How to Use Zoom: The Complete Guide

Zoom is one the most popular video conferencing application with millions of active users from across the globe.

Despite its simplicity, Zoom is packed with many advanced features such as audio-only conferencing, password protection, scheduling, and waiting rooms.

Key Features

In this section, we will briefly explain some of the prominent Zoom’s features.

Shortcuts

Zoom support many keyboard shortcuts which comes very handy at times. Here are some of the common Zoom keyboard shortcuts:

FunctionWindowsMac
Switch CameraAlt + NCommand + Shift + N
Mute MicAlt + ACommand + Shift + A

Audio Transcript

This feature makes minutes of the meeting conducted on Zoom. This comes very handy if you are holding important meeting over Zoom and want to make notes.

This feature is not available on free plan.

Add 3rd Party Apps

Zoom supports integration of popular 3rd party apps to streamline your workflow. For example, you can integrate your Microsoft Outlook Calendar with Zoom to have reminders and schedule organisation.

Integration with 3rd party apps is done through Plugins, which are available inside Zoom. To check these plugins, click on “Apps” icon at top and then click on “Discover” to see list of available plugins.

Breakout Rooms

This feature is very useful for teachers. It allows them to break their class to various sub-groups when needed to work on a specific project or task.

Virtual Backgrounds

Imagine you want to attend an important meeting from your Home through Zoom, but your room is messy. This is where Zoom Virtual Background features saves you!

You can select from variety of Zoom’s built-in images or even can add your own to set as your background image during the meeting.

Here’s how to use it:

  1. Open Zoom’s Setting.
  2. Click on “Background & Filters” in the left sidebar.
  3. Click on “I have a green screen” option if you have and then select from the list of images to set as your background.

Having a green screen as background helps to accurately remove your own background and replace with selected Zoom’s image.


Tips and Troubleshooting Guides

In this section, you will learn the best Zoom tips and tricks to use it to its full capacity as well as easily fix the problems you may face.

Rename Yourself

If there is a mistake in your Zoom name or if you want to change it for some other reason, you can easily do so in a jiffy.

Here’s how:

  1. Log in to your account on the Zoom app and click on your picture at the top right corner.
  2. Now, select ‘My Profile‘ from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click the “Edit” button located next to your name and enter your name in the field. After entering your name, click “Save“.

Learn more: 3 Easy Ways to Rename Yourself in Zoom


Mute Audio without Muting Computer

If you are in an unimportant Zoom meeting, you might want to mute the audio without muting whole computer.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do that.


Screen Sharing Not Working

f you encounter the issue of not being able to share your screen in Zoom, there is no need to worry.

The main issues that breaks the Zoom screen sharing feature are using an older version of the application or disabling of hardware acceleration.

Learn more: How to Fix Screen Sharing Not Working in Zoom


Remote Control Option Not Showing

Zoom has remote control feature which allow you to remotely control computer of participant.

If this option is missing/not showing up in Zoom settings, you can fix it by uninstalling Zoom and then installing the latest version from zoom.us/download.

Learn more: Fix Zoom Remote Control Option Not Showing Up


We hope above tips and troubleshooting guides helps you get maximum out of Zoom by exploring its hidden features, and fixing the common errors.