Tips for Recording PowerPoint Presentations

When recording a PowerPoint presentation for screencasting, you don't have to use the slideshow view of PowerPoint. You can use the regular editing view that shows your notes at the bottom of the screen. During the editing process, we'll crop down the screen to only show the slides.

Edit your presentation to keep some blank area at one corner of the slides. This is where your video will sit on top of the screen. It can be at any corner - bottom left or bottom right works well. If you have slides that absolutely take up the whole screen, that's okay - you can fade out your webcam video during that time during the editing process - but you want to avoid doing that when it's easy, because those edits take time.

An example of the empty-corner technique is shown here:

Recording Podcasts with ScreenFlow (Macs)

To start recording, launch ScreenFlow. Check the boxes for "Record Video" and "Record Audio From Microphone", and uncheck the box for "Record Computer Audio" as shown in this screenshot:

Make sure the camera is seeing you and not chopping off your head, and try speaking a few words to make sure that the audio meter moves around. Click the Record button to begin recording.

Before speaking, after Screenflow counts down 3-2-1, wait several seconds quietly with a smile on your face. This gives the camera time to adjust to the light and gives Screenflow enough time to start the recording smoothly.

When you're done recording, wait several seconds (again, give 'em a smile) then click the Screenflow icon near the clock at the top of the screen, and click Stop.

Screenflow will show your recording. Immediately click File, Save, and save it somewhere before you start editing.

Editing Out Goofs

Screenflow has a set of tutorial videos about Screenflow editing.

Exporting the Video

When you're done editing, click File, Export. Use these settings:

• Preset: Web High Quality
• Scale to Custom Size: Width 640, Height 480
• Letterbox Content: Yes

For the file name, here's an example of our naming conventions: SQLServerPedia-20081211-DMVs.mov

• SQLServerPedia - we start with this to identify which site it belongs to
• 20081211 - the date in eight-character format.
• DMVs - a short description of the show topic.
• mov - the extension. Don't change that part.

Next Step: How_to_Produce_Podcasts