ShareX: Free Screen Recording Tool & Mouse Pointer Offset Fix

This is a quick post to remind me of two things: 1) ShareX is the tool of choice for screen recordings on Windows. 2) On high-DPI (4K) screens there is a mouse pointer offset that can easily be fixed.

Capturing Screen Video Recordings With ShareX

  1. Download and install ShareX.
  2. Start the application. If you have another screenshot tool like Greenshot running, it may complain about not being able to register hotkeys.
  3. Start the recording by clicking Capture > Screen recording or by pressing Shift+Print Screen.
  4. Allow ShareX to download FFmpeg. It’ll be stored in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\ShareX\Tools
  5. Select the window you want to record (ShareX highlights windows when you hover the mouse over them).
  6. Perform the steps you want to record.
  7. Stop the recording by clicking Capture > Screen recording or by pressing Shift+Print Screen.
  8. ShareX stores the recording as an MP4 file.

Fixing the Mouse Pointer Offset on High-DPI Displays

If you’re recording on a high-DPI display, e.g., a 4K monitor, you’ll notice a mouse pointer offset: the mouse pointer is not where it’s supposed to be in the video.

This is caused by FFmpeg not being fully high-DPI aware as documented here. Luckily it can be fixed easily:

  • Locate FFmpeg.exe (downloaded to %USERPROFILE%\Documents\ShareX\Tools if you followed the steps above).
  • Right-click the executable and select Properties in the context menu.
  • Click the Compatibility tab and select Change high DPI settings.
  • Click Override high DPI scaling behavior. Scaling performed by: Application.
  • The result should look similar to the screenshot above.

Comments

Related Posts

How to Convert/Recreate PNG Logos to SVG With Inkscape

How to Convert/Recreate PNG Logos to SVG With Inkscape
Bitmaps tend to have noise and imperfections, especially if they’ve been generated by AI. Vector graphics, on the other hand, trace the outline of elements with elegant curves. Converting from the real world of bitmaps to the ideal world of vectors requires ignoring the actual pixels and seeing an idealized structure instead. That is not something automated conversion tools can do today, at least not those I’ve tested. Instead of converting a PNG to SVG you should, therefore, recreate it in a vector graphics image editor. This article shows how to do that in the free Inkscape.
Applications

Latest Posts

Scripted WordPress to Hugo Migration

Scripted WordPress to Hugo Migration
After having published in WordPress for almost 20 years, it was time for a change. This site is now rendered by Hugo, a static website generator built for Markdown content hosted in a Git repository. The migration from WordPress (HTML) to Hugo (Markdown) was far from trivial. Since I couldn’t find any tool for the job, I developed my own set of migration scripts that fully automate the migration process. You can find them on GitHub along with extensive documentation.
Website