Adobe Captivate: Align the Mouse

by Kevin Siegel

If you have recorded a software demonstration using Adobe Captivate, you have likely run across the issue of the dreaded "jittery mouse."

Here's the scenario: you are working on a project with several slides. On slide 5, the mouse is moving from point A to point B. On slide 6, the mouse has clearly gotten to point B.

Back on slide 5, you decide to move the mouse position (you can easily drag the mouse anywhere you want on the slide). And that's when the "jittery mouse" will bite you.

On slide 6 of the project, you'll notice that the mouse is no longer in the correct slide position because you moved the mouse on slide 5. If you were to play the project (previewing 5 slides is ideal for this kind of test), you would clearly see the mouse "jump" from its new position on slide 5 to its old position on slide 6. In fact, the jump looks almost as if the mouse pointer on slide 6 received some kind of jolt.

To fix the problem, you could go to slide 6 and attempt to manually drag the mouse pointer into the same position that you established on slide 5. But this solution isn't ideal because the mouse position has to be identical to the position on the previous slide. It will probably take several attempts to get it right. What's a developer to do?

1. Go to slide 6 (this is where the mouse pointer is not in the desired slide position)
2. Select the mouse pointer and choose Modify > Mouse > Align to Previous Slide.

   

Bam! This is the perfect cure for the jittery mouse.

Note: You could have also gone to slide 5, right-clicked the mouse pointer and selected Align to Next Slide (or selected the command via Modify > Mouse).

If you would like to see a demonstration of aligning the mouse pointer with previous or next slides, check out the video I created on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.