Why I like Snagit and Pathagoras
Recently, I posted about four “cool tools” for researchers, editors, and producers of content (which should mean most of us).
I compared them to easy-to-use and maintain light battery-powered hand-tools by Kobalt and Stihl. It is a good analogy because those tools, especially Snagit, are light, easy to use, and affordable.
I found the new Snagit from my Canadian “friend” Steve Dotto of the “Dottotech” YouTube channel.
I compare Snagit and its Publisher, Techsmith, to its antithesis, Lexis/Nexis and another excellent product, Casemap, and the suite of Casesoft products.
But, after 15 years, I no longer use CaseMap or Lexis Advance legal research service. Why?
It is simple:
- Snagit is @ $50/per user per year and $12 for full access to its training “maintenance” program. That’s yearly, but that’s “cheap”! And you can take many useful tutorials on their website or Youtube before becoming a paying customer.
- Snagit, and my friend Roy Lazris’s brilliant document assembly application, “Pathagoras”, have full-featured tutorials at little or no cost.
“Lexis/Nexis University” or whatever it calls it, is NOT free. Nope; after paying ten to one-hundred times as much as Snagit and Pathagoras, Lexis/Nexis tries to “snag” you (get it?) for $150 per module, or a total of over $1000, just to learn their system.
I say “try” because I won’t pay it!
Once that I paid “through the nose” for the application, my thought was that Lexis/Nexis would want us to use their programs and brag on them? Makes sense to me.
Nope; after sucking you dry upfront, they don’t mind, apparently, that the application sits unused on your taskbar because you aren’t confident how to use it; nor, apparently, do they care that they don’t have guys like me bragging on them and showing others what the program does.
I believe I will use Snagit on a daily basis, much as I do Pathagoras as my clients and I create pleadings, parenting plans, property settlement agreements, and other key documents. I let the client watch their proposed agreement come into being on the screen I provide for them.
Perhaps large firms, with reductions by scale or training officers can afford the “Lexis/Nexis Premium” prices. I cannot, nor will I accept repeated promises from flustered sales staff when promises of “free trials” never materialize.
Decide for yourself, but if you need a video editor/screen capture/research tool or a “document assembly” application for “the masses, then I strongly recommend and vouch for Snagit by Techsmith and Pathagoras by Roy Lazris.
I miss Casemap and Lexis Advance but not enough to be treated as a cash cow headed for slaughter.
Here are a couple of my recent FB posts, “captured” from my Snagit application.
This post was written by Burton Hunter