Month: November 2014

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Adobe Captivate: Replacing PowerPoint Slides But Keeping the Audio

by Kevin Siegel Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn View our videos on YouTube

I received an interesting email from a fellow Captivate developer who was in a bit of a pickle. The developer had imported a 60-slide PowerPoint presentation into Captivate and then added audio to each of the Filmstrip slides.

Just as he was about to Publish his finished project, he was told to use a different PowerPoint presentation. Mind you, it wasn't just that the imported presentation had changed and he needed to update it in Captivate. In that case, all he would have had to do is click the presentation's red "not in synch" icon on the library and the new PowerPoint content would have come into the Captivate project. In this instance, he was given a completely different presentation (the same audio was going to be used, but each slide visual was going to change).

Since the developer had already invested time importing the 60 audio files (files he was going to use on the replacement slides), he contacted me hoping he wasn't going to have to start over from scratch.

The bottom line is he didn't have to start over again and was able to reuse all of the imported audio files. Here's what I instructed him to do:

First, visit the Library and rename the audio files so the name of each audio file matches the slide where it was used. (To rename a Library item, right-click the item and choose Rename.)

Adobe Captivate: Rename Library items.

In the image below, notice that I've renamed my audio files so the names match the slide that's currently using them (slide1Audio, slide2Audio, etc.).

Adobe Captivate: Renamed Library Items.

Next, delete all of the imported PowerPoint slides. Because Captivate projects must have at least one slide, if your project only contains PowerPoint slides, insert a blank slide first (via Insert > New Slide From). Then delete all of the slides except the blank one.

The above step can seem extreme and nerve-wracking because you're deleting all of those awesome slides. But keep in mind you'll be replacing the deleted slides with new slides in just a moment.

Check out the Library. Even though you deleted the slides, the audio files are still in the Library. Notice the Use Count shows a bunch of zeros because none of the audio files are being used.

Adobe Captivate: Unused Audio Files

Import the new PowerPoint slides into the Captivate project (via File > Import > PowerPoint Slides).

Delete the blank slide you added earlier and, as a final step, drag the unused audio files from the Library onto their corresponding Filmstrip slides. 

 
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Writing & Grammar: Synch or Swim?

by Jennie Ruby View our profile on LinkedIn

How do you spell the shortened form of the word synchronize? Is it synch or sync? I have seen it both ways recently, so I checked out the Webster's dictionary. I found that sync is the more frequently used variant, but that both spellings are listed. So which one is better?

 

It turns out that when Webster's lists two spellings of a word, they may have the word "or" or the word "also" between them. The word "or" tells us that the two variants are used equally and often, whereas the word "also" tells us that the second one is significantly less often used.

 

Meanwhile, the next listing in the dictionary was lip-synch, spelled with the h. Go figure.

 

How about dialogue versus dialog? The dictionary lists dialogue first, in such uses as for a dialogue in a play, or dialogue between two people. However, dialog box uses the variant without the -ue on the end. So in the software training industry we see the secondary variant far more often.

 

This week's challenge is not so much a test to see if you can get the answers right, but more a survey to see which is your preference. Survey results (and correct answers to the last two Confusing Words challenges) will be coming soon.

  1. During the role-play we set up a dialog/dialogue between two class participants.
  2. We catalog/catalogue the results from all of our quizzes for later data analysis.
  3. I need to synch/sync my phone with my Outlook calendar.
  4. The two devices were already in synch/sync.
  5. The professor served as an adviser/advisor for the online class.
  6. The high-tech/hi-tec solution did not work.
  7. The wifi/wi-fi in our office was down all afternoon.

When ready, submit your answers as comments below.

 

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