Create your own how-to tutorials
May 21 2009
We've all got our own way of doing things, learnt from experience over the years. With so many free resources available, there's no reason to not to put together your own how-to tutorials to share with others around the world.
It's easiest to base your how-to tutorials around some photos or screenshots. So let's look at some tools, most of which you already have, that you can use to create your first how-to.
Capture some images
If you have a digital camera, you can take shots of each step involved in some task your how-to will demonstrate. Or, if you own a digital video camera, you could video the whole process but you'd have to be prepared to put in extra time to edit your movie. We'll take a more basic approach that doesn't involve too much time to create your tutorial.
You might want to take people through some steps in using a piece of software, for example inserting a map into Windows Live Writer. You can still use images to help explain what the user should do and to get those images you'll need to use what's called a screen capture tool to create a series of screenshots to form the basis of your how-to.
Vista users already have a free screen capture tool - it's called the Snipping Tool and you'll find it on the Accessories menu under All Programs on the Start menu. Once you load it, the Snipping Tool fades out your screen and you simply drag your cursor around the area of the screen you want to capture. Snipping Tool then opens another window which enables you use a pen, highlighter or eraser to annotate your screenshot. Now you can use the File menu to save the screenshot as a normal JPG file into a folder under My Pictures (Windows XP) or Pictures (Vista).
Another free tool is the IrfanView graphics program. This program uses a hot-key combination to begin the screen capture process and you need to bring the window you want to capture to the front of the screen.
Jing has been created specifically to capture screen shots either as a single image or as video. Once you've got your screenshot, Jing enables you to add text or arrows, highlight some text or an area of the screenshot, all before saving the image.
For those with Microsoft Office, check if you have Microsoft OneNote installed. Among all the other things that OneNote is capable of, it has a screen clipping function that is initiated with the Win+S key combination. This means that you can capture sections of a screen where you want to show your audience a certain selection on a dropdown menu. After you drag your mouse over the screen area you want to capture, it's saved in OneNote automatically and is available from the clipboard.
Use Paint.NET to annotate your images
Paint.NET is one of webDotWiz's recommended graphics tools, mainly because it's free and has the capability of using layers. It's a good program to use to add highlighting and arrows to your screenshots when you want to point out a particular step in your how-to.
If you're using photos in your tutorial then make use of Paint.NET's layers to add highlighting and then you won't lose your original photos.
Sharing your how-to tutorial
To enable others to take advantage of your expertise, you can write up your how-to on your Live Space website.
While it's straightforward to do your writeup online in Live Spaces by adding a new entry, you get more options, especially in relation to inserting your photos and screenshots, by using Live Writer.
Base your writeup around your photos, that is, use one photo or screenshot to illustrate each step your readers should take to accomplish the given task. In most cases you'll only need to write up one or two sentences to accompany each photo or screenshot. Just make sure each step follows on from the previous one and that you don't miss any steps in your how-to.
Make a movie
There'll be times when your how-to tutorial could be best presented as a video especially if you have your own video camera. Bear in mind, though, that you'll have to spend time on editing, both the audio and video.
If you have a large number of photos and screenshots to illustrate your tutorial then consider using Windows Vista's Live Movie Maker beta or Photo Story 3 for Windows to create a video. You'll need to add narration to your video so allow time for this.
Once you've created your movie, you can upload it to Soapbox and play it on your Live Space.