When importing audio files into Captivate, the files can be in WAV or MP3 format.
The WAV format was developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM as the standard format for sound on PCs. WAV sound files end with a .wav extension and can be played by nearly any computer that supports sound. Since WAV files are not compressed, they can get huge.
MP3 (MPEG Layer 3) is a compressed audio format that allows for high quality sound that is significantly smaller than its WAV cousin.
If you add a WAV file to a project, Captivate converts the WAV file to MP3 format when you publish. And while imported audio files generally perform well in Captivate, consider the following true story:
A few audio clips were giving us fits in a recent Captivate project. The project contained several audio clips that had each been imported onto the slides. The clips played as expected if previewed via the Play button on the Audio toolbar. However, when previewed or published, the same audio clips dropped the last few syllables. We spent several maddening hours deleting and re-importing the troublesome clips, all to no avail.
Here’s how we solved this pesky problem:
- Choose Audio > Advanced Audio to display the Advanced Audio Management dialog box
- Select the audio clip that is causing all of the drama
- Ensure Include WAVE files in export is selected from the options at the bottom of the dialog box
- Click the Export button and then click OK (While the export destination does not really matter, you should make a note of where you send the file to make the next step easier)
- Delete the troublesome audio file
- Import the WAV file you exported
That should solve the problem of the "dropsies."