Month: October 2017

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TECHSMITH CAMTASIA 3 (Mac) Share History

If you're a TechSmith Camtasia 9 (Windows) user and you move to the Mac, you'll be happy to learn that you can continue to use Camtasia. However, while Camtasia 3 (Mac) is similar to Camtasia 9 (Windows), there are several differences. For instance, there is no Library in the Mac version of Camtasia. While that’s a bummer (I love the Library), you'll appreciate the ability to have multiple projects open at the same time (Camtasia 9 is still in the dark ages… you can only have a single project open at any one time).
 
And you'll find some interesting features on the Mac side that do not exist in the Windows version. For instance, consider Share History.
 
 
Every time you Share a Camtasia project (via the Share menu), Camtasia Mac keeps a log for you. You can go back to the Share menu later and choose Share History. As shown in the image above, you review what has been shared over time, and use the hand-dandy Visit button to see the published masterpiece on YouTube or Screencast.com. (Note: You can right-click any entry and either remove it individually or choose Remove All Entries.)
 
The Share History feature might not seem like much given all the cool things you can do with Camtasia, but I find myself using it all the time!
 
 
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ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Branding Print Documentation

by Kevin Siegel, COTP, CTT

One of Adobe Captivate's most often overlooked features is its ability to generate support documentation for your eLearning content. By simply choosing File > Print and opening the Print dialog box, you gain the ability to create Word documents that can be printed, emailed to your learners, or uploaded to a Learning Management System as course materials.
 
In the image below, notice that there is a Type drop-down menu in the Print dialog box that offers four kinds of documents including Handouts and Storyboards.
 
 
After clicking the Publish button, assuming you have Microsoft Word on your computer (Mac or PC), all of the Filmstrip slides are included in a new Word document. You can control which Captivate project assets appear in the Word document by selecting or deselecting items from among the check boxes at the right of the dialog box (Caption text, Slide Notes, etc.).
 
Creating Print documents is so quick and easy, I think you’ll be impressed given that the process works wonderfully. However, as impressed with the resulting content as you're going to be, you’ll likely be unimpressed with the default appearance of the Word document.
 
For instance, notice the name of my project was automatically inserted into the document Header. I’d like my company name to appear in the Header instead. No problem! It’s simple to edit the Header in Word (just double-click the Header and edit away).
 
 
The image below is the default footer. It's not horrible, but I want the page numbers centered please.
 
 
Beyond having to edit the Headers and Footers, you will likely need to spend time formatting the styles to meet corporate standards. And having invested the time and energy getting things in Word just perfect, you’re going to be pretty bummed when you create Print output from Captivate later because all of your customization work gets wiped out. The excellent work you did before needs to be done again… and again. Yikes!
 
Before you bang your head on your desk in complete frustration, there is a solution that’s painless. You can edit the Word template found in Captivate’s PrintOutput folder prior to creating the output from Captivate. Once you've edited the Word template, you’ll never have to manually format the Word output documents on-the-fly again.
 
Note: Prior to moving forward, create a copy of the Adobe Captivate.dot file mentioned below and keep it in a safe place. (You can always put the file back in the PrintOutput folder should things go horribly wrong.)
 
Customing the Print Output Template used to Create Print Documentation
 
Using Microsoft Word, open Adobe Captivate.dot . You can find the file in the Adobe Captivate application folder on your computer, within Gallery > PrintOutput. (The Adobe Captivate.dot file is shown selected in the image below along with its location on my computer. Mac users, the path is the same for you except the Captivate program is typically located in your Applications folder.)
 
 
In the images below, I’ve modified both the Header and Footer in Word.
 
 
 
When finished editing/modifying, save the template to the Desktop as a Word 97-2003 Template (so you can keep the .dot extension). Then copy the file on your Desktop and paste it into the PrintOutput folder. (Replace the existing template file when prompted.)
 
 
When I create print files from my Captivate projects these days, the resulting documentation is always formatted just the way I liked it! No more manual formatting, or head banging, is necessary.
 
 
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Looking for eLearning training (including beginner and advanced Captivate training)? Check out these live, online classes.
 
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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the U.S. Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.
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ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Fix for the Object Style Manager Freeze

by Kevin Siegel, COTP, CTT+

I received an interesting distress email from a fellow eLearning developer about an issue that caused Adobe Captivate 2017 to crash frequently and otherwise behave erratically. It's a bug I had not experienced before, and I’d like to share both the issue and the fix.
 
During the recording process, the developer clicked the Settings button on the recording Control Panel. Clicking the Settings button is a common thing to do and opens Captivate’s Preferences dialog box. From here, you can view or change the way Captivate records screen actions and control the appearance of the text captions that will be created during the recording process. You can also access the Preferences directly through Captivate by choosing Edit > Preferences (Windows); or Adobe Captivate > Preferences (Mac).
 
Instead of seeing a full complement of Object styles (via Recording > Defaults), the dialog box was missing all the default styles. Since you cannot delete or rename Captivate's default application object styles, and there isn't a "none" menu item in the drop-down menu for the styles shown in the image below, this was very strange indeed.
 
 
At some point the developer wanted to modify a style being used in a project so he chose Edit > Object Style Manager. And here is where the bug really bit him. The Object Style Manager dialog box never fully appeared and Captivate froze. It was so bad the only thing he could do was force-quit Captivate (with a good old [Ctrl] [Alt] [Delete]). While that freed things up, unsaved changes were lost forever.
 
 
None of the usual troubleshooting steps helped (the developer restarted Captivate, reset Captivate's Preferences, and even uninstalled and reinstalled the software). Thankfully, the actual fix was easy. Here's what you should do if you are bitten by this particular bug.
 
First, close Captivate. Next, locate Captivate’s eLearning Assets folder (the folder is typically found here: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Adobe\eLearning Assets). You’ll see a folder named “Layouts.” Rename the folder (you can give the folder any name such as “Layouts_Old”).
 
 
Restart Captivate. The “Layouts” folder will be recreated anew and all will be right with the world.
 
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Looking for eLearning training (including beginner and advanced Captivate training)? Check out these live, online classes.
 
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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the U.S. Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.