Useful Tools for Creating Visio Demos via Screen Capture and Recording

Started by Paul Herber, November 25, 2008, 09:07:47 AM

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Paul Herber

Yesterday I needed to create some demo files for showing operation of aspects of Visio for a website, I've found:
http://camstudio.org/
that can produce good quality AVI and Shockwave Flash output.
Seems very simple to use and the price is good (free).

I have no interest in this software other than a happy user.

Electronic and Electrical engineering, business and software stencils for Visio -

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Visio Guy

Thanks Paul!

It's good to have some feedback, as there seem to be a lot of tools out there.

Office Labs has a free recorder called Community Clips.

It integrates nicely with the likes of Word and Excel, but I don't think it shows up in Visio's toolbar, which is, on second thought, probably a good thing. I can't say how good or efficient the screen captures are, though. Maybe another newsgroup-er can comment?

Saveen Reddy's blog has more info on screen capture and recording software.

His post: Nothing But Screen Caputures which points to Screen Capture News .

Saveen also commented on the tools he uses in this post: Screen Capture and Recording. Worth reading, 'cause Saveen's smart!
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Visio Guy

And if you want to see examples what power-without-responsibility can yield, have a look at these Visio videos on my YouTube Channel:

Channel 'Visio Guy' on YouTube

;D
For articles, tips and free content, see the Visio Guy Website at http://www.visguy.com
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Paul Herber

Good stuff, yes, I might consider YouTube, but for now I've put a Flash file at:

http://www.sandrila.co.uk/visio-dfd/flashdemo-gs.php

I've spent the last hour trying to discover why it worked locally but not on the live server, sigh, the standard directory path separator difference between linux ('/') and Windows ('\'). Sigh. After flumpty-flump years I should have learnt this one!

Electronic and Electrical engineering, business and software stencils for Visio -

https://www.paulherber.co.uk/

Visio Guy

Nice video, Paul! What's the file size on that?

I wonder how much the file size goes down if we turn off grids and rulers (less junk, I would think...)
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Paul Herber

It started off as a 5MB .avi but down to just under 500kB as a .swf.
My take is to keep the grids/rulers etc on as the screen appears more normal (to me).
I would guess that, like in an mpeg, any static items take up very little space.

Electronic and Electrical engineering, business and software stencils for Visio -

https://www.paulherber.co.uk/

Visio Guy

Yeah, grids make the Visio :)

Thanks for the filesize stats, pretty interesting--1/10th!
For articles, tips and free content, see the Visio Guy Website at http://www.visguy.com
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Paul Herber

I'll need to create one tomorrow that is closer to a full size drawing, that will be more interesting, well, perhaps a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 ! You can't imagine the level of fun in my life.   8)


Electronic and Electrical engineering, business and software stencils for Visio -

https://www.paulherber.co.uk/

cotswolddave

Hi

I've been using Camtasia recently (from techsmith) for Visio screen shot capture. I looked around for a long time and found it the easiest, expecially when I wanted to edit out the ums and errs. The zoom in feature is great when you want to show detail. If you go to youtube and type in Visio AssetGen as search criteria you'll across a number of videos, which show data graphics, hyperlinking, automation etc.