February 2020 – The Logical Blog

February 26, 2020

ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Recording Screen Actions on a PC with a High-Density Screen

So, you got a fabulous new Windows laptop. It’s light! It’s compact! And it has a beautiful High-Density screen. The screen’s resolution is so sharp that you’ve got it set up to display at 150% or 200%, because otherwise the icons and text are so tiny and sharp that you can barely read them.

Then you try to do some screen-capture work in Adobe Captivate, and you are hit with an error message: Screen capture with high density monitor not allowed or perhaps something about DpiAwareness. The net result is that you cannot record the screen, either in software simulation or in video demo recording mode.

In the past, the fix was to manually update the AdobeCaptivate.ini file. You had to venture deep into the Adobe Captivate program files and find that .ini file. Then you had to edit it with a text editor and change the DPI setting to 1. Then you had to battle your Windows setup about permissions and file names and passwords even just to save your changes to the .ini file. Even after all that, many developers report that while recording works, the Captivate software itself becomes so teeny-tiny that it's impossible to use.

As an alternative to fighting with the .ini file, I've got two easy plans of attack for you (neither involve editing any sort of support file):

Plan A: Right-click your desktop and choose Display Settings. Change the size of text, apps, and other items to 100% (even if not recommended) and then close the Display Settings.

Restart Captivate and see if you can record a software simulation. If yes, all is right with the world. If you still cannot record the screen, it's time for plan B.

Plan B: Find the Captivate.exe file (it's usually in Program Files > Adobe > Adobe Captivate 2019), right-click and choose Properties.

From the Compatibility tab, click the Change high DPI settings button.

Check the checkbox for Override high DPI scaling behavior. Ensure that Application is selected in the Scaling performed by drop-down.

Click OK to each of the two dialog boxes to confirm your changes.

And that’s it. You should now be able to record screen actions on your high-density monitor with no problems.

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Jennie Ruby, CMT, CTT, COTP, is a veteran eLearning developer, trainer, and author. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer and Certified Online Training Professional. She teaches both classroom and online courses, and has authored courseware, published training books, and developed content for countless eLearning projects. She is also a publishing professional with more than 30 years of experience in writing, editing, print publishing, and eLearning.

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Looking for Adobe Captivate training, consulting, mentoring, or development? We've got you covered. Give us a call at 877.754.2662. We've got an awesome collection of live, online classes. You can learn more about our Captivate classes on the IconLogic website.

February 25, 2020

ISPRING SUITE 9: Video Demos with Annotations Equals Awesomeness!

If you have content in Microsoft PowerPoint and need to use it for eLearning, you'll be happy to know that the top eLearning tools (Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and TechSmith Camtasia) allow you to import PowerPoint content and then output HTML5 or videos. In the case of Storyline, the imported PowerPoint content can even be edited from within Storyline post-import.

But what if you wanted your PowerPoint content to stay in PowerPoint and still be able to add eLearning-type features such as a quiz and interactive objects? Unfortunately, while PowerPoint excels at visually stunning presentations, it's not an eLearning development tool. Fortunately, tools like Adobe Presenter, Articulate Presenter, and iSpring Suite allow you to add eLearning capabilities to any PowerPoint presentation.

I've spent a significant amount of time over the past few months using iSpring Suite, a PowerPoint-based authoring toolkit that allows developers to create mobile-friendly eLearning courses complete with slides, quizzes, dialog simulations, software video demonstrations, selfie-videos, and other interactive learning content. The finished course can quickly be published as HTML5 or as a video and uploaded to a web server, Learning Management System, or to video services like YouTube or Vimeo.

In the next few articles, I'm going to delve into some of my favorite iSpring Suite 9 features. I'm also rolling out an iSpring Suite book ("iSpring Suite 9: The Essentials") and an iSpring Suite 9 instructor-led class!

This week I tested iSpring's ability to create a video demo similar to what you can do in Captivate, Storyline, and Camtasia. During my testing, I was happy to see that iSpring even adds Annotations to the recording (automatic text captions).

To begin, I visited the iSpring tab on the PowerPoint Ribbon, Insert group, and then clicked Screen Recording to open iSpring Cam Pro.

I clicked New Recording which opened a recording area with controls similar to the other top eLearning development tools.

I clicked the red record button and within seconds had an awesome video demo.

When the recording was complete, I expected a standard video just like the other tools. However, the resulting Recording Complete screen offered a nice surprise–the check box Add annotations to the screen recording (shown circled below).

Of course, I selected the Add annotations option clicked the Continue button. I was surprised by how awesome the resulting text was (almost no editing needed).

I was also happy to see that, like the other competitors in the eLearning development tools space, there's a Timeline allowing me to quickly change when the annotations appear onscreen, and for how long.

I was able to edit the annotations and change the way they looked via the Formatting toolbar. All-in-all, this is awesome!

Next time: Dialog simulations.

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Looking for iSpring Suite training? Check out these live, online, instructor-led training classes (all Guaranteed to Run).

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Kevin Siegel is the founder and president of IconLogic, Inc. He has written hundreds of step-by-step computer training books on applications such as Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Adobe RoboHelp, Adobe Presenter, and TechSmith Camtasia. Kevin spent five years in the U.S. Coast Guard as an award-winning photojournalist and has three decades’ experience as a trainer, publisher, technical writer, and eLearning developer. Kevin is a Certified Master Trainer (CMT), Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+), Certified Online Professional Trainer (COTP), and a frequent speaker at trade shows and conventions.

February 12, 2020

ARTICULATE STORYLINE 360: Recolor and Crop Content Library Images

During our beginner Articulate Storyline classes, we emphasize the importance of using images in a project instead of relying on dense, text-heavy slides. Of course, finding good images can be a challenge unless you are a subscriber to Articulate 360. Subscribers have access to an millions of assets in the Content Library loaded with downloadable Characters, Illustrations, Icons, Videos, and Photos.

While recently working in Storyline, I was in need of a photo of a horse. The project I was creating was about horse health and I was specifically looking for a horse showing as many teeth as possible. (The wider the grin, the better.)

I visited Storyline's Insert tab on the Ribbon and, from the Content Library, I clicked Photos.

From within the Search Photos dialog box, I typed horse teeth and I was pleasantly surprised when several candidates appeared. (Given that I was needing horse grins, I wasn't expecting even a single decent photo to appear and was fully prepared for a trip to a photo-supply website.)

I selected the photo shown above at the right and then clicked the Insert button. By default, the photo was inserted in the middle of my slide.

The other images I'd used throughout the project were black and white and I wanted to keep that theme. Unfortunately, the computer I was using did not have an image editing program. No worries, you can recolor an image without leaving Storyline.

I selected the Picture Tools tab on the Ribbon, clicked Recolor, and selected Accent color 3 Dark.