I'm sure you'd all agree that Zoom is quite present in many areas of our life during these trying times. Zoom is everywhere: at work, at school, at conventions, parties and even social "meetings".
Here are some tips for a basic operation of Zoom that will easily make your meetings much more productive:
1.Keyboard shortcuts: Zoom has a list of keyboard shortcuts that can make you expert users. These shortcuts allow you to quickly manage meetings, turn cameras on and off, record meetings, mute participants, change screen modes, etc. They are mainly efficient when screensharing, as you can perform simple functions while continuously screensharing. Some examples of popular keyboard shortcuts include:
Alt+A= mute/unmute
Alt+M= mute entire group
Alt+R= begin recording meeting
For the full list of keyboard shortcuts,
if using an app, click on Setting > Keyboards Shortcuts
if using a MacOS, click here
2.Background and filters: prefer people don't see the mess around you? It's simple, just enter Setting > Background & Filters and choose a a background from the vast variety Zoom has to offer. If you prefer creating one of your own, click on the plus (+) on the right and upload a picture stored on the device you are using. If you need some inspiration or would like a charming animation background, FaceTune uploaded background videos you can use to its Dropbox for you to download and use.
3.Touch my appearance. This is one of my favorite tips. You can look glamourous and lively with the click of button. Just enter your application's settings here:
Setting > Video > Touch my appearance
4.Gallery view: gallery view allows us to view all participants on one screen, rather than the current speaker. Just click on 'gallery view' located on the right upper corner. You can now view up to 49 participants at once. But what if too many participants haven't shared their screen, thus leaving us to face several black screens? Just hide them, by clicking on:
Setting > Video > Meetings > Hide Non video participants
And if you wish to see the current speaker, switch to speaker view, also located at the upper right corner
5.Microphone display: did you know that when a participant speaks during a Zoom meeting their microphone display wavers and colored, like this?
And when they stop talking, their microphone display goes back to this?
This feature can help you recognize during a meeting who is responsible for the background noises and mute only them when you need everyone to keep their mics on.
6.Floating meeting Controls: when screensharing, your toolbar opens up and hides open windows. This is annoying, and can be avoided:
more < hide floating meeting controls
To get it back, all you need to do is click on the Esc button.
7.Waiting room we've all heard at least once about zoombombing, in which uninvited guests barge into Zoom meetings and interrupt. This can be avoided by setting up a 'waiting room' which allows us to see who is trying to enter your meetings and authorize only invited participants. This is how you do it.
Account Management > Account Settings > Meeting > Waiting Room
Here are some other tips that will improve your Zoom meetings immensely:
Muting or unmuting by giving a long press to the spacebar
Easily and quickly inviting additional participants even mid-meeting using alt+l
Using keyboard shortcuts even when browsing through other windows by defining the settings thus: Setting > Keyboards Shortcuts > Enable Global Shortcut
Downloading the correspondences to the computer when a meeting involves an important chat conversation: more > save chat
I hope this helped you out!
Stay tuned for our next piece on Advanced Zoom operation
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