Category: Adobe Captivate

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ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Continue Playing Project Option

by Lori Smith, COTP

I’ve been teaching and developing projects in Adobe Captivate for years. My particular area of strength is advanced actions. Just when I think I know everything about Captivate, a seemingly teeny, tiny option gets added by the Adobe engineers and I end up looking silly. 
 
Standard Actions, such as Show can be used to easily show a hidden object. The problem is that the project will continue playing after the action occurs (after the shape appears). If you wanted something else to happen while the learner is still on the slide (perhaps another object appearing), it’s too late because the learner has automatically been taken to the next slide after the hidden object appeared. 
 
To get around the problem in the past, you needed to create an advanced action that showed the hidden object instead of using a standard action. Why would you need an advanced action for something so simple? Because the Continue Playing Project behavior does not automatically occur with advanced actions like it did with standard actions.
 
That was so yesterday! There is now one of those teeny, tiny deals I mentioned earlier on the Properties inspector: a simple checkbox on the Actions tab labeled Continue Playing the Project. It is checked by default so if you use a standard action to show an object, you’ll still end up on the next slide. However, if you want to keep the learner on the current slide, all you have to do is deselect Continue Playing the Project. (In the simple scenario I mentioned above, there’s no longer a need to create the advanced action.)
 
 
The Continue Playing the Project checkbox originally appeared in Captivate 9. I missed it. In prior versions, it wasn’t possible to stop a project from continuing to play if you used a standard action. Because Continue Playing the Project is selected by default in both Captivate 9 and 2017, it’s an easy option to overlook, especially if you’ve been developing in Captivate for years like me. 
 
Though the Continue Playing the Project option means that you no longer need to create an advanced action for the behavior I’ve described above, you will still need to create advanced actions if you want an interactive object to perform multiple actions once clicked. If advanced actions have you a bit intimidated, join me for my Captivate Variable and Action Deep Dive series. The 101 class starts with the basics. As we move through 201, 301, and 401, we will continue to build your skills and practice with Captivate Variables and Advanced Actions.
 
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Lori Smith, COTP, is IconLogic's lead programmer and Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in Captivate. Lori has a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT as well as a Master’s in electrical engineering from George Mason University. She has been working in the field of software engineering for more than 20 years.  During that time she worked as an embedded software engineer at Raytheon (E-Systems) and ARINC.
 
 
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ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Free Troubleshooting Guide for Screen Recording Issues

Both Jennie Ruby and I have been teaching Adobe Captivate onsite and online for years (you can see our huge Captivate course lineup on the IconLogic website). During class, there are a few issues that routinely occur. Have any of these happened to you?

  • You can’t see the red recording area/can’t make it snap to your application.
  • When you record in Training and Assessment mode, you get no interactivity and no captions.
  • When you try to record, you get an error saying something about high-density monitors.
  • You're on a Mac and you're having trouble recording. (You get an error message, get no captions when you record, etc.)
  • Your application menus open outside of the area of your application, and therefore don’t get recorded.

Adobe-Captivate-Troubleshooting-sm-iconlogic
You'll be happy to know that Jennie put together a troubleshooting guide that you can use to work through any or all of the issues mentioned above. You can download the guide for free from IconLogic's eLearning Resources page.

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ADOBE CAPTIVATE: It’s Gotta Be Friday Somewhere!

by Lori Smith, COTP

Happy Friday! Ok, maybe it's Friday when you're reading this, maybe it isn't. However, if it's not a Friday, let's pretend that it is.
 
You'd like your Adobe Captivate eLearning module to greet the learners with “Hello! It’s a lovely Friday to learn a little something. Let’s get started!” 
 
Are you wondering how to get Captivate to perform this little bit of magic? You could simply write the words “Hello! It’s a lovely Friday…” into a Text Caption or Smart Shape. However, the learner would only be greeted correctly once out of every seven days.
 
Instead of manually typing the day, let Captivate share the information with your learners. Believe it or not, Captivate already knows how to get the information: via a System Variable called cpInfoCurrentDay. 
 
If you wanted to have the day show up in a text caption, all you’d need to do is type the following text and the name of the Variable. 
 
 
I thought I had done pretty well… except this is what I ended up with:
 
 
What’s that “6” doing there? Captivate did exactly what was asked. I asked for current DAY, and the 6th day of the week appeared… Friday.
 
The reason for the confusion can be found in Captivate’s Variables dialog box (via the Project menu). The Description for cpInfoCurrentDay: “Day of the week as set on the user's computer. Values range from 1-7 starting with Sunday. Sunday=1, Monday=2, and so on.” And that explains why Friday displays as the number 6.
 
 
I’m going to show you how to create a quick Conditional Advanced Action that will ensure that 6 is displayed as Friday in my current project.
 
First, open the Variables dialog box and add a new User Variable called myDay. 
 
 
Replace the cpInfoCurrentDay variable in your caption with your new myDay variable.
 
 
Next, open the Advanced Actions dialog and create an action that looks like this (I named mine determineDay):
 
 
Be sure to create and fill in the Decision Blocks, one for each day of the week. As you create the Decision Blocks, remember to set the value for each appropriately (Sunday is 1, Monday is 2, etc. as shown in the images above and below).
 
 
Execute the advanced action somewhere in your project. (I’d suggest via the On Enter drop-down menu on the slide where you’ll want to display the day of the week. In the image below, I'm executing my determineDay action.)
 
 
Assuming it's Friday, preview the slide and you'll see this in your text caption:
 
 
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Like this little action? Want to learn how to create more actions like this, and more complex ones too? Join me for my Captivate Variable and Action Deep Dive series. The 101 class starts with the basics. As we move through 201, 301, and 401, we will continue to build your skills and practice with Captivate Variables and Advanced Actions. Next? We conquer the world!
 
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Lori Smith, COTP, is IconLogic's lead programmer and Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in Captivate. Lori has a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT as well as a Master’s in electrical engineering from George Mason University. She has been working in the field of software engineering for more than 20 years.  During that time she worked as an embedded software engineer at Raytheon (E-Systems) and ARINC.
 
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ELEARNING PRODUCTION: Getting Audio from Microsoft PowerPoint to Work in Adobe Captivate

by Kevin Siegel, CTT+, COTP

We received the following distress email a few days ago:
 
I am using your workbook (Adobe Captivate 2017: The Essentials) and I'm in Module 11: Working with PowerPoint.
 
I have a PowerPoint (presentation) I created with voice recording. The PowerPoint imports just like the books says and the hyperlinks work. However, the audio is not coming working.
 
When I spoke with Adobe support regarding the issue, I was informed that the recording file in Microsoft PowerPoint uses the m4a file format. Captivate only uses the wav and mp3 file format. How do I get the audio in PowerPoint to work in Captivate? 
 
Interesting problem.
 
In truth, I never add the audio to PowerPoint slides while in PowerPoint. Instead, I always import the audio directly onto the slides after the PowerPoint-to-Captivate import process is complete.
 
I wanted to see if the audio worked for myself so as a test, I imported mp3 audio onto a PowerPoint slide and then took the slide into Captivate. The audio worked fine. Next I recorded audio directly onto a PowerPoint slide and then took that slide into Captivate. Sure enough, the pesky PowerPoint m4a file didn’t play nice with Captivate.
 
As a workaround, I right-clicked the audio in PowerPoint and selected Save Media as. I saved the m4a file to my computer (m4a is the only export option in the Save as type drop-down menu).
 
 
 
 
Then I used Adobe Media Encoder (it’s a program that is probably on your computer already) and converted the m4a file into a mid-quality mp3. That process took a few seconds.
 
To begin, drag the m4a file into Media Encoder.
 
 
From the right side of Media Encoder, expand Audio Only. Drag one of the MP3 options over to the m4a file you added to Media Endcoder. Then click the green arrow to convert the m4a to an mp3.
 
 
Once I had the mp3 file, I imported it onto a Captivate PowerPoint slide and all was right with the world.
 
Perhaps one day Microsoft will use mp3 files for recorded audio, or Adobe will one day allow for m4a imports directly into Captivate. Until either of those events occur however, at least there’s a workaround that will not require you to re-record your audio.
 
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If you're looking to learn Adobe Captivate, check out these awesome online classes.
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New 1-Hour Live, Online Course: Microsoft PowerPoint to eLearning via Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, TechSmith Camtasia, or Presenter

If you intend to create an eLearning course, it’s a good bet that you’re going to start the development process in Microsoft PowerPoint. However, PowerPoint is missing some key eLearning features to allow you to output finished eLearning content. For instance, PowerPoint cannot create software simulations or video demos. There is no way to add quizzes or learner interactions in PowerPoint. And, because there are no reporting features or provisions for SCORM or AICC, you cannot effectively integrate PowerPoint presentations with Learning Management Systems. 

Instead of relying on PowerPoint alone for your eLearning content, you’ll need to take your finished presentations into an eLearning development tool such as Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, or TechSmith Camtasia. While in those tools, you’ll add the necessary eLearning features and then publish your content. Alternately, you can rely on Presenter, a PowerPoint plug-in that works together with PowerPoint to accomplish many of the things you can do in Captivate, Camtasia, and Storyline.

But what happens to your beloved PowerPoint slides when they get incorporated into today’s eLearning tools? Do the animations still work? How about the hyperlinks? Does the voiceover audio you added to your PowerPoint slides still work when the slides are imported into your eLearning tool? Do the fonts look okay? If you or the subject matter expert updates the PowerPoint presentation outside of the eLearning tool, does the eLearning version update or do you have to re-import?

Attend this action-packed session and learn how PowerPoint works with the top eLearning tools of the day. You’ll learn the strengths and weaknesses of each eLearning tool via live demonstrations (there is no pre-recorded content). This is live, online training at its very best!

You’ll learn how to integrate PowerPoint with:

  • Adobe Captivate
  • Articulate Storyline
  • TechSmith Camtasia
  • Presenter

Learn more or sign up.

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TEACHING ONLINE: True eLearning Integration via Adobe Connect

by Kevin Siegel, CTT+, COTP

When I teach my live, online Certified Online Training Professional course, one of the core concepts I encourage is blended learning (combining online digital media with traditional classroom teaching concepts). Specifically, there's great value in integrating eLearning (asynchronous training) with live (synchronous) training by providing access to eLearning content from within the virtual training space.
 
Published eLearning content can typically be provided to online students via a Materials pod or direct link (URL) you type into the Chat pod. All of the main training platforms (WebEx, GoToTraining, Adobe Connect) provide Chat and Materials pods, although they might give the pods different names.
 
The problem with sending students outside of the training space to engage with eLearning content is that the student leaves the virtual classroom. Once your learners are outside, good luck getting them back.
 
In my experience using many of the online training platforms, only one of the vendors offers a truly integrated blended-learning experience and allows you to share eLearning content directly from within the training room, and that’s Adobe with its virtual training platform Connect.
 
Here’s how you can share eLearning courses from within Connect. First, create the eLearning content in Adobe Captivate, and then publish as an SWF.
 
From within Adobe Connect, choose Share Document.
 
 
Click the Browse My Computer button and upload the SWF you published with Captivate. In the image below, I’ve already uploaded a SWF I created with Captivate called UsingNotepad. Once you’ve uploaded content, it stays in the Select Document to Share area so you don’t have to upload content again and again and again.
 
 
All you need to do now is click the OK button and everyone in the virtual room will not only see the eLearning, they’ll be able to interact with it independent of the other attendees.
 
 
The ability of virtual attendees to work through the eLearning content independently is so cool, it's the one feature that might encourage you to select Adobe Connect as your training platform above others… and Adobe Captivate as your eLearning tool. If you’re thinking about going the Connect route, head on over to Engage Systems, tell them your friends at IconLogic said hello, and then ask for a demo of Adobe Connect.
 
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If you'd like to learn how to learn how to teach live, online classes, check out ICCOTP's certification course.
 
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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 & GOANIMATE: Sharing Voices Is Quick and Easy

by Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP

In an earlier article, I described how I created an eLearning lesson that has GoAnimate characters discussing some spreadsheet problems. At a certain point, the lesson zooms in on a character’s computer screen, and suddenly a software simulation starts in Adobe Captivate. The voice of one of the screen characters becomes the voice who is guiding my learner through the spreadsheet lesson.
 
But how did I get the same TTS voice from GoAnimate to Captivate? The secret is, I didn’t. I went the other direction. 
 
Knowing that I would want the same voice both in GoAnimate and in Captivate, I created some fake slides in Captivate, with the dialog script for the screen characters I was creating in GoAnimate typed into the Slide Notes.
 
 
From there, I used the NeoSpeech voices that come with Captivate to create high-quality TTS audio files. 
 
 
Next, I exported the audio files from Captivate. (An audio badge below a slide in the Filmstrip indicates that there is audio attached to the slide. Clicking the badge makes exporting easy. So does the Export tool in the Library.)
 
 
Then I imported those files into GoAnimate, assigning them to my characters in the appropriate scenes. 
 
Sure, TTS is still not the best audio option, but the effect of having the voice of an animated character you just saw walking and talking in a video smoothly continue as the voice that is teaching you about a spreadsheet is kind of neat. At the end of the Captivate software simulation, you see the animated character again, still talking in that same voice.
 
Of course you might want to have a more human sound to your GoAnimate videos. You can easily do that by recruiting friends, colleagues, or family to play the various roles. Voice acting for screen characters is not just for famous people like Beyonce, who is voicing Nala in the new Lion King remake. You can cast yourself along with Joan from Accounting in your next animated video!
 
Do you have audio tricks or advice for GoAnimate, or for eLearning in general? We would love to share your thoughts below as comments.
 
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Looking to become a GoAnimate or Adobe Captivate ninja? We've got you covered with these awesome live, online classes.

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Jennie Ruby, 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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ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Tips for Importing PowerPoint Slides

by Jennie Ruby, COTP

Many organizations use PowerPoint templates to ensure that lessons are consistent and correctly branded. By importing PowerPoint into Captivate, you can retain that formatting and branding in your eLearning lessons as well. But sometimes Captivate needs a little extra help in communicating with PowerPoint on your computer in order to import slides. Here are some tips.
 
1. Open your copy of PowerPoint, and open the file you want to import into Captivate.
 
2. Use Save As to re-save the file. This makes your copy of PowerPoint the last program to "touch" the file. (This helps prevent "permissions" errors.)
 
3. Close the file, but keep PowerPoint open, with no PowerPoint files open. Just the program.
 
4. In Captivate, from the Welcome Screen’s New tab, click From PowerPoint and click Create.
 
5. Select the PowerPoint file you earlier saved.
 
6. In the Convert Microsoft PowerPoint Presentations dialog box, select the specific slides you want to import.
 
7. To be able to update the slides in PowerPoint if needed and have them synchronize with the Captivate project, ensure that the Link checkbox is selected. Keep the other default settings (Advance slide on Mouse click).
 
Note: On Windows computers, you may want to select High Fidelity as well. This gives you higher quality images and may help with any PowerPoint animations, which, by the way, should work in Captivate.
 
 
8. Click OK.
 
The import process can take a while. If it truly freezes, you may need to close both programs and start again. But even if you have to do that, we have typically seen it work on the second try.
 
Once the PowerPoint deck is imported, it is listed in Captivate’s Library. A red or green dot appears next to the slides, letting you know whether they are synchronized with the original PowerPoint. If that dot is red, you can click it to update the slides in Captivate.
 
If you need to make a change to text or images on the slides, you’ll need to return to PowerPoint to do so. But Captivate makes this easy through the Edit > Edit with Microsoft PowerPoint command. You can choose to edit just one slide or the whole presentation. You are taken to PowerPoint, where you can make the needed edits. Then, on Windows computers, you can just hit the Save button at the upper left to save the changes and return to Captivate. On Mac computers, you just save the file in PowerPoint, re-open Captivate, and say yes to a dialog box to Update your Captivate slides.
 
Importing your PowerPoint slides can be the fastest route to a fully formatted, branded Captivate project. If you have any other tips on working with PowerPoint and Captivate, I would love to hear from you via comments below.
 
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Looking to become a Captivate master? We've got you covered with these awesome classes.
 
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Jennie Ruby, 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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ELEARNING PRODUCTION: iOS 11 Makes Mobile Demos a Snap (or a Tap)

by Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP

Not so long ago we were tasked with creating an eLearning project that included a software demonstration of an iPhone mobile app. We experimented with several techniques for capturing the app including using a program that reflected the iPhone onto the computer. (To reflect our iPhone to the computer, we used a program called, wait for it, Reflector. Once the phone and computer were on the same wireless network, it was fairly easy to get Reflector to show the mobile device on the computer. And once displayed on the computer, it was a breeze to capture the reflection. We used Adobe Captivate, but any eLearning tool will work including Articulate Storyline and TechSmith Camtasia.
 
As an alternative to reflecting the mobile device and capturing what's shown on the computer, you can create individual screen captures of an app directly on the mobile device; then you can send the images to yourself via email, Dropbox, or any one of a several file transfer capabilities available on today’s mobile devices. (Just about every modern mobile device allows you to create screen captures.)
 
The only problem with manually creating screen captures is, well, you’ll need a lot of screen captures for a software demonstration. And that brings me to the latest and greatest innovation I’ve seen in iOS 11: video demos can now be created natively on the iPhone, saved, exported just like an image (only the video is an mp4), and then imported into your favorite eLearning development tool. 
 
Here's how easy it is to record a demo on an iPhone via iOS 11: In this scenario, I'd like to demonstrate the process of enabling the Personal Hotspot feature on an iPhone. To enable recording, swipe up from the bottom of the phone. Tab the button indicated below and, three seconds later, you're recording everything you do on the device.
 
 
When finished, tap the red bar at the top of the device and your recording will be saved among your other videos and photos as an MP4. In the image below, you can see the demo I captured as it appeared in the Camera app on my iPhone.
 
 
To add the video to a Captivate project, choose Video > Insert Video. In Camtasia, go to the Media Bin, right-click, and Import Media. And in Storyline, go the Insert tab on the Ribbon and, from the Media group, click the Video drop-down menu, and then chooseVideo From File.
 
Here's the video I captured and put into YouTube. (I imported the video into Camtasia and shared it. I didn't make any edits to the video but could have easily added audio, music, callouts, animations, you name it.)
 
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Looking to learn how to create eLearning in any of the top development tools (including Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and TechSmith Camtasia)? Check out these live, online, and highly interactive 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.