Question: How Do I Control The PowerPoint Bullets After Import into Captivate?
I’m trying to figure out how to sync animations from an imported PPT with audio imported to the Captivate timeline (using Captivate 3).
Several slides have bullets that appear on-mouse-click in PPT. After importing into Captivate, the bullets appear one after the other, spaced by a second or two. What I would like to be able to do is define a cue-point (e.g., on the slide timeline) that triggers each bullet to appear at a specific time during the audio.
In the Adobe Captivate forum it appears that I can pause the animation by adding an invisible click button, which would display the bullet text when the slide continues. But this isn’t what I need–I don’t want to require a pause and click, but rather just have the bullets appear as they’re spoken in the audio.
(This is a trivial task in Articulate, and of course they’re entirely different technologies, but I thought that this is the kind of thing that Adobe was talking about when they touted that Captivate 3 imports PPT animation.)
I would appreciate knowing if this is doable in Captivate (even if it requires import into and jiggering in Flash), or just not possible in this version.
Answer
I think you’ll find the PowerPoint bullet builds (animations) do not import as well as you’d hope. As you’ve seen, the animation does import as advertised. But you cannot easily control the speed at which the bullets appear. I haven’t attempted to control the animation in Flash… if your fellow readers have had success, perhaps they’ll contact me and I’ll pass along any recommendations.
In the meantime, you might want to consider importing the slides as backgrounds, use highlight boxes to "reveal" each bullet, synched with your audio.
Question: Em Dashes in RoboHelp Possible?
I’m using RoboHelp 7 and would like to insert an em dash. Is this possible?
Answer
Yes! To insert an em dash in RoboHelp 7, choose Insert > HTML > Symbol and select em dash from the list of symbols.
Question: Which is Better, InDesign or FrameMaker?
I am a technical writer and want to learn a desktop publishing program but am not sure which–FrameMaker or InDesign.
I don’t see a lot of books on the market for FM but I do see them for ID (IconLogic being a prime example).
In your opinion, is ID the future for tech writing or is FM firmly entrenched. My employer has neither but I am considering investing in one to learn it so your opinion would be helpful.
Answer
What a great, great question! Both FrameMaker (FM) and InDesign (ID) have a place in the publishing world. They are both wonderful tools, but if you are a technical communicator like me, and you own the TechCom suite, FrameMaker integrates wonderfully with RoboHelp and Captivate… InDesign simply does not. For the record, I own both QuarkXPress and InDesign (and I teach both applications to the highest levels). However, the program I choose to use every day (when I write and develop my books) is FrameMaker.
Got a question you’d like answered? Email me.