Category: Captivate

For most developers looking to simply insert an image on a slide, choosing Insert > Image and then opening the desired image is a common process, one that doesn't need a great deal of afterthought.

However, if you accidentally choose Insert > Image Slide insead of Insert > Image, and open an image, the result is very different than simply inserting an image onto a slide. In fact, you will end up with a new slide in your project. The image that appears on the new Image Slide will be centered in the middle of the slide, just as you'd see if you inserted the image on an existing slide. But if you attempt to move the image, you'll quickly discover that you are unable to do so. What's the deal? In reality, you have actually merged the image into the slide background–sort of a two-for-one special that occurs automatically when you use the Image Slide command.

How easy is it to accidentally create a new slide instead of inserting an image onto an exisitng slide? Very easy! If you take a peek at Captivate's Insert menu you'll see that the Image Slide command is actually higher in the menu than the Image command (in fact, much higher).

And here is another way to create Image Slides: on your Library, drag an image from the Library to the slide's thumbnail on the Filmstrip. While you might expect the slide to gain the image, you'll instead end up with a new slide that contains the image (merged into the background). Had you dragged the image directly onto the slide, the image would have appeared on the slide as expected… but not merged into the background and therefore editable.

Am I saying that Image Slides are evil? Nope. Is the drag-and-drop to a Filmstrip thumbnail issue a bug? Nope. I'm saying that Image Slides are a feature… a feature you should learn to embrace… for stress sake.

I suggest creating lessons that a learner can finish within five minutes, which typically translates to around 80-100 interactive slides. Of course, there may be occasions where you want to take several small projects and bring them together into one project–without actually copying slides or objects from one project into another.

If you publish your Captivate projects as SWFs, you can combine multiple SWF files into one lesson using the Aggregator. Once added to an Aggregator project, you can publish the combined files as a SWF, EXE file, PDF or HTML. The published Aggregator file will include a TOC using the names of the separate SWF files.

To ensure the uniformity of Table of Contents (TOC) settings across lessons, you can set any SWF in the TOC as the master. The TOC settings of the master are applied to all the other SWFs in the Aggregator.

It's certainly possible that you'd like the learner to end up in a lesson outside the modules you have added to the aggregated project. You can do it and fellow Captivate developer and trainer Mark Fletcher has provided the steps to success:

by Kevin Siegel

Last week I wrote about how Adobe Captivate 5 offers an alternate reporting method for posting quiz data instead of an expensive LMS: Acrobat.com and the free Adobe Captivate Quiz Results Analyzer.

To recap, you can set up Acrobat.com to receive your learner's posted quiz data. Once posted, you would then use the Adobe Captivate Quiz Results Analyzer to create reports and charts.

There's just one problem with Acrobat.com and it's, well, Acrobat.com. Each of your learners will need an Acrobat.com account. While free, creating the account and using Acrobat.com might prove impossible given the possibility of IT or corporate restrictions.

Strap yourself in… you just might fall out of your chair…

This week, let's investigate a second alternative reporting method… that's right… an alternate to the alternate. Believe it or not, you can also post quiz data to your own Web server and completely bypass both Acrobat.com and the need for an LMS.

Configure a Web Server, Set Up a Reporting Script and Post Quiz Data

1. Create a Web server and include a reporting script (Adobe gives you one called InternalServerReporting.php).

   Setting up a server and using the reporting script isn't as difficult as it sounds. There is a helpful video and instructions on both setting up the Web server and installing the reporting script here.

2. Once the server is set up, and you've got the reporting script in place, open or create a Captivate project that includes a quiz.
3. Choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences.

4. From the Quiz Reporting category, select Enable reporting for this project.

   

5. From the Learning Management System (LMS) area, select Internal Server.

   

6. Click the Configure button.

   The Configure Internal Server Settings dialog box opens.

7. In the Server field, type the server address you set up earlier.
8. Fill in the Company/Institute, Department, and Course fields.

   

9. Click the Save button.
10. Click the OK button.
11. Go to the Quiz Results slide in your project and you'll notice that a Post Results button has automatically been added.
12. Publish the project and view the results.
13. Take the quiz and when you get to the results slide, click the Post Results button to post the results to the server.

    Once the results are posted, you would use the Adobe Captivate Quiz Results Analyzer to create the reports (see last week's article to learn about that).

Looking to learn Captivate? We have a couple of options… we still offer two online classes for Captivate 4, Beginner and Advanced. Click here for details on the Beginner class. Click here for details on the Advanced class. We also have a 3-hour class devoted to Advanced Actions. Click here to learn more about that class. Lastly, we've got classes for the new Captivate 5. We are currently offering a Captivate 5 Essentials class (the Advanced class is under development).

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