Camtasia is the best editing software if you wanna produce quality video editing fast.

This guide will be for complete beginners and will be as simple as possible and it will be focused on the latest current version Camtasia 9

Here you can see the basic structure of Camtasia 9 with all the important features in it.

The most important thing that you need to know when you are studying Camtasia 9 or any other software is to keep things simple and focus only on what’s important, whenever I’m editing on Camtasia 80% of the time I’m using the basic features of it.

Right when you open Camtasia 9 you will see this screen and I’ll start one by one discussing what is everything used for, you’ll be surprised how easy it is.

1. Media Bin

First, you drag and drop the media file you wanna edit in the “Media Bin“, it may be video (most of the times) it may also be an image, audio file or any other media file.

It is important to mention that in the “Media Bin” you can put as many files or video as you want.

2. Workspace (Edit Here)

Then in order to start editing the videos you put in the “Media Bin” you gotta drag and drop them to #2 which is the “Workspace” or also known as “Timeline” where you do the actual editing.

3. The Selector

In the Workspace, you’re going to be working mostly with the “Selector” the point of the selector is to select the part of the video that you wanna cut for example.

Cut means to make a separation in the video or to remove some parts of it.

There’s plenty of things you can do in that part of the software, things like reducing or increasing the speed of the video, making a freeze-frame and all sorts of different things, but since this is a beginner tutorial we will keep it simple.

Cutting the video is the action you’ll be doing most of the time when you are editing a video with Camtasia.

So let’s sum it up for the first 3 parts of the beginning of the video editing.

First, you place the video in the #1 Media Bin You drag the video into the #2 Workspace Then you use the #3 Selector to select the parts you wanna cut or edit.

So let’s continue with the guide.

4. Preview

The next thing that we gonna take a look at is very simple and there’s not much to be said about it and that is the Preview section.

The preview sections are simply where you can see the result of your editing.

Now it is worth mentioning that if your PC is slow you may have freezings on the Preview especially if you are editing 4k videos with a slow PC since Camtasia is a fairly heavy software to run.

You can also use the preview to resize the video that you are editing and make zooms or make it so it doesn’t take the full screen.

The last thing that I’ll say about the Preview is that it will adapt to the video that you are editing if you start editing a video that is made with a smartphone and it is made on portrait the preview will have the certain size.

5. The Advanced Tools.

There is plenty to be said about the advanced tool in Camtasia 9 but since this is a beginner tutorial I’ll talk briefly about them.

Camtasia is a software that allows you to make both very basic edits and also you can go deeper with more complicated edits, this is where the advanced tools come in place, they will help you step up your editing game.

I’ll just mention a few of the advanced tools:

Annotations – adding text, shapes, arrows and other elements

– adding text, shapes, arrows and other elements Transitions – this is the way one video transitions to another

– this is the way one video transitions to another Behavior – this is certain movements and behaviors of the different elements of the video such as texts images, etc.

– this is certain movements and behaviors of the different elements of the video such as texts images, etc. Animations – Camtasia allows you to either add template animations or make simple ones yourself

– Camtasia allows you to either add template animations or make simple ones yourself Cursor Effect – this feature is great if you are doing tutorials it allows you to add some special effects to the cursor of your mouse while you are moving it around while recording.

– this feature is great if you are doing tutorials it allows you to add some special effects to the cursor of your mouse while you are moving it around while recording. Audio Effects – Speaks for itself, you can simply customize the audios you are editing

– Speaks for itself, you can simply customize the audios you are editing Visual Effects – this is probably the most complicated feature in Camtasia 9 and it allows you to do a lot of Visual Effects that will make your editing stand out and look professional.

– this is probably the most complicated feature in Camtasia 9 and it allows you to do a lot of Visual Effects that will make your editing stand out and look professional. Captions – allows you to add subtitles into your video in a pretty easy way.

Overall the advanced tools are something that you don’t have to use, there are just there if you wanna take your editing to the next level.

6. Recording

The next thing that we gonna talk about is the Recording button and recording with Camtasia 9.

The recording in Camtasia is mostly made for recording your desktop and I use it mostly for tutorials, but you can also use it even for recording gaming videos for example, but you gotta make the game on windows mode.

In order to start recording you just click the record button and then you’ll be given the option to select the area that you wanna record.

Something to keep in mind when recording with Camtasia is that the files can be pretty large at times and I had cases in which my PC runs out of storage while I’m making a long video with it.

7. Export

The last part of the software that you need to know about is Export.

The green button that says the share is also the export button and it is used simply for you to export your video edit into a video file whenever it’s ready.

You can export Camtasia’s projects in many different format and resolutions, the one I use the most is MP4 1080P.

Most of the times when you are exporting a video on Camtasia you’ll just be repeatedly clicking next, so don’t worry about it, it is very simple.

Those are the basics of Camtasia 9 I hope you enjoyed this tutorial for beginners.