Problem

Ever wanted to quickly record a screencast without installing additional software? You probably have PowerPoint installed, so let's use it to record your screen! 😃

Upsides

• No extra software needed
• Pretty easy to use

Limitations

• You can not trim the video if you want to use it outside of PowerPoint (i.e. there is a feature to trim the video, but it doesn't affect the exported file - the export always has the complete recording).
• PowerPoint doesn't do a great job of highlighting where the cursor is (or visually indicating a left/right click).
• You can record microphone input with your screencast, but computer sounds won't be recorded (feel free to correct this, if there is a way!).
• There is no built-in way to add subtitles to your recording.

If you want to work around the limitations and can live with a watermark, I recommend using Screencast-o-matic or ScreenPresso with the former being the easiest to use, offering a simple editor, and the ability to add subtitles to your recording, and the latter being an excellent all-in-one tool for screenshots and screencasts.

Solution

To record (and export) a screencast in PowerPoint, just follow these simple steps:

• Open a new presentation in PowerPoint
• On the Insert tab click on Screen Recording
• Select the area you want to record
• Usually you'll want to deselect Audio now, unless you want to record spoken audio to the video
• Now click Record or press <Windows> + <Shift> + <R>
• Recording starts after 3 seconds
• By pressing <Windows> + <Shift> + <Q> you can finish the recording (or by clicking on the stop symbol, which automatically hides at the top of the screen)
• Then right click on the video in PowerPoint and select Save Media as... to save the screencast as MP4 video.
• Done ✅