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My newest book, "Adobe Captivate 12: The Essentials" is now available from the IconLogic website, Amazon (as a perfect bound book and eBook), and VitalSource (as a PDF).
This self-paced, hands-on workbook teaches the core Adobe Captivate 12 (Adobe Captivate 2023) skills to create interactive, fully responsive eLearning courses.
https://www.iconlogic.com/adobe-captivate-12-essentials-workbook.html
Adobe released an update to Captivate 12 today. Here's a link to download the update: https://helpx.adobe.com/captivate/help/captivate-downloads.html
According to Adobe, here's what's changed in the 12.1 update.
If you need Adobe Captivate training, mentoring, or eLearning development, check out our vILT courses: https://www.iconlogic.com/instructor-led-training/software-title/captivate.html. And, yes, we are still offering training on Adobe Captivate 2019… now known as Adobe Captivate Classic.
Fairly early in our vILT Adobe Captivate 12 classes, we teach learners how to work with slides and blocks. To add blocks, visit the toolbar at the left of the screen and you'll find tools that allow for text, images, videos, and interactive components such as buttons and data entry fields.
One awesome feature in Adobe Captivate 12 is the concept of infinite slides. Because Captivate is now a 100% responsive eLearning development tool, there is no such thing as a slide height. Add as many blocks as you want to a slide, and the slide gets taller and taller.
In the image below, I've added some text blocks, image grid blocks, and a few other items.
Notice that when I switch to mobile preview, the content reflows to fit the device screen size and, as the learner, I simply swipe to move through the content.
Check out my video demonstration of infinite slides.
With the recent release of the all-new Adobe Captivate 12, I'm beginning a series introducing you to some of my favorite features. This week, let's take a look at the new interface. If you're a veteran Captivate developer, you'll see that much has changed in this new interface, and many of the old standards have been removed (not changed or moved… removed entirely).
There are now two versions of Captivate that you can download from Adobe using one subscription: Adobe Captivate Classic (also known as Captivate 2019) and Adobe Captivate (also known as Captivate 12 and Captivate 2023). The two versions are very different, and we offer training and support for both. You can download both Adobe Captivate Classic and the new Adobe Captivate and have both on your computer at the same time, assuming different installation locations are defined when the applications are installed.
This article focuses on Captivate 12.
When you start Captivate 12, the first thing you'll see is the Home screen.
If you click the New Project button, you'll create a new blank project. Click the Open option and you can retrieve and open existing Captivate 12 projects. This brings me to a warning about using the new Captivate. There is no option for upgrading legacy Captivate projects to Captivate 12. If you elect to work with Captivate 12, do so with the understanding that you're creating new, responsive projects. The big thing about responsive projects is that you aren't asked to define a project's width and height as you create a new project. The Canvas size is fluid, and your content will automatically reflow to fit any screen size.
Adobe has indicated that as Captivate 12 evolves and matures, there will be a workflow for upgrading from legacy projects to the new version. The lack of an upgrade path appears to be the main reason that Adobe will continue to support Captivate Classic until 2027. I expect that it will take a few years to add features to Captivate 12 that are currently in Captivate Classic. For example, in Captivate 12, there aren't any slide masters. Nor is there a Library, virtual reality, or support for importing Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.
The new interface is very clean and modern-looking.
The Filmstrip is now simply the Slides panel.
At the far left is a column of tools that replaces the Captivate 2019 toolbar.
At the right, in place of the Properties inspector, Library, and Timing inspector, there's a cluster of icons that display Visual properties, Interactions, Animations, Audio settings, and Accessibility.
And at the bottom right are two easy-to-overlook icons: TOC and Playbar (which replaces the Skin Editor) and Project Properties.
One awesome feature of the new Captivate is the preview icons at the top of the window.
Using these icons, you can quickly see how your content will look as it reflows on various screen sizes (desktop, tablet, and mobile).
In the coming weeks, I'll show you the project creation process, how the many tools work, and how Captivate 12 compares to Captivate Classic/2019.
Adobe recently released an all-new, reimagined Adobe Captivate, and we've got your training needs covered by rolling out several new Adobe Captivate classes covering Adobe Captivate 12 and Adobe Captivate Classic (formerly Adobe Captivate 2019).
Adobe Captivate 12 Training
Beginner-Advanced training on the reimagined Adobe Captivate 12, released in mid-2023. This live, online, virtual instructor-led (vILT) course will teach you the essential skills to create interactive and engaging eLearning. Learn Captivate via step-by-step training from an experienced eLearning developer, Captivate expert, and certified online training professional (COTP).
Adobe Captivate Classic Training<
Since Adobe Captivate 12 is new, making it the standard eLearning development tool will take time. That means your toolbox still has a place for Adobe Captivate 2019 (now known as Adobe Captivate Classic). We've got covered there with three 3-hour classes:
I received the following question from a former student who attended one of my vILT Adobe Captivate training courses.
During the class, you told us how to make a project responsive without creating a “responsive project.” I’ve tried to find that part of your recorded sessions, but I’m not having much luck. Can you remind me of how this is accomplished?
You cannot create a responsive Captivate project without creating a responsive project (File > New > Responsive project). If you work in standard Captivate (File > New > Project), as most people do, the output will not be responsive at all. However, being non-responsive does not mean that your published output will not work on mobile devices. Because you’re publishing as HTML5, mobile support is there by default. However, you need to remember to select “Scalable HTML Content” in the Publish dialog box prior to publishing.
Once you do that, not only will the project work on mobile devices, it will resize automatically to support all screen sizes.
When I teach my Adobe Captivate Classic classes, we cover application Preferences fairly early. If you're on a PC, choose Edit > Preferences. If you're on a Mac, choose Adobe Captivate > Preferences. From the top of the Preferences, click General Settings.
You will see two options in the Default Locations area: Publish at and Project Cache.
The Publish At option allows you to specify where your projects are published. That makes sense. The less obvious feature is the role of Project Cache. According to Adobe, the Project Cache folder contains all of your projects' components until you click the Clear Cache button. The cached assets make the process of opening, saving, and working on a project faster.
Note: In the image above, I created a folder named Cache directly on my hard drive. You can create the Cache folder anywhere you like, provided the location is not a network resource. Do not delete your Cache folder (or click the Clear Cache button in the image above) unless you have a project backup. Without the contents of the Cache folder, the steps listed below to recover a corrupt project will not work.
Should your Captivate project become corrupt or get misplaced, and you have the backup file, change the name of the backup file to new_name.cptx and you're all set. If you don't have a project backup and the only version of your project refuses to open, the cached version of the project will come to your rescue. Assuming you know the location of your project cache folder, you should be able to resurrect a project by following the steps below (the xxx in the example below will be different on your system).
Special thanks to fellow Captivate developer Rod Ward, Director of Infosemantics, who had the misfortune (or fortune, depending on how you look at the world) of working with a Captivate project that refused to open. Rod used these steps and was able to get back in the game.
This is the default location of the cached project, and you can change this via the Global Preferences, as mentioned above.
The folder will contain the following:
A folder called Compressed_data. (This folder will contain several cpd files.)
A folder called Objects. There should be a file within the folder called objects.cpo. The size of this file should be greater than 0 kb.
A folder called uncompressed_data.
A file called audio.cpad.
A file called info.cpi.
A file called text.cptd.
A file called thumbnails.cpth.
Note: There may be other folders and files in the db folder mentioned above. Be careful to not include any other files in the zip other than those listed above. According to Rod, "the other files that might be there seem to be files used in locking the project so that you cannot inadvertently edit two of them at the same time."
"Captivate saves one of these db folders each and every time you save a project file," said Rod. "If you don't have success with the first one you try (possibly because it is too corrupted), you can always try another one further down the list by looking at the time the folder was added."
Rod went on to say: "The naming structure of the folders provides no clue as to which CP project corresponds to which cached folder. If you happen to be working on several projects simultaneously, it can take a bit of digging to find the one that you want. You have to keep creating and opening these zips until you get lucky. This, of course, is not a problem if you know the exact time when you happened to be saving a particular project."
It's coming…
Last week I told you about an awesome (and free) update to Adobe Captivate 2019. In that post, I told you how Adobe removed most of the outdated (Flash) SWF features. But there's more to this update, and I'm loving it. Specifically, Adobe has enhanced the Text-to-Speech feature.
Choose Audio > Speech Management to open the Speech Management dialog box.
At the bottom of the dialog box, you'll see a note about ReadSpeaker. If you're a veteran Captivate developer, you'll notice that Captivate used to rely on NeoSpeech. ReadSpeaker voices replace NeoSpeech.
Click the Download new and enhanced voices link. (Note that the download is nearly 4 GB, so if your internet speed isn't fast, prepare for a long wait while the package downloads.)
Exit (quit) Captivate, extract the downloaded file, and run the installer. Once the voices are installed, restart Adobe Captivate.
Choose Window > Slide Notes, create a new note, and then write some text into the note area.
From the upper right of the Slide Note, click the uppermost check mark and then click the Text-to-Speech icon.
The Speech Management dialog box reopens.
From the left of the slide note, click the voices drop-down menu.
The original NeoSpeech voices are still available, such as Paul and Kate. However, you'll see plenty of new voices like Adam, Ashley, and Mark.
Select the voice you'd like and click Generate Audio.
You can preview the audio by clicking the Play icon.
If you'd like to learn more about Captivate, check out these training opportunities. If you need development support or one-on-one mentoring, I'm an email away.
I was mentoring a client on Adobe Captivate for the Mac. She received the following theme files error message when starting Captivate 2019.
According to Adobe support, here is the fix:
Note that if you are using more recent versions of the Mac OS, you'll need to ensure that your version of Captivate is up to date. Here's a link to the most recent build on my Dropbox.