In an officewide email today, one of my co-workers raised a great question. Do we know what impact a tool like SnagIt has on communication?

Or to phrase the question another way: "Do we know whether using pictures+words is more effective than words alone...and, if so, how much more?"

I won't bore you with a lengthy, academic answer to this question. Instead, I'll point you to this excellent blog post by Kathy Sierra, who summarizes some of the research, makes it relevant, and gives practical tips for how to act on it. A quick excerpt for the truly time-challenged: A pile of evidence supports that people learn more deeply from words with pictures than from words alone (Mayer, 1989b, Mayer and Gallini, 1990; Mayer, Bove, and others, 1996.), and overall, several studies combined have shown a median percentage gain of 89% effectiveness.

Sierra also makes a case for putting text captions on pictures instead of under them—an intriguing concept.

The bottom line is this: creating helpful, illustrative graphics takes some extra time—and a different skill set—than writing. But if you believe the research, it's worth the effort.

Daniel Foster
Newsletter Editor

P.S. Do you looove SnagIt? We need your help with a super-secret marketing project! Click here for details...

Do you enjoy the tutorial video at the bottom of every month's SnagIt newsletter? Would your customers, employees, or learners appreciate videos like this?

A new version of Camtasia Studio just shipped, and I was thinking...what would you—yes, you!—need to produce your first video, distribute it, and get some feedback on it?

Well, you would need 1) screen recording software, 2) a microphone if you want voice narration, 3) a place to upload the video files for others to view, and 4) some guidance through the process.

Want to try it? Here's your "shopping list":

• Download and install Camtasia Studio free 30-day trial
• Open a free Screencast.com account (Camtasia Studio can upload videos directly to it)
• Borrow or buy a mic (also available from other vendors)

As for guidance, Camtasia Studio pretty much walks you through the process from start to finish. But if you get stuck, just remember that the free trial offers the same top-notch help files, videos, written tutorials—even phone support!—as you'd get with the paid version.

Total cost and time required: $0 (if you already have a microphone) and no more than 60-90 minutes.

What's that? You want someone to walk you through a sample project step-by-step? Sure thing! Just print out this PDF and follow along...

This user tip comes from Jan Granath, professor emeritus.

It is always a problem writing an email address on a website. There is a risk it will be picked up and you get a lot of spam...

I use SnagIt and capture the character @ of my choice which I paste into my email address as an image. Voila!

With SnagIt Printer, any software application on your computer can "print" to an image file.

That means you can open a spreadsheet, click File > Print...and instead of getting a paper printout you can get a TIFF or JPEG file.

Why is this useful? Because the "paperless" image looks just like the printed page, but doesn't take up any physical space and can be emailed easily. And unlike the original digital file, it's resistant to tampering or edits and requires no special software to be viewed.

How is this different than just using SnagIt to capture the screen? Well, screen capture gives you exactly what's on the screen; printer capture gives you exactly what would be printed. Here's a simple example from Microsoft Word.



One final note: SnagIt Printer can also produce a PDF, which is great for multi-page documents. Instead of one graphic file per page, all the pages are together in one file. It should be noted, however, that this is not a text PDF but an image PDF. That means file sizes will be larger, document text can't be searched, etc.

To learn how to configure and use the SnagIt Printer, watch this 2-minute video. Additional details are available in the written tutorial.

(SnagIt Printer is usually installed right along with SnagIt; if you don't have it installed, here's how to get it.)