Do You Know About Jing?

(www.techsmith.com/download/jing/)

Jing is a simple and free software program that serves a very handy purpose: it allows you to take screenshot photos of all or part of what’s on your computer screen. It also allows you to record video of what’s on your computer screen for a period of up to five minutes. You may then post these photos or videos directly to Facebook or Twitter, or easily send them as email through Jing.

Screenshot photos are very helpful. For example, suppose you just created a new Google AdWords ad, and want to remember the wording without having to go into AdWords every time. With Jing, you can quickly capture a photo of the ad and keep it where you can access it quickly. Or suppose you are looking at some flight details for your next trip but you only want to print the actual schedule, not all the junk information that goes along with it on the web page. Just use Jing to take a screenshot photo of the schedule and print the PNG photo.

In the case of video, Jing is great for remembering exactly how to do something or explaining it to someone else. For example, if your co-workers tend to get confused about uploading media into WordPress, you can have a Jing video show the steps it takes to do it. That way they don’t need to bother you every time they get stuck.

How to use Jing to take screenshots or record video

1. When Jing is running, you see a small, yellow semi-circle at the top of your screen (it looks like a sun). When you mouse over it, you will see three options: Capture, History, and More. Choose Capture (on the left) which has the crosshairs icon.
2. You will then be able to drag and select an area of your screen to capture.
3. After you have selected an area of your screen, you are given choices for what to do with that area. The choices are: capture image, capture video, re-do selection or cancel.
   • If you select image, you will be able to name the file and save it to the location of your preference.
   • If you select video, you will see a three-second countdown before recording begins. The recording can go as long as five minutes. When you are ready to stop recording, click the stop/finish button. You will then be able to name the file and save it to the location of your preference. (Jing video files are in the .swf format and should be able to play on your web browser—Microsoft Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox or Google Chrome, etc..)

Other Features of Jing

• If you mouse over the sun and choose History, Jing can help you manage and reuse your captures. (Note, however, that if you delete a capture from your History, it will also delete the actual content from wherever you saved it on your computer.)
• To make Jing more effective for your needs, you can customize the buttons. For example, if there are three different folders where you save your screenshots you may create three different save buttons.
• You can annotate and markup your screenshots with text, arrows, framed areas, and highlighted areas. Once you select the area of your screen to be captured, select the image button. You are then given several tools (again on the left of the screen) to annotate and markup your image. (Videos cannot be annotated.)
• You can create a Facebook button for easy uploading to Facebook.
• You can create a Twitter button for easy uploading to Twitter.