Category: Adobe Captivate

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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.

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ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Updated Images in a Snap

by Kevin Siegel, COTP

You've imported your corporate logo into your project, and you've used the logo throughout the project (on both master slides and Filmstrip slides). 

One day, and without much fanfare, your marketing department updates the logo. Did anyone bother to tell you? Well, yes… there was that memo. However, your project was just about done; and now you're going to have to scour through the project, delete each occurrence of the logo, and replace it with the new one. Unless, of course, you can learn a better way. No worries, I've got you covered.
 
First, if you're intending to use an image multiple times in a project, don't use the Media tool and insert the image (that could take thousands of years and cost millions of lives). Instead, display the Library and use the Import tool.
 
 
Imported images will appear in the Images folder on the Library.
 
 
Next, drag and drop the imported image from the Library directly onto any slide.
 
 
In the image below, you can see that I've used the logo on several slides.
 
 
Remember that memo you received about the updated logo? It's simple to get the updated image. On the Library, right-click the image and choose Update to open the Update Library Items dialog box.
 
 
Click the Update button and every instance of the image throughout the project will instantly update.
 
 
 
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Looking for 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 2017: Workaround for the Spelling Bug

by Kevin Siegel, COTP

Did you know that Captivate has a spell check feature? Yes? No? Feel free to admit it if you didn't know… you're among friends here. You'll find the spell check feature  easily enough by choosing Project > Check Spelling.
 
I'm not saying that the Check Spelling feature is anything to get overly excited about but I strong recommend using the utility prior to publishing. I'm betting you'll be glad you did when a double word or two is flagged (double words are one of the hardest things to catch in a project that you've been starring at for weeks, if not months).
 
When running the Check Spelling feature, you'll see the dialog box shown below that flags for double words and spelling errors.
 
 
Of course, if you run the Check Spelling feature in Adobe Captivate 2017, you're in for a bit of a nasty surprise. Check out the mess that appears in the Check Spelling dialog box.
 
 
 
 
Fellow Captivate developer Sarah Joyce sent me an email a few weeks ago. She said she was seeing "background HTML" when running spell check. I opened a few of my projects so see if I could find anything out of whack. At first, nothing. But then, much to my horror, I saw the same thing as Sarah.
 
I heard from some of the good folks over at Adobe that it's a documented bug that will soon be fixed. If your project includes Slide Notes, you'll see the code shown in the image above. If you don't have Slide Notes, the spell check feature works as expected.
 
While we wait for Adobe to release a patch for Captivate that will fix the spell check bug, I've got three workarounds for you (warning, you're not going to like the first two).
  1. Ignore bad behavior. You can ignore the HTML code while spell checking. However, there could be a lot of code and it's likely going to take a lot of time to spell check.
  2. Delete. Go slide by slide and delete all of the Slide Notes in the project. This option works but now the Slide Notes are gone. Noooo! Don't do it… you'll likely need the Slide Notes down the road.
  3. Round Trip It! Export the project text to Microsoft Word, run a spell check there (along with a grammar check), and then import the edited Word text back into Captivate.

What's that you say, you didn't know Word and Captivate have an awesome working relationship? Check this out:

Choose File > Export > Project Captions and Closed Captions. Select a "Save As" destination for the document and then click the Save button. You'll get the alert dialog box below. Click yes and the Captivate project text will open in a Microsoft Word table.

 

 

Highlight the Updated Text Caption Data column and run Word's spell-check (from the Ribbon, Review > Selling and Grammar). When finished, save and close the Word document.

 

 

Back in Captivate, choose File > Import > Project Captions and Closed Captions. Find and open the Word document you were just editing and all of the text you edited in Word will update in Adobe Captivate. How's that for the ultimate bug zapper?

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If you're looking to learn Adobe Captivate, check out these live, online, and 100% interactive Captivate 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 2017: Wrapping Fluid Boxes

by Kevin Siegel, COTP, CTT

Fluid Boxes, introduced with Adobe Captivate 2017, make the process of creating a responsive eLearning project faster than ever.

I introduced you to Fluid Boxes a few weeks ago.  If you've spent any time playing them I think you'll agree that they're pretty, well for lack of a better word, fluid.

However, if the amount of email I've received recently is any indication, I'm betting you're struggling a bit with how to control the way content flows (wraps) in a Fluid Box when learners either resize their browser windows or access your content on different screen sizes. Let's see if I can make sense of the Wrap features you'll find when working with Fluid Boxes.

To begin, create a new Responsive project (it has to be Responsive because standard projects do not support Fluid Boxes).

Insert a new, blank slide into the project. Then, insert a two row Fluid Box with two rows (click the Fluid Box tool and choose Vertical > 2).

 

Select the second Fluid Box and draw four shapes. Do the same thing in the third Fluid Box. Then, beginning with the number 1, type a number into each box. In the end, you should have 8 shapes (from 1-8, similar to the image below).


Use the Preview tool to preview from your current slide. At first, you'll see that the shapes appear in the web browser exactly as you created them within each Fluid Box.


However, as you drag the size slider (at the top of the page) to simulate a smaller and smaller window, the shapes might not wrap within each Fluid Box as you'd like. For example, in the image below, I'm not happy with how two of my shapes ended up on a line all by themselves.


Back on the slide, use the Fluid Box Selector to select the Fluid Box containing the first four shapes. (Selecting a child Fluid Box can be a challenge. If you don't see the Fluid Box Selector on the Properties Inspector, on the slide click in a corner of any Fluid Box and see if that makes the Fluid Box Selector visible.)


From the Wrap area of the Properties Inspector, choose Squeeze in a column. Do the same thing to the second child Fluid Box.


If you preview now and resize the browser window, the Fluid Box shapes will get squeezed together within each box (none of the shapes will wrap to the next line).


It's certainly possible that you do want the shapes to wrap to the next line, but you’d like to ensure that no single shape is on a line by itself. No problem. From the Wrap area of the Properties Inspector, choose Symmetrical. Do the same thing to the other Fluid Boxes.


Preview again or drag the Preview Slider (shown in the upper right of the image below) to change the onscreen size and notice this time that the shapes wrap, but in even groups.

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If you're looking to learn Adobe Captivate, we've got you covered. Check out these live, online, and 100% interactive Captivate 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: A Real Topper

by Kevin Siegel, COTP, CTT

If you need to show an object on several slides, you have a few options. First, you can copy and paste the desired objects onto each slide. The problem with this technique is potential updates down the road. If you need to move all of the objects to a different part of the slide, you will have to move the objects one at a time (not exactly efficient, especially if there are several slides containing the object).
 
Alternatively, you can place objects on a Captivate Master Slide. Once the Master Slide has been applied to any number of Filmstrip slides, the objects on the Master Slide will appear behind Filmstrip slide objects.
 
To demonstrate the awesome power of Adobe Captivate's master slides, I present you the square and the star shown in the image below (both shapes were created using Captivate's Shapes tool and positioned on a Filmstrip slide).

 
 

I wanted the star to appear on every slide in the project. To begin, I cut the star to my Clipboard (right-click > Cut) and then accessed the Master Slide by clicking Master slide view on the Properties Inspector.
 
I then pasted the star onto the Master Slide. (In the image below, notice how the star is now on the larger Main Master Slide and the Content Master Slide.)
 
I returned to the Filmstrip slides by clicking Exit Master.
 
And check it out… all of my Filmstrip slides now have a star shape.
 
On the Filmstrip slide containing my original square, I moved the square so that it overlapped the star. By default, Filmstrip slide objects are positioned in front of Master Slide objects. In the image below, you can see that the star, which is on the Master Slide, is positioned behind the square. And because I cannot select or move Master Slide objects while on a Filmstrip slide, I cannot simply send the square behind the star, or bring the star in front of the square. If I'm required to have the star appear in front of the square, it seems that I have run into a Master Slide limitation… I mean feature.
 
Oh you're such a clever reader… you're thinking there has to be an easy way around this problem… and there is. On the Properties Inspector, enable Master Slide Object On Top and, on the slide, the star is instantly moved in front of the slide object (the square). 
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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate? No travel budget? Check out these live, online and very hands-on Captivate classes. 
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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the US 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: Overlay the TOC or Separate?

by Kevin Siegel, COTP, CTT

It's easy to add a Table of Contents (TOC) to a Captivate project. Simply choose Project > Table of Contents to open the Skin Editor. Click Show TOC (put a check in the box) and the TOC appears on the preview (its contents are totally editable… a check mark next to the slide means the slide will appear on the TOC).

By default, the TOC is set to Separate which means that it will appear outside of the main lesson area and make the overal window wider by a few hundred pixels. In the image below, you can see the TOC at the left of the lesson. The TOC can be positioned to the left or the right of the screen. The default position is left.
 

If you want to include a TOC in your lesson but you don't want the project width to be any wider than necessary, you can elect to Overlay the TOC (meaning it will be hidden by default and will appear only if the learner clicks a button). 

To create an Overlay TOC, open the Skin Editor and from the bottom of the Editor, click the Settings button to open the TOC Settings dialog box.
 

At the top left of the dialog box, click Overlay and then click the OK button. 
 
The TOC won't automatically appear onscreen for learners. Instead, learners will need to click an icon in the corner of the screen to open the TOC. That icon is shown in the first image below. The second image shows the open TOC along with an icon that will collapse the TOC. Alternatively, learners can click a TOC button on the playbar to show or hide the TOC (shown in the third image below). 

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? Check out these two awesome classes.
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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the US 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: More Power to Quiz Feedback

by Dr. Pooja Jaisingh, COTP, founder and chief learning geek at LearninGeeks

In Adobe Captivate 9, you can convert the interactive and non-interactive objects to multi-state objects and easily add additional objects to the states allowing you to quickly build interactions. 

Quiz slides in Captivate are locked down, which prevent you from adding states to the question title, question stem, answer options, and feedback captions. 

In spite of this limiation, you do have access to view the normal state of the feedback captions by clicking the State View button in the Properties Inspector.
 

The State View area will give you a lot of power to replace the boring text feedback with video, audio, or an image–pretty much any non-interactive object to make the feedback relevant and meaningful for the learner. This step is important, as the default question objects have a higher ‘z’ order, and take the topmost position on the slide, which can result in hidden or partially visible feedback objects in the published output.

In this example, our goal is to create a slide that looks similar to the image below.
 
Insert a question slide similar to the one shown below. Add some space on the slide for a character and speech bubble by moving the question stem and answer options to the left.
 
 

Select the feedback caption and, in the Properties Inspector, click State View. You will see the feedback caption in the Object State panel. 

To add a coach image like the one I used in the image above and at the end of this article, choose Media > Characters. Select a character and click the OK button.

To replace the feedback shape with a speech bubble shape, right-click the feedback shape and choose Replace Smart Shape. If you are using a text caption instead of smart shape caption in your project, you can change the feedback caption type to transparent, add a speech bubble smart shape, and then place the transparent text on top of the speech bubble to get a similar effect. 
 

In the image below, I selected the oval callout and then resized and repositioned it near the character. And that's that… I love how easily you can convert those plain text feedback captions into something more interesting and meaningful in your eLearning courses.
 

If you're looking to learn Adobe Captivate, check out these live, highly interactive online classes (several of the classes are taught by yours truly and I'd love to meet you in class).
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Dr. Pooja Jaisingh, COTP, the founder and chief learning geek at LearninGeeks, leads the design and delivery of eLearning and training solutions. She has created several award-winning eLearning courses and eBooks, and regularly conducts workshops and webinars on eLearning tools and techniques. In her previous roles, she worked as a teacher trainer, instructional designer, and senior Adobe eLearning evangelist. Pooja holds a master’s degree in education and economics and a doctorate in educational technology.
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Adobe Announces Major Updates its Technical Communication Suite

Adobe annnounced a major update to its Technical Communcaiton suite on January 31. The suite, which is available now, is a collection of tools including FrameMaker, RoboHelp, Captivate, Presenter, and Acrobat. Here's a brief overview of the tools that make up the suite:
 
Adobe FrameMaker 2017
 
Author and publish multilingual technical content across mobile, web, desktop, and print with FrameMaker. Easily work with unstructured and structured content in the same documentation. Work faster and smarter with advanced XML/DITA capabilities. Explore FrameMaker’s endless possibilities faster with reorganized and more logial menus and the new Command Search. Publish content as Responsive HTML5, Mobile App, PDF, EPUB, and more. And all this in the brand new high-dpi screen compatible interface.
 
Adobe RoboHelp 2017
 
Create and deliver policy and knowledge base content for any device. Publish next-generation Responsive HTML5 layouts. Help users find relevant content faster with best-in-class search, including search auto-complete. Dynamically filter content for personalized Help experiences. Generate content-centric mobile apps.
 
Adobe Captivate 9
 
Captivate helps you create attractive and instructionally sound eLearning. Go from storyboarding to Responsive eLearning using a single tool. Dip into the exclusive asset store to enrich your content. Create amazing courses that run seamlessly across desktops and mobile devices.
 
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC 2015
 
Acrobat changes the way you work with important business documents. Create, edit, and sign PDFs anywhere with the new Acrobat DC mobile app. Protect important documents. Send, track, and confirm delivery of documents electronically.
 
Adobe Presenter 11
 
Presenter transforms your PowerPoint slides into interactive eLearning with stunning assets and quizzes. Leverage HTML5 publishing to deliver courses to desktops and tablets. Track learner performance with the integration of leading LMSs.
 
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Adobe Captivate: Accessibility Text

by Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP,
 
I received the following email last week concerning Adobe Captivate and accessibility.

Hi,
 
I’m using your Adobe Captivate 9: Beyond the Essentials workbook to learn how to make an eLearning module accessible and I have a question.

On page 75, Adding Accessibility Text to Slides you state, in step 2, that …”Screen readers will not see slide background images. When a visually impaired learner accesses this slide, the assistive device reads the Slide Accessibility text aloud.”   

Following this statement in the instruction below, you have us type what looks to be the script of the narration into the Accessibility dialog box.

I am a bit confused by this. If my module includes a narration (voiceover audio) and closed captioning of the narration, what additional information should I include in the Accessibility dialog box?  Do I also add the narration there too or do I simply add descriptive text only to explain what the image of the slide is?

 
The developer's email above is referring a slide's Accessibility dialog box which can be accessed via the drop-down menu at the top of the Properties Inspector.
 
 
Once the Accessibility dialog box is open, you can type anything you'd like, import the text from the slide notes, or copy/paste the text from an existing voiceover script.
 
 
I am frequently asked why it's necessary to add Accessibility text if a lesson already has voiceover audio and closed captions. It's a great question. Keep in mind that closed captions are intended for a person with a hearing disability. If the learner has a visual disability, the closed captions aren't going to offer any assistance.
 
Let's pretend for a moment that you are visually impaired. You will rely on a screen reader to read aloud what you cannot see. The voiceover audio, even if it features James Earl Jones, isn’t meant for you. In fact, the cadence of the words spoken by Mr. Jones would likely be sooo slowwwww you’d go nuts and probably fast forward through the lesson. 
 
Accessibility readers read at a much higher speed than most people without a disability can handle. It's a best eLearning practice that the Accessibility text be identical to the voiceover audio. When a hearing impaired learner accesses your content, most will mute the audio being used in the presentation (meaning they will not hear the Mr. Jones at all). Instead, learners will rely on the accessibility text (which is read aloud by a screen reader even if the audio is muted in the lesson).