Zoom: Basics

Description:

When you join a Zoom meeting hosted by another user, you are considered an attendee. The user who scheduled the meeting or was selected as the alternative host (if the host is unable to join) will have host controls, including muting audio, using video, sharing your screen, and more.

This Guide Will Help You to:

  • Join a Meeting

  • Join Audio

  • Start Video

  • Inviting others to the Meeting

  • Sharing your Screen

  • Reactions

  • Chat

  • Participants

Join a Meeting:

  1. Join a meeting by clicking on a Zoom link provided by the meeting host.
  2. Follow the prompts to download and run Zoom
  3. Enter the meeting ID if prompted
  4. Click to join the audio conference.
  5. When you’re in the meeting, you may click on the Start Video button to start your video.

Join Audio

Joining audio is necessary to hear the other participants in the meeting

  1. After joining a meeting you will be greeted with a pop up asking to “Join with Computer Audio” click this button and you will be able to hear the other participants in the meeting.

  2. If you close this popup or want to join the audio later all you have to do is click “Join Audio” on the bottom left.

  3. The popup will appear again and click “Join with Computer Audio”.

Mute/Unmute & Audio Settings

You can mute and unmute your microphone. The host also can mute you. If you click on the arrow next to the mute button, you will have additional options for audio settings. You can change your microphone, leave the computer audio or access the audio options.

Start Video

  1. You can turn your camera on or off with the Start/Stop Video button. By clicking on the arrow next to the start/stop video button, you can change webcams, access your Zoom video settings, or select a virtual background (if enabled).

  2. To turn off your webcam simply press the Stop Video button.

Inviting others to meetings

There are multiple ways to invite others to your meeting. Via a link or a meeting ID.

  1. When in a meeting, select Participants and select the Invite button. 

  2. The Invite popup window will open with a few options:

    • Contacts - search your contacts and select from the list to invite individuals.

    • Email - opens an email client to send an email with the meeting details to desired individuals

    • Copy invite link/invitation - this will apply the meeting invite to your clipboard to paste in an email, chat, etc. to desired individuals. 

Sharing your screen

  1. Click the green “Share” button on the Zoom toolbar.

  2. The Select a window... popup will appear showing the screens and applications open on the computer. This is asking what you would like to share. Simply click on the window you want to share and everyone else will be able to see it live.

Note: To share content with audio, enable the Share sound option so remote participants can hear the audio of the content.

Reactions

Reactions allow you to put a small symbol next to your camera temporarily to show how you feel/think about what the speaker is saying without enabling your microphone and interrupting. 

  1. Click the React button on the Zoom toolbar.

  2. A popup will appear and the top row will be any emoticons you want to choose from, these emoticons will display temporarily next to your camera. Clicking on the three dots on the right will display the rest of the emoticons. The next two rows are for “Yes, no, speed up, slowdown, and raise hand” respectively. These are displayed permanently until you click it again.

Chat

Every Zoom meeting has a chatroom so you can chat without using your microphone and interrupting the speaker.

  1. Click the Chat button on the Zoom Toolbar.

  2. This will open a sidebar on the right displaying the chatroom and its history. By default, any message you send will be seen by everyone. But you can click on the “To:” button near the bottom to send a message to a specific person in the meeting that they will only be able to see.

Participants

You can view all the participants in a meeting in list form. If you click on Participants, you can see who is currently in the meeting. The participants list also gives you the option to raise your hand or rename yourself.  Raise Hand - notifies host and shows a prompt to simulate hand raise  Rename - hover over your name to change it as it is seen in the participants list and video window 

  1. Click the “Participants” on the Zoom toolbar.

  2. You will see a list of participants on the right side and if their microphone is on or not.

Seek Further Assistance

For more information please visit, Zoom Help Center:

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