How to use Zoom for Beginners

Hello everybody, welcome to another Tech Advice blog article. Today I am going to show you how to do the following in Zoom.

Schedule a meeting
Join a meeting
Add a contact
Start a Video Call
Use features of Zoom during the Video Call/Meeting

For the purposes of this article, I will be only looking at one, maybe two ways to do each of the above tasks, but bear in mind that there could be other ways.

Scheduling a Meeting:

Once you have logged in (you will need a Zoom account to use Zoom, but not to join a meeting).

On the Home page click the “Schedule” button.
Add the name of the meeting in the “Topic” box, an example would be Family Meeting, or Catching Up.
Set a date, time, and duration. Note that if there are three or more people taking part you will need to pay for Zoom’s basic plan if you want the meeting to last for more than 40 minutes.
Set the time zone, for us in Ireland it is Dublin.
You can now set the Meeting ID (each participant will need this to get in), Zoom can auto generate one if you want, or you can use your own one.
Under “Security” you can let Zoom decide on the settings or enter your own passcode that each participant will also need to get in.
Next you need to decide who can use video during the meeting. If you want participants to see each other and you select “On” for both options.
The “Calendar” options are not a big deal unless you are a business or a very organised person.
The “Advanced Options” are more useful for large meetings such as online classes. The “Mute participants on entry” option may be useful for large gatherings.
When you are ready click “Save”
Now Zoom will open your email provider if it can.
Enter the email addresses of the people you want to invite, enter a message if you would like, and click “Send” or similar button depending on your provider.
- If Zoom can’t open your email provider, you will need to make sure that any participants have the meeting ID and passcode.

Joining a Meeting:

Let’s look at how your participants will join the meeting you just scheduled. There are two ways of doing this.

They can click the link in the email you sent to join the meeting without having to enter any passwords or ID numbers. They will need to download Zoom, however.
When they open Zoom, they can:
- Click “Join” on the “Home” screen
- Enter the “Meeting Number”
- Enter the “Passcode”
- Click “Join”

The above steps also apply to you when joining a meeting scheduled by someone else.

Adding a Contact:

To start a call with someone you know you need to add them to your contacts. After which you can invite each other to meetings.

Click on the “+” symbol near the top on the left-hand side.
Click “Invite a Zoom contact” (this could be named differently such as “add contact”).
Enter the person’s email address.
Click “Invite”, the person will get a notification in Zoom to accept your invitation.
You will get a message saying that the invite has been accepted once they have done so.

Starting a Video Zoom Call:

Below is the easiest way to start a meeting once you have a few contacts. Be aware however that the rule about meeting more than 40 minutes that I mentioned earlier still applies.

When you open Zoom click on the big “New Meeting Button”, it looks like a camera.
Click “Join with Computer Audio”.
On the bottom of the screen that opens, click “Participants”.
In the box that opens, on the side there will be a small button at the bottom called “Invite”, click it.
Click on the person’s name that you wish to invite and click “Invite”.
When the person is ready, they will join the meeting.

Using Zoom during the Meeting/Call:

During a meeting there are a few buttons that you should be aware of.

The “Mute” button. This button is often set to on when you join/start a meeting, i.e., nobody will be able to hear you. This button is in the bottom left corner; if it has a red line through it click it to enable your microphone.
The “Video” button is the same as the “Mute” button except that it controls your webcam and in doing so whether people can see you or not. It is right beside the Mute button.
In the bottom right corner is a red “End” button. The “End Meeting for All” button can be used by the host to fully end the meeting so that everyone is removed by the meeting and not just the host.
At the centre of the bottom bar there is a green “Share Screen” button. This allows the host to show something from their computer to everyone. Other participants can also do this, but clicking the button will ask the host for permission to do so.

Conclusion:

While this has been a very brief outline of how to use Zoom’s basic features, I do hope that you have a better idea on how to start and join meetings. Tech Advice uses Zoom for some of its services especially during this Covid pandemic, so if you need some advice feel free to ask us for a Zoom call. Alternatively, you can contact us through our regular methods of email, Facebook message, or phone call.