Spectrumgol

1. How Do I Access The Captions Editor In Camtasia 3 For Mac
2. Captions Editor

If you are using online videos for instruction without adequate captions (no, those automatic captions on YouTube, while a great start, are NOT adequate without editing), you are likely to have a visit from the DOE Office of Civil Rights at some point.

This product review by Phil Stokes first appeared in Communicator, Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators, Summer 2012.

• Note: The length of the Speech-to-Text generated captions is dependent on the Caption duration setting in Camtasia. The default for Captions is 4.0 seconds. This allows approximately one to two lines of text per caption. This setting is found under Tools + Options + Program + Default duration.
• This had worked fine in Canvas in the past - I published the Camtasia project using an HTML5 publishing option, uploaded the entire folder of files to a folder in Canvas, linked to the.html file in that folder, and everything worked fine - on PC, Mac, iOS.

CAMTASIA for Mac 2 – TechSmith’s premier screencast and video editing software
Available from TechSmith
Rating: 8/10
Introduction
I’ve been a long time user of TechSmith’s Camtasia screen capture software, primarily for two reasons: ease of use combined with a rich set of editing features. Camtasia for Mac 2 strengthens this product in a number of significant ways although there are still some usability issues that need addressing, as well as room for further improvements in the feature set. In this review, I’ll walk you through what Camtasia has to offer as well as indicate the kind of uses where it excels as an aid to the technical communicator.
Market placement
There is no shortage of screencasting software on the market, so where does Camtasia fit in the grand scheme of things? Camtasia’s developer, TechSmith, offers two other screen capture products: Jing and SnagIt. Jing is a free product and ideal for making what are sometimes called ‘quick and dirty’ screen captures. It provides relatively little in the way of either editing or playback options, but does include free online sharing. SnagIt also allows users to capture video, save it and share it, as well as add some basic annotations. Like Jing, it includes the ability to share your screen capture online, freely on TechSmith’s own Screencast.com site. While these products are fine for basic screencasting work, they lack the features to make really professional, corporate-quality videos. This is where Camtasia steps in. It does all of the above and a whole lot more. Camtasia can embed video both from other sources such as QuickTime or MP4 files from your hard drive and from your computer’s iSight or webcam. More significantly, it also offers a full-featured editing suite, including animations, transitions and annotation tools. You can import and edit audio files, and create and produce short videos that have nothing at all to do with the recording on your screen’s desktop, if you wish.
Camtasia’s rich feature set means it is often compared with Adobe’s Captivate or MadCap’s Mimic, and if you already have or use one of these you may wonder whether you need Camtasia at all. However, there are important differences. Camtasia is not slide-based like Captivate. Rather, like dedicated video editing software, it is primarily organised around audio and visual timelines that determine what appears on the screen, and when. Although Captivate makes use of a timeline too, it is not central to the workflow in the way that it is in TechSmith’s Camtasia. The main difference, however, is what you can do with the two programs. The emphasis with Camtasia is on video creation (where video includes, but is not restricted to, what we ordinarily called ‘screen capture’ and ‘screencasting’), and the output is, like most videos, a largely passive experience for the viewer. Unlike Captivate, Camtasia does not allow you to create interactive software simulations. That may not be a drawback as such; it’s just not what Camtasia is for. Rather, Camtasia’s strengths lie in the ease with which you can produce professional, corporate quality videos that can demonstrate (rather than simulate) software products, provide tutorials, explain technical procedures or do pretty much anything else that you might to want to use the short video format for.
Perhaps the best way to see what kind of output you can achieve with Camtasia is to look at TechSmith’s own Camtasia tutorials. Take a look here, for instance. To give you an example of uses other than recording activity on your computer screen, you could just as easily dump Photoshop or Illustrator images into Camtasia’s media bin and create videos showing how an illustration or diagram is built up over time, adding transitions, animations and annotation effects to guide the viewer through the process.
Recording, editing and sharing
With some idea of what Camtasia can do, let’s take a look at its principal functions: the recording, editing and sharing facilities.

Recording
The recorder starts by default when you open Camtasia and consists of a simple interface from which you choose your recording options such as screen area, audio input and whether or not to turn on your computer’s iSight/Webcam.
The last option is a nice effect if you want to include an inset video of the speaker, which can be especially useful for providing sign language or lip-reading for your viewers. It can also be useful when the speaker’s image is important to the branding of your video. Of course, the webcam can be used to record other useful activity aside from a narrator, such as showing how two parts of an assembly fit together.
Editing
The editor is really the meat of the program and also where those who upgrade from the original version will notice the bulk of changes.

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The first and most significant improvement is in screen real estate. As with the earlier version of Camtasia, the upper half contains the ‘Assets’ area (media files, annotations, effects and others) on the left, and the ‘Canvas’ or preview screen on the right. The bottom half of the editor is reserved for the Timeline.
However, the size of the Assets area has been significantly reduced in Camtasia 2 to the benefit of the more visually important Canvas and Timeline areas. This makes the Canvas, in particular, much easier to use and solves that ‘looking through a keyhole’ feeling that could sometimes result in the original version. The horizontal divide between the Timeline and the Canvas can be resized to favour one or the other, though it would be good to see some preset sizes included in the View menu, or – even better – detachable and individually resizable panels which could allow the Canvas area to be viewed in full screen mode on a different monitor.
Aside from size, the Assets area has also seen a number of welcome changes. Long missing from the original version were cursor highlighting effects. The new version includes a number of preset effects for highlighting both the cursor and left and right mouse clicks. There are also some new annotations that SnagIt users will recognise such as the blur feature for removing sensitive information. Other annotations include highlighters, callouts, arrows and shapes. It would have been good if they had also included SnagIt’s ‘Stamps’, which provide pre-formatted keyboard and numeral images. Given that showing keystrokes on a screencast is a common need, it is a strange oversight — one that the present reviewer hopes is remedied in a future release sooner rather than later. Another new feature in Camtasia 2’s Assets area is a thumbnail preview area that shows what each preset does, a very useful addition for newcomers to both the program and screencasting in general.
Still with Assets, video effects include the usual fade in/out, zooming and panning and SmartFocus. For those unfamiliar with Camtasia, SmartFocus is worth a mention as it is one of the most useful features if your primary interest is software demonstration. You simply add the SmartFocus effect by dragging and dropping it onto a video clip on the Timeline. SmartFocus will then try to guess where the video should be panned and zoomed and add the required animations automatically. I would say it gets it right about 50% of the time on average, but it really does vary a great deal from clip to clip depending on the complexity of the screen action and how you moved around the screen during recording (you can find tips on how to improve SmartFocus’s accuracy in TechSmith’s Help viewer, but more on that later). However, the accuracy rate isn’t a major problem since what makes SmartFocus so usable is the ease with which you can simply drag or copy the added pans and zooms along the Timeline to wherever you want them. This saves a huge amount of time compared to manually adding and adjusting the effects yourself, from scratch.
It is worth noting that SmartFocus will only work if the video clip was actually recorded in Camtasia. For video clips imported from other sources, and that includes TechSmith’s own SnagIt captures, you must add zooms and pans manually.
The editor interface also provides access to other features such as the Properties panel (orange frame):
This is where the user can really take control of the presets and produce a greater variety of effects. For advanced users, one of the best tools is the ‘blank’ animation. This acts as a container and does nothing until you give it values in the Properties panel, from which you can create a wide variety of custom effects at any point in the Timeline.
Next to the Assets area is the Canvas, where you preview your video. The Canvas hides a number of powerful features behind a very simple interface. Perhaps most importantly, it is on the Canvas that you can change the screen resolution for your export. It is worth doing this at the beginning of your project so that you can be sure everything is aligned properly and will be within the viewing area in your final production. The Canvas also allows you to simply drag assets around, create multiple insets in your video, show two or more clips simultaneously, tilt, scale and zoom in or out of the preview to see how things look.
Below the Canvas is the Timeline, probably the most important part of the editor. Although you can drag and drop assets onto the Canvas, you will gain much finer control by using the Timeline, where the audio, video, animations and effects all have their own editable timelines. Best code editor for mac. Here you can lengthen or shorten the duration of multiple video clips, decide which clips overlay others, cut parts out of your video as well as perform various audio editing and other effects, too.
If you are upgrading, the change from using the cursor keys to move the Playhead back and forth along the timeline to the comma and period keys will prove an annoyance. I certainly found that it took some getting used to. To my surprise, there’s no option to change the key assignments in Camtasia’s preferences, something that I wish TechSmith would consider looking at.
Support for audio in Camtasia 2 has been greatly improved and now includes not only volume adjustment but also the ability to change pitch, noise reduction, and clip speed, all of which are edited on the Timeline. I was disappointed not to find an audio clip library added to the new version. Some built-in jingles and sound effects, which are commonly employed at the beginning and ending of videos and can be useful for illustrating certain events, would be a welcome addition here.
One of my favourite features on the Timeline is the Captions track. This allows you to add subtitles to your video:
It is a very slick and well-thought out feature that really does make the procedure easy. When you add the Captions effect, Camtasia first automatically divides your clip into four-second caption frames, which can then be used to add the subtitles or captions via a floating HUD (Heads Up Display). Font size, type and colour can all be adjusted from controls inside the HUD, and a simple slider allows you to adjust the duration of the frame. Previews are instantaneous. You can change and preview your captions as you work your way along the Timeline.
Sharing
The final area of Camtasia to look at is how the program deals with rendering and exporting. It is worth noting that TechSmith has gone out of its way to make this as simple as possible for the user. There are only two things to do: first, decide where and how your video is likely to be viewed. Camtasia offers you lots of presets: YouTube, iPhone, iPod, Web and others. As mentioned earlier, this is best done at the beginning of your project. At the end, when you are satisfied with your production, choose ‘Share’ in the menu bar. You can upload directly from within the program to YouTube, iTunes or TechSmith’s own video sharing service, Screencast.com. Camtasia will automatically choose the right settings for your choices.
For more advanced users and corporate productions, you may want to choose a custom resolution from the ‘adjust Canvas’ menu, and then choose Advanced Export features in the Share menu. Export formats include 3G, AVI, AIFF, DV Stream, MP4, MPEG4, QuickTime, Wave and others. Finally, an important feature worth noting here is that you can export both your audio and subtitles files separately for reuse in other projects or for sending to other members of your team.
Rendering speeds are of course very dependent on your hardware specifications, but TechSmith’s claim that rendering speed has been improved by 40–60% since the last version certainly seems credible based on experience with my own machine.
How hard can it be?
If you have never done any screencasting but are tasked with producing software demonstration or training videos for the first time, you will find Camtasia pleasantly simple to learn. Ease of use is built into the whole software design, and TechSmith provides some great user assistance and tutorial packages from the Help menu. Not surprisingly, they make heavy use of short, very effective screencasts to teach beginners both the ins-and-outs of the program and the fundamentals of good screencasting practice. Links to online product support and a community forum are also built right into the Help menu. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a complete PDF reference manual for the new version, so we can only hope that is on its way for those of us who prefer text- searchable documentation for quick referencing.
At around £38 ($49) for an upgrade and £76.50 ($99) as a stand-alone purchase, Camasia for Mac 2 also offers good value for money. TechSmith offers a full-featured, 30-day trial.
Evaluation
While the program could do with adding some commonly used assets like keystroke stamps and an audio clip library, as well as better integration with SnagIt, Camtasia 2.0 builds on the strength of the original program and adds a number of features that really turn this into a professional level, short-video application. It is relatively simple to learn and use, attractively designed, and will handle just about anything from a 60-sec ‘how-to’ to a full corporate training video. Unless you need the kind of sophisticated TV camera input and post-production facilities offered by something like Final Cut Pro, or the interactive software simulation capability offered by Captivate, Camtasia should serve well the video creation and production needs of most technical communicators.

Quick Summary

Camtasia is a powerful video editing program available for both Windows and macOS. It supports a range of popular media formats and offers an impressive degree of control over the videos you create, while still being easy to use. TechSmith (the maker of Camtasia) even has a free mobile app for Android and iOS that makes it easy to transfer media from your device for use in Camtasia. Once you’re finished editing, you can render and share your video files to Youtube, Vimeo, Google Drive and Screencast.com from within the program.

Even for people who have never used video editing software before, Camtasia is easy to learn thanks to the excellent tutorial support provided by TechSmith. It’s a bit limited in the amount of preset media built into the program, and there isn’t much more available on the web, but at this level, presets aren’t a primary concern. You can try Camtasia free for 30 days or buy it directly.

• Professional Featureset
• Complete Effect Control
• 4K Video Support
• Excellent Tutorial Support
• Social Sharing Integration
• Mobile Companion App

• Comparatively Expensive
• Limited Preset Media Library
• Deep Editing Features Need UI Work

Camtasia 2018

Quick Navigation

// Why Trust Us
// What is Camtasia
// A Closer Look at Camtasia
// ​The Reasons Behind My Ratings
// Camtasia Alternatives
// Conclusion

Update Note: This Camtasia review has been revamped for freshness and accuracy. TechSmith has finally changed the naming system of Camtasia for consistency. Previously, the Windows version was called Camtasia Studio. Now it goes with Camtasia 2018, for both PC and Mac versions. Also, Camtasia 2018 added a number of new features such as brand new assets and theming.

Why Trust Us

My name is Thomas Boldt. I’ve worked with a wide range of video editing software in the past, from small open source transcoders to industry standard software such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. As a part of my training as a graphic designer, I spent time learning the ins and outs of both motion graphics and the software that creates them, including their UI and UX design.

I have worked with TechSmith products in the past, but TechSmith has had no editorial input or review of the content here. They have no stake in the review and I did not receive any special consideration from them for writing it, so I am completely unbiased in my opinions.

Meanwhile, JP has been using Camtasia for Mac since August 2015. He first used the program when he was assigned a task to make video tutorials for the Whova app (here’s an example). He tried a couple of video editing tools before finally selecting Camtasia, and he has been happy working with it since. You can see his purchase history below, and the tweet which was posted three years ago.

JP’s software license for Camtasia Mac

What is Camtasia

Camtasia is a professional-grade video editor for Windows and Mac. It provides a good balance of control, well-designed user interface and high-quality output that makes it perfect for videographers and web content producers who need their videos to look professional and unique.

The program (formerly known as Camtasia Studio) has a long development history for the PC, and its success prompted TechSmith to put out a Mac version as well. Both have been around since 2011, although earlier and slightly different versions of the software existed before then for both platforms. With such a long history, TechSmith has done a great job of constantly pushing the development limits while keeping the software relatively bug-free.

Camtasia Studio (Windows) vs Camtasia for Mac

TechSmith has finally updated the naming system to be the same on both platforms, but the program is essentially the same no matter where you use it. The user interface looks very similar, although naturally the keyboard shortcuts are different.

The two programs are mostly compatible as long as you are using version 9 on Windows or version 3 on Mac, allowing you to transfer project files from one platform to the other. Unfortunately, some media and effect types aren’t cross-platform compatible, which can cause problems when downloading third party media presets.

Since I tested the Windows version, JP will be sharing his personal opinions on the Mac version since he has been using it on his MacBook Pro for years.

The main screen of the app on JP’s MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra

Is Camtasia Safe?

This program is absolutely safe to use. The installer file and the program files themselves pass all checks from Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. The installer doesn’t try to install any unwanted or third-party software, and provides you with options to customize the installation process to your needs. JP also put the Mac installer file to scan with Drive Genius and it turns out to be clean as well.

Once it’s installed, it’s still quite safe. Camtasia doesn’t interact with your file system aside from opening, saving and rendering video files, so there’s no risk of it causing any damage to your computer or to your other files.

When uploading video files to Google Drive, the program does request access to upload to your Youtube account, but this is simply because Google owns Youtube and your Google account doubles as a Youtube account. These permissions can also be revoked at any time, if desired.

Is Camtasia Free? (& How Much Does It Cost)

Camtasia 2018 currently costs $249 USD for both the PC and Mac versions of the software. If you have purchased the program before, you can upgrade to the latest version for $99.50 USD only.

While the program isn’t free, it does come with a free 30-day trial period. During this trial you can use the program as normal, but any videos that you render will be watermarked, as you can see below. If you choose to purchase the software, any project files that you created during the trial can then be re-rendered without the watermark.

Best wysiwyg html editor 2017 for mac. I wish they added the word ‘free’ in that sentence – otherwise it sounds almost ominous

A Closer Look at Camtasia

Note: this is an incredibly powerful program with a lot of features, so I’m going to stick to the most commonly used and the most interesting ones – otherwise you’ll get tired of reading before we’re done. Also, since TechSmith has been making improvements to the software, the latest version of Camtasia will look differently.

The first thing you’ll notice about the software when loading it for the first time is that the interface is a little bit busy. This impression goes away quickly as you start to appreciate how carefully it’s designed.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about not knowing where to start, because the first time Camtasia runs, it loads up a sample project file TechSmith made that contains a video tutorial of the basic interface layout, and it begins to play automatically. It’s quite a clever way to show first timers how to use a video editor!

It even shows you where to go to find more video tutorials on the TechSmith website, which cover almost anything you’ll want to do with the program.

There are three main areas of the interface: the track timelines at the bottom, the media and effects library in the top left, and the preview area in the top right. Once you begin to add effects that have customizable options, a ‘Properties’ panel appears in the top right.

Importing media is a snap, as it functions just like any other ‘File Open’ dialog. Everything you import sits in the ‘Media Bin’, and beside that you can access the Library of all preset media that comes built into the program.

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You can also import files directly from Google Drive, which is a nice touch, but one of the most useful features is the ability to import directly from your mobile device using TechSmith’s companion app Fuse.

Working With Mobile Devices

This is an incredibly useful function if you use your smartphone or mobile device to shoot video, which is becoming more and more popular as their cameras grow more capable. Click File, then choose ‘Connect Mobile Device’, and you’ll be presented with a series of simple instructions.

I don’t want to go too deep into the process of using the mobile app, but since both my devices were connected to the same network, I was able to quickly pair the app and the installation on my PC.

Free photo editor for mac. I could then transfer images and video from my phone directly to my Camtasia media bin with only a few taps, where they were ready to include in my test project after a very fast upload process.

The only issue that I ran into was that Fuse tended to temporarily disconnect itself when my phone screen locked, but it would resume within a few seconds of running the app again.

JP’s note: This is a huge benefit. The Fuse app wasn’t actually available back in 2015 when I first used Camtasia for Mac. I was using the app to edit mobile app tutorials for Whova, and Fuse would have been a big help. There were several times, as I recall now, I took several screenshots on my iPhone and I had to transfer them to my Mac via email before they were importing into the dashboard. Fuse is definitely a time-saver!

Working with Your Media

Once you’ve breezed through adding the media you want to work with, Camtasia continues to be extremely easy to use and well designed. Simply dragging your selected media to either the preview window or the timeline adds it to your project, and populates a new track automatically if required.

You can create as many tracks as necessary, rearrange them and rename them as you like to keep your media organized during longer complex projects.

Cutting and pasting sections of video files is extremely fast and easy to do – simply select the section of your video, then cut and paste into a new track just as it if was text in a word processor.

How Do I Access The Captions Editor In Camtasia 3 For Mac

Perhaps it’s just because I’m working on an incredibly powerful computer, but there was absolutely no lag time while cutting this HD video of my cat Juniper into separate sections.

Adding in overlays and effects is just as simple as adding your initial media files. Select the type of object or effect you want to add from the list on the left, choose the appropriate type, and then drag and drop it onto the timeline or the preview window.

You can completely customize every aspect of the overlay to fit your style using the properties section on the right of the preview window.

Adding scene transition effects is also just as easy – choose the one you want, and then click and drag. As soon as you start to drag, each element on every track displays a yellow highlight which areas will be affected.

This is great user interface design, and makes it easy to see how much overlap you’ll need to include to make your various elements mesh successfully.

The only time I felt even slightly confused by the interface was when I got really deep into the design of some of the preset effects. I wanted to edit some of the animation behaviors, and it started to get a bit messy.

All of Camtasia’s presets are groups of different elements combined together into one package that can be dragged and dropped easily into your project, which makes finding the one piece you want to edit a bit difficult – especially when you have to sort through groups of groups.

You don’t have to dig that deeply to get great benefits from its presets, but to create something truly professional and unique you’ll have to get used to working at this level.

With a bit of practice, it will probably become much easier, although this aspect of the interface would probably be better handled through a popup window that let you focus on the element you were editing.

Animating sections of your video is also quite easy. Instead of messing around with keyframes or other confusing terminology, you simply see an arrow overlay on the track you are working with, complete with start and end points that can be dragged around to the right spot.

To get frame-level accuracy, clicking and holding on the point will show a tooltip with the exact timecode, another nice user interface touch that makes it easy to be precise.

JP’s note: I have similar feelings with Thomas on using the media-related features while using the Mac version. TechSmith makes it a breeze to drag and drop, edit and annotate media elements the way you want. Pro tip: if you are new to video editing, I highly recommend you take an hour or so to watch the awesome tutorials TechSmith team made.

Working with Audio

Camtasia doesn’t have quite as many audio editing features as you might want if you’re an audiophile, but for most purposes it can do more than enough.

You can quickly separate the audio from any imported video into a separate track for cutting and trimming, and there are several standard editing options such as noise removal, volume leveling, speed adjustments and fades.

One of the more interesting and useful audio features is the ability to add narration to your video directly within the program while you actually watch what’s playing. This means you don’t have to worry about making sure your audio syncs up with your video, since you’ll be able to record in real time as the video plays.

In case you were wondering, I did a terrible impression of Sir David Attenborough doing a nature documentary on Juniper for the test. Somehow he turned out sounding Scottish instead of English…

JP’s note: I didn’t expect the audio editing features to be that awesome. To be honest, I tried Audacity (an open source audio editing software) to trim voiceovers for the app tutorial I made. It turned out that I wasted a couple of hours, because Camtasia was powerful enough to meet all my audio editing needs. Nevertheless, I like Audacity and still use it occasionally these days.

Additional Video Features

Camtasia also has a range of overall video effects for chroma keying (“green screen” editing), video speed adjustments and general color adjustments. The chroma key feature is remarkably easy to use, and you can set the color to be removed with the eyedropper in just a few clicks.

It works surprisingly well, allowing you to make chroma keyed videos with almost any consistent background color. It doesn’t work so well in my example video, because Juniper is very similar in color to the wood floor, but it’s quite easy to use.

Interactive Functions

One of the most unique functions that I’ve ever seen in a video editor is Camtasia’s interactivity features. It’s possible to add an interactive hotspot that functions just like a standard web link, and even add interactive quizzes.

This feature is going to be most useful for video tutorials and interactive learning applications, making it incredibly useful for teachers and other instructors who educate online.

The only thing to consider when using interactive features is that they require you to create an MP4 video that comes bundled with TechSmith’s Smart Player, otherwise the interactive content won’t work.

Screen Capture

For those of you making tutorial videos or other screen-based video content, you’ll be happy to know that Camtasia comes with a built-in screen recorder that is easily accessed with the big red ‘Record’ button in the top left.

It’s everything you could want in a screen recorder, complete with audio, mouse-click tracking and webcam companion recording. The resulting video appears in your project’s media bin alongside all your other project media, and can be simply added to the timeline like any other file.

JP’s note: Seriously, this was the killer feature that made me go with this TechSmith product. Why? Because it was the first video editor software that supported adding an iPhone 6 frame to the app videos I made.If you have chance to read this post I wrote earlier, you know that I tried Screenflow before its competition. But Screenflow didn’t have an iPhone 6 frame in its media library at that time, so I switched to Camtasia and found it truly great.

Rendering and Sharing Your Video

Once you’ve finally got your masterpiece just the way you want it, Camtasia has a range of options for creating your final video. You can create a local file on your computer using any settings you want, or you can create a file and have Camtasia upload it automatically to Youtube, Vimeo, Google Drive, or TechSmith’s Screencast.com.

I don’t have an account with any of those services except Google Drive, so let’s take a look at how it works.

A quick sign-in and approval from my two-factor authentication (enable this for your own Google account if you’re not already using it – it’s a dangerous web out there), and we’re off!

The file was rendered and uploaded with no problems at all! The program even opened a window in my Google Drive to preview, although it all went so fast that Google was still processing the video by the time the preview window opened.

The Reasons Behind My Ratings

Effectiveness: 5/5

Camtasia is an incredibly powerful video editor, allowing you to do almost anything you want to create a professional-quality result. You have total control over every aspect of arrangement, animation, color, timing and anything else you might want to adjust.

Price: 3/5

At $249 USD for the full version, the software is quite expensive when compared to other professional-quality video editors such as Adobe Premiere Pro. Depending on what you specifically want from a video editor, you may be able to get better value for your money.

Ease of Use: 4.5/5

Considering how powerful and capable it is, TechSmith has done a great job making the program so easy to use. The interface is clearly and consistently laid out, and the only usability issue that I experienced was a relatively minor one with a deep editing panel that could be fixed in a future update of the software.

Support: 4.5/5

Captions Editor

The program starts for the first time with a tutorial, and TechSmith seems to be quite committed to providing training resources on the web. They are continually developing and updating the software to fix bugs, and they’re good enough at it that I didn’t run into any issues at all during my review. This didn’t give me a chance to test their support responsiveness, which is the only reason I didn’t give them 5 out of 5.

Camtasia Alternatives

Wondershare Filmora (Windows/Mac)

If you’re overwhelmed by the amount of features that are found in Camtasia, a slightly simpler program might fill your requirements. It’s also easy to use and well-designed, although it does have a couple of technical issues with some of the more non-essential features. It’s also much cheaper, costing only $59.99 USD. Read the full review of Filmora here.

Adobe Premiere Pro (Windows/Mac)

If you’re an Adobe user for other creative purposes, you might feel more at home with Premiere Pro. It’s a robust video editing program that has almost all the same features as Camtasia, and a few that Camtasia doesn’t such as access to TypeKit, Adobe Stock and Adobe After Effects integration. Adobe recently changed their top-level software over to a subscription model, but you can get access to Premiere alone for $19.99 USD per month or as part of the whole creativity and design suite for $49.99 USD per month. Read our full review of Adobe Premiere Pro here.

Telestream ScreenFlow (Mac Only)

ScreenFlow is another great competitor to Camtasia for Mac. With video editing being its core feature, the app also allows you to capture screen recordings (from both Mac desktop and mobile devices), and share the edited videos to the web or download directly to your Mac hard drive. You can learn more from our ScreenFlow review. The only downside to ScreenFlow is that it’s only compatible with Mac machines, so PC users have to select another option. See the best alternatives for ScreenFlow on Windows here.

Movavi Video Editor (Windows/Mac)

This software sits somewhere between Filmora and Camtasia in terms of capabilities, and is less expensive than either of them at $39.95 USD. It’s designed for more of a hobbyist than a professional video editor, but you can still create good quality results despite the lack of control that it allows.

Conclusion

For users looking for professional-quality video editing with an easy-to-use interface, TechSmith Camtasia is an excellent piece of software. It’s quite easy to learn to use, and it’s possible to go from downloading to creating and uploading your first movie in less than an hour.

The added bonus of a companion mobile app Fuse makes for easy file transfers from your mobile device to your workflow. The only part that might give you pause is the price tag, as you can get some industry-standard software for a bit less – you’ll just have to spend a bit more time learning how to use it.