When you are ready to make a Camtasia project available to your learners, you need to Produce it. Choosing the Produce and Share menu item (File menu) takes the source content and outputs it into a format that can be viewed by the learner.
Arguably, the most common way to publish a Camtasia project is as a Flash SWF. This is an excellent solution because SWF files can be used by the vast majority of the world's personal computers, browsers and operating systems. Although your learners will not need Camtasia installed on their computer to use a SWF, they will need a modern web browser and the free Adobe Flash Player (www.adobe.com). According to Adobe, the Flash Player is installed on most of the world's computers.
But SWFs have a problem. Learners using an Apple mobile device, such as the iPad, iPod and iPhone (that's millions of potential learners), cannot use SWF content. Learners using an Apple mobile device who attempt to access a SWF are met with a warning that SWFs are not supported.
If you'd like to produce content for the Apple mobile devices from Camtasia, hope is not lost. When you produce a SWF in Camtasia, the output includes a Smart Player. The Smart Player automatically detects if the learner's device or browser supports Flash. If the learner's device or browser does not support Flash content, the Smart Player will automatically detect the limitation and playback the content using HTML5--helping ensure that the video will play.
To Produce an eLearning lesson that will include the Smart Player, choose File > Produce and share to open the Production Wizard. From the drop-down menu, chooseCustom production settings and click the Next button.
From the Recommended area of the How would you like to produce your video? window, select MP4-Flash/HTML5 player.
All you need to do now is move through the remaining Production Wizard screens and select, among other things, the appearance of the Smart Player. (There are six controller themes including Black, Silver and Glossy. Transparent is the default.)
That's all there is to it. Behind the scenes, the Smart Player will ensure that your video will play for the learner on just about any kind of computer or mobile device.
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Looking to learn Camtasia quickly? I teach a live, online Introduction to Techsmith Camtasia Studio 8 class for ASTD. You can learn more here. The class includes a free copy of my new TechSmith Camtasia Studio 8: The Essentials book.
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