Behaviors are a very cool idea but I can't get any to work like they show. I exited and started Camtasia again but that had no impact.
For example, the Scale behavior thumbnail shows the letters displaying individually from left to right and large to small. My text comes in all at once then shrinks out. I have tried various combinations of settings and it still does not change.
There is nothing in the Help that explains what the options actually do. "Choose the desired motion effects" is not sufficient to help me. No matter what I do, I cannot get the behavior to "behave" like the thumbnail.
If the action does not apply to each letter, why do you show it that way?
Animating separate letters and animating all the words are very different effects.
- 34 Posts
- 13 Reply Likes
- very disappointed and frustrated
Posted 2 years ago
Kelly Mullins, TechSmith Employee & Helper
- 2789 Posts
- 585 Reply Likes
I'm sorry you are having trouble!
I think I might know what is happening but please correct me if my thoughts are not right.
If you want the Behavior to act EXACTLY like the view in the icon, you need to add a TEXT ONLY callout to the video. The Behavior is applied to whatever you put it on. So, if you put it on a callout with text, it applies to the motion and behavior of the callout as a whole. Not as individual letters.
Please see this demo as a comparison. I used the same exact Sliding Behavior on each object, you can see how different they perform.
Overall, I think you might be using a graphic callout, and you need to use the Plain Text Callout to get the look you want.
http://screencast.com/t/0hfWyk2bSDQ
Also, there is another setting to be aware of that controls the overall aspect of the Plain Text Behavior actions. You can find that here and it tells the
Behavior to treat the plain text callout on a per-letter basis or as one object - like the image callouts behave.
From there, you can choose further how you want the letters to behave.

Thank you for asking this question. I'm sure others will find this helpful.
(And, if this was not the issue, please let me know!)
Kelly
User Assistance
TechSmith
- 34 Posts
- 13 Reply Likes
This is the issue and your explanation makes sense. You should add that you find the plain text under the Basic grouping.
Thanks.
Kelly Mullins, TechSmith Employee & Helper
- 2789 Posts
- 585 Reply Likes
I'm glad this was resolved for you!
For others coming to this page, I thought I would post an image of where to find the plain text options.
Under Annotations tab > Callouts subtab, there are several themes of callouts to choose from in the Style dropdown menu.
In each theme, there are two plain text options as seen below.

Thanks again, Patti for raising this topic.
Kelly
- 45 Posts
- 19 Reply Likes
- Is there a way to remove shadow from Camtasia 9 text only?
- Is there a way to get behaviors to work on Legacy text as shown in the Behavior thumbnails?
- 6138 Posts
- 3276 Reply Likes
Open Visual Properties with the text selected.

Click the "X" to the right of the Drop Shadow Window. Done!
Regards,Joe

- 45 Posts
- 19 Reply Likes
Awesome! Thanks Joe, that worked. I see now why I wasn't finding it. The Drop Shadow property was almost hidden in my menu. Once I scrolled down I was able to find it. I'm not really a fan of the low-contrast, hidden-scrollbar style of this interface for this reason. But that's a whole other topic. :)
- 60 Posts
- 8 Reply Likes
I can't seem to find a "Do nothing" option in the dropdown.
- 45 Posts
- 19 Reply Likes
Here you go! Under behaviors, click "During", then scroll to "None."
- 60 Posts
- 8 Reply Likes
Jeeze what am I blind?!?!?
I guess I was just expecting the none option to be at the top. I am litterly doing the facepalm right now. Doght!
- 45 Posts
- 19 Reply Likes
- 33 Posts
- 17 Reply Likes
I, too was searching forever for "do nothing" on the Out, because I wanted the text to stay there, not slide away. Do nothing seems a bit more intuitive.
Also, with the "speed", why is it in a percentage? Seems a bit odd. I'm not sure what to do with that. And what do you mean by offset? Is there anywhere in the help that defines each option and what you can do with it? The terminology is not intuitive. For example, what is "ease both" ? Both of what?
If we didn't want to use the presents because they are way too comprehensive and confusing, how do we just slide in the text for each bullet item and leave it there?

- 1 Post
- 0 Reply Likes
That would be awesome!
cheers
Luca
- 6138 Posts
- 3276 Reply Likes
Chose a rectangular callout with a background instead. Change it's color to whatever you like.
Regards,Joe
- 10 Posts
- 5 Reply Likes
Great conversation here!
Will
Related Categories
-
Camtasia (Windows)
- 9756 Conversations
- 3721 Followers