Export the presentation as video

The method you use to export your video will depend on the approach you used to build the presentation in the previous step.

Note that each of the methods below requires you to have already performed all of the previous workflow steps.

Exporting video from jhVids Builder

Capture the video

Open the jhVids Builder web app in the Chrome or Edge browser. Press the Open slideshow button.

A folder selection dialog box displays. Select the folder that contains your video asset files.

The browser displays a popup asking for permission to view files in that folder. Press the button that grants access to that folder.

Note that the secure file access used by this application is only available in the Chrome and Edge browsers and will not work in other browsers.

After a moment, you’ll see the information for your video displayed in the screen.

Before playing the slideshow, you may need to resize your browser window so that its output is at a 16:9 ratio. Displaying the browser full screen can often help with this.

Start your video capture software (SnagIt or Camtasia) to capture the browser window.

Make sure that the video capture software captures your system audio but does not capture your microphone. If it captures your microphone, the video will include all kinds of unwanted ambient sound, so ensure your microphone is not captured.

A small video capture popup displays with buttons to start and stop the video capture. If you have a second monitor, you may need to move this overlay window to your other monitor so it isn’t captured in the video.

Press the Start the show button to play your slideshow.

Let the video play entirely while the video capture software records it.

Wait until the video completes its final fade to black, then press the stop button in the video capture software to stop the video capture.

Trim the video

Since you had to start video capture before starting the slideshow and don’t want to include those first few awkward seconds in the final video export, you will need to trim off the first few seconds of the video from the tool that you used to capture video (SnagIt or Camtasia) before exporting.

To do this in SnagIt:

• Move the play head in the video timeline scrubber a little to the right until you no longer see the jhVids Builder slideshow info and see the initial black screen.
• Keep moving it a little more until just before the fade-from-black. I.e. start with black, but not too much. The initial fade-from-black screen displays for 3 seconds to give you plenty of space in which to trim; you’ll probably want to trim that down to 1 second or less of blackness before the video begins.
• Gently slide the small green button to the left of the play head all the way to the left side of the timeline. This button is tiny, so this takes a little finesse.
• A popup displays with Cancel and Cut options.
• Press the Cut button in the popup.
• The unwanted dead space is trimmed from the beginning of the video.
• If you took an extra long time to stop the video recording, you can repeat this process to trim off any dead space at the end, although you most likely stopped it at a good spot initially and typically won’t need to do this.

Export the video

The last step here is to export the video from your video capture software.

To do this in SnagIt:

• Press the Share button in the top-right corner of the SnagIt window.
• Select the File option in the dropdown.
• Select the location and filename for the exported video file.
• The export process may take a few minutes.
• You now have the final version of the video.

Exporting video from PowerPoint

Once you have all the slide timings worked out, export the Powerpoint presentation as a video.

• In Powerpoint, select File > Export.
• In the dialog box:
  • Set File Format to MP4.
  • Select a filename and location for the video file, then press the Export button.

The export process can take several minutes. A small progress bar displays at the bottom center of the PowerPoint window, showing the export progress.

No message displays when the export completes. You have to watch the progress bar; once it disappears, the export is complete.

After the export completes, you now have the final version of the video.

Exporting video from traditional video production tools

If you used a more traditional video production tool to build your presentation (say Adobe Premiere), then simply use the export function within that software to export the video file.