How to get a document into training video

[Mike Kujbida]

Chuck, I’ve done this before with a utility that “prints” a document as a PDF instead of actually printing it.
Use Photoshop to convert the PDF to PNG format.
If Microsoft Word can’t do it, there are several free ones out there so just do a search for “print to PDF”.
What I like about doing this is that you don’t have scanning quality issues. Also, the image quality is very clean so you can do a deep zoom in on it and the text still looks good.

[Terry Esslinger]

Mike,
In your explanation how do you originally acquire your ‘document’.

[Mike Kujbida]

Terry, the last time I did this, all I had was a multi-page Microsoft Word file.
I used the utility I mentioned above and “printed” each page as a PDF.
I then imported each page into Photoshop and saved it out in PNG format.
After that, bring them into Vegas and pan & scan as desired.

I have Open Office on my home computer and it has an “Export as PDF” option.
When importing a PDF into Photoshop, I have the option to select a specific page.
After that, a “Rasterize Generic PDF Format” box comes up which allows me to set the width, height & resolution (in pixels) as well as the mode (RGB, CYMK, etc.).
BTW, the default in this case is an image that is 2550 x 3300 pixels at 300 dpi.
Flatten the image, save each page as a PNG and go to Vegas for further editing.

[Mike Kujbida]

I forgot to mention that, after you bring your PNGs into Vegas, apply the “Computer RGB to Studio RGB FX” (a preset in the Secondary Colour Corrector) to drop the level of the white page from 255 to 235 and bring the black text up from 0 to 16.

[Chuck Manly]

Hey Mike,

Thank you so much for passing on your experience!

I’ve tried all you recommended and it has worked perfectly with Excel xls pages. I can pan/scan and even deep zoom and it looks great.

I’m having a problem after I convert a Word doc.
When I drop it on the timeline I can’t see the text. The text is black and the background is black. The colored logo on the page shows up great.
If I put a white background under the png file the text shows up fine then but the whole background stays white and that does not allow for effective pan/scan.
After using the secondary color corrector it makes the text show up just a little bit.

What step am I missing to be able to see the black text on these converted Word docs?
I’m baffled because the Excel xls pages came out great.

Thanks again.

[Mike Kujbida]

Chuck, I’m glad to hear that, for the most part, it’s worked for you.
All I can suggest for the Word documents is to flatten them in Photoshop (don’t add a white background as this will do it for you) before saving it out as a PNG.
Doing it this way worked for me so hopefully it’ll work for you.
Good luck with it.

[Chuck Manly]

Hey Mike,

“Flatten” did the trick. I don’t understand why that is unnecessary on an xls Excel file.

This is way better than using a scanned item.

Thanks again!