Camtasia versions

Thursday was a day for dealing with more technical difficulties. In trying to show Roxanne one of my Camtasia files earlier in the week, I got an error message saying that I couldn't open the file because it was created in a newer version of Camtasia. In other words, files that I created at the iSchool's IT lab (using Camtasia 6.0.1) wouldn't open at TIS (where they have Camtasia 5.0) - this was true for 4 out the 6 modules. I assumed that I would be able to go back to the IT lab and save these files in an older version, but there is not separate file type to distinguish between versions. It's vital that I be able to work with Camtasia files outside of the IT lab because as of Friday the lab is closed until August 18th. I asked folks at the IT lab and searched on Tech Smith's (the company that makes Camtasia) website and other help pages and couldn't find any information on how to enable this kind of backwards compatibility between software versions. I thought about downloading a trial version of Camtasia (which is fully functional and lasts for 30 days) onto my laptop, but it is only available for Windows and I have a Mac. I thought about buying Windows at the campus computer store (where it's cheap) and downloading a Windows emulator so that I could run it on my Mac. Before doing so, I stopped back by TIS to check the error message one last time. I did a search for the exact text of the error message, and finally found a solution! (In case you're curious, here's where I found it: http://forums.techsmith.com/archive/index.php/t-3476.html) That worked for 2 of my 4 modules that were made in Camtasia 6. Throughout my search process I also realized that the actual screen-recordings were one file type (.camrec) that was usable across versions, while the projects where I combined and edited these recordings were a different file type (.camproj). The camproj files were the ones that I couldn't open in Camtasia 5.0, but it proved not too difficult to re-import the camrec files and redo some editing.

So, basically, I got it all worked out in the end. This problem with backwards compatibility of Camtasia versions is something that folks should certainly take into consideration when they're thinking about buying the program, though.