking it.
  • At the bottom of the Editor is a list of most recent captures.
  • Click “Library” to view all previous captures.

Capturing and Editing Images

1.3 Capturing Your Screen and Other Images

  • When selecting “Image” in the Capture Window, use the “Selection” option:
    • “Region” to draw a rectangle on the screen
    • “Window” to only click once for a screenshot of a specific window
    • “Fullscreen” for… well, the full screen
  • Use the arrow keys to nudge the crosshairs a single pixel at a time.
  • In the Editor, click “File” > “New from clipboard” to edit a copied image (e.g. from a website).
  • In the Capture Window are settings to enable/disable opening the capture in the Editor, and toggle copying it to the clipboard immediately.
  • The shortcut assignable in the Capture Window always respects the last settings made in that window.

1.4 Markup an Image

  • Some of the options to annotate images in the Snagit Editor:
    • Shapes (rectangle, circle, freeform)
    • Callouts (with zero to multiple arrows)
    • Highlighter
    • Stamp (stickers, icons)

1.5 Edit an Image

  • Some more options for editing images in the Snagit Editor:
    • Crop
    • Blur (pixelate)
    • Selection (move content around)
    • Arrows

Recording and Trimming Videos

1.6 Record Your Screen

  • To capture a video (screencast), select the “All-in-One” or the “Video” tab in the Capture Window
    • The cursor can be hidden, visible, or highlighted
    • Clicks can be animated
    • The webcam can be toggled or moved during the recording
    • System sounds can be toggled
    • Microphone recording can be toggled
  • After recording, in the Snagit Editor
    • Parts of the videos can be cut out
    • A selection or the whole video can be exported as an animated GIF
    • the video can be exported as MP4 or shared to YouTube, Screencast.com and other services
  • When shared on Screencast.com, viewers can comment on the video

Saving and Sharing Captures

1.7 Save and Share Your Captures

  • Click “Copy all” in the Snagit Editor to copy a capture to the clipboard
  • Click “Share Link” to upload a capture to Screencast.com and copy a link to it to the clipboard
  • Click the arrow to the right of “Share Link” to send the capture to other apps and services or save them as files
  • On [Windows](…/Microsoft Windows/), new share extensions can be downloaded from the Techsmith website. On macOS, all share extensions are already installed.
  • By default, copied/exported captures will be “flattened” (uneditable). To allow another Snagit user to continue editing them, save as a SNAGX file and share it.

Customizing Snagit

1.8 Save Time with Capture Presets

  • In the Capture Window, click “Presets” at the bottom left to show presets.
  • Click the red “Record” button to the left of a preset to use it.
  • Current settings can be saved as a preset and named intuitively.
  • A shortcut can be assigned to often used presets.
  • A capture can be shared to multiple destinations at once.

1.9 Create Quick Styles and Themes

  • After customizing a tool (e.g. changing the color and width of an arrow), click the ➕ icon on the temporary representation of the customized tool in the “Quick Styles” area of the right sidebar to save it as a quick style for future reuse.
  • Create a theme to configure custom colors and fonts, e.g. from a brand style guide.
    • Colors can be picked from the screen using the eyedropper.
    • Themes can be exported and shared with colleagues.
  • Click the star icon at the top right of tools to add them as favorites.
  • The toolbar can be customized to show the most used markup tools and other features, such as “New from clipboard”.

Applied Workflows for Organizational Use and Communication

2.1 Organize and Save Important Information

  • Click “Tag” at the bottom left of the Editor window to add one or more tags to the current or selected capture(s)
  • In the Library, captures can be filtered by tag
  • To remove a tag from a capture, select it in the Library, click “Tag” at the bottom left, select the tag, and press the ⌦ (Delete) key on the keyboard

2.2 Protect Sensitive Information

  • Use Blur to pixelate sensitive information.
  • Use Simplify to replace sensitive information with blocks (e.g. bars instead of text).
  • Use “Image” > “Flatten all” to apply the redaction to the image so it cannot be removed, even if the SNAGX file gets accidentally shared.

2.3 Create Custom Graphics for Presentations

  • Use Fill to fill an area of a single color with another color. That “color” could also be “transparent” to e.g. remove a white background.
  • When exporting a video, or a portion of one, to an animated GIF, there is an option to “fade to black”. This is useful to signal that the “video” loops (repeats), which is the default when viewing animate GIFs.

2.4 Capture Technical Information in Screenshots

  • To add technical information while taking screenshots, e.g. when reporting error messages to technical support, apply the effect “Capture Info” on the Image tab of the Capture Window. The technical information to add to the screenshot can be customized using the gear icon.
  • To add technical information after taking a screenshot, in the Snagit Editor, go to the Effects tab and choose “Capture Info”.

2.5 Create Images for Technical Documentation

  • Use Crop to remove unnecessary areas near the borders of an image.
  • Use the Dimensions button at the bottom of an image to resize it.
  • Use “Cut out” to remove unnecessary areas inside an image and replace them with an edge effect to clearly inform the audience that something has been removed.
  • Use Step to add number or alphabetical markers in ascending order.
  • Use Border from the Effects tab to add a border around an image.

2.6 Simplify an Image

  • A “Simplified User Interface” (SUI) graphic that reduces elements of a software interface to simpler shapes is often used in web applications while the actual content is still loading (think of bars instead of text and grey people icons instead of avatars). In technical documentation, it can be used to prevent the documentation from getting out of date quickly, e.g. if labels are retranslated, and attract the audiences focus to what matters most.
  • The Simplify tool automatically generates a color palette that contains the colors used in the image.
  • This tool has quick styles for common UI elements, such as text paragraphs, avatars, and rectangular blocks.
  • After using the Auto Simplify feature, one can check “Show Original” to make the automatically added objects semi-transparent, in order to decide which of them might need modification or removal.

2.7 Create a Job Aid

  • Click “Create (➕) Image from Template” if you have not yet captured one or more images, but already know how many you need for a given template, and want to create a new document and capture the images for it as you go.
  • If you already have captured one or more images and want to create a document based on a template with them, select them at the bottom of the Editor (e.g. by holding Ctrl or ⌘ while clicking them one by one), then right-click and select “Combine in Template”.
    • The available templates can optionally be filtered so they fit the number of selected images.

2.8 Repurpose Existing Content

  • Use the Move tool to move parts of preexisting, already flattened images around.
    • Toggling “Smart Move” analyzes the images and highlights distinct parts of the flattened image, allowing them to be edited, moved or deleted.
    • Hold down ⇧ while selecting parts to move them at once.

Snagit Video and Share Options

3.1 Replace a Meeting With a Video

  • Use Screen Draw to point out content on the screen while recording a video.
    • The time after which these arrows, shapes or number markers fade out can be customized from the Capture Window.
  • Use “Capture Cursor” to also record where the cursor is.
    • When enabled, one can optionally highlight the cursor and/or turn on click animations.

3.2 Share to Screencast and Have a Conversation

  • Screencast.com is a service for sharing images and videos from Snagit and Camtasia, and discuss them with others.
  • With the “Standard” tier, users can share up to 25 videos (at the same time) and unlimited images. The Pro tier supports sharing an unlimited number of videos.
  • Comments can add highlights (arrows, shapes etc.) to videos and are linked to timestamps.
  • Users who are adding comments do not require a Techsmith account.
  • By default, owners receive a notification when their content receives comments. This can be toggled off per image/video.
  • Registered users viewing others content can also opt in to receive notifications about new comments.

3.3 Create a Video From Images

  • Click “Create (➕) Video from Images” if all required images are in the list at the bottom of the Editor.
  • Alternatively, hold Ctrl or ⌘ and click all of the required images in the list at the bottom of the Editor, then right-click and select “Create Video from Images”.
  • Before starting the recording, optionally drag them into the order they should be presented in.
  • Optionally select the desired background color, especially if the images do not have the same dimensions.
  • Just like when recording the screen, the camera can be turned on or off, and its placement and size can be modified by dragging and resizing the camera preview.
  • When presenting, the arrow keys of the keyboard can be used to navigate between images, just like when presenting using [Microsoft PowerPoint](…/Microsoft PowerPoint/).

3.4 Combine Multiple Videos Into One

  • To add to an existing video, select the video that should go first from the “Recent Captures” (the tray at the bottom of the Editor), then click “Add videos”, and select the video(s) to add to the end of the first, in the desired order.
  • Alternatively, hold down Ctrl or ⌘ while selecting videos in the “Recent Captures” in the desired order, then right-click and select “Combine videos”.

3.5 All the Ways to Share Your Snagit Videos

  • Click “Share History” to view links to previously shared captures.
  • The share options can be edited in the Preferences window.

Certificate

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