Questions of the Week

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can Captivate 2 Open Captivate 3 Project Files?

One of our team members is using Captivate 2 and one is using Captivate 3.  Money is tight so we'd rather not upgrade across-the-board to Captivate 3 right now.  Can Captivate 3 write files in Captivate 2 format?

 

Answer

 

Nope. Captivate 3 can open Captivate 2 (and update the version 2 project to version 3). However, Captivate 3 is in no way backwards compatible.

 

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: How Can I Get a Name onto a Certificate?

 

We need to prompt for a student name and then embed the name in a "certificate of course completion" and in an email to the training administrator (saying that this student completed the course). I gather that extending Captivate with Flash is one solution, but if there's an obscure but brilliant way of doing this in Captivate then I'd like to know about it.

 

Answer

 

You can create a text entry box with no correct answers. Students would be instructed to type in their name. After that, set your Quiz preferences to include User interaction. When you look at the emailed or posted results, you will see what they typed. I have an article about this on my BLOG. 

 

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can I Stop Question Slides from Numbering?

 

I wonder how I can delete that information "Question 1 of 10" or "Question 10" from the bottom of Captivate Quizzes. Could you possibly help?

 

Answer:

 

Show your Quiz Preferences. Under the Settings category, deselect Show Progress.

 

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can I Gray Out Part of the Screen?

 

I am currently working on a project where I am walking staff through a new Portal being implemented across our department. I will be using the actual portal and walking around the features for a portion of the modules and although the pages of the portal are well designed and set out, I am looking for a way to make my captions and actions, stand out over the other features of the page.

 

I know and have used the highlight function previously, but rather than just place a box and effectively increase the transparency of the highlighted field, is there a way to increase the transparency of the whole screen, keeping the highlighted area in sharp focus?

 

Answer:

 

You are referring to a "reverse" highlight box. Show the Properties of a highlight box and select Fill Outer Area. Let me know if that accomplishes what you are trying to do.

 

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can I Customize the "About" Screen? 

 

Is there a way to remove the Captivate splash (seen via the "I" button on the playbar) and replace it with your own corporate identity?

 

Answer:

 

You can do it, but you'd need Flash and Flash/ActionScript skills to get the job done since there isn't a solution directly through Captivate. Instead, consider loading a playbar that does not display the "I" button. You can download the playbar here (click the last link on the page).

 

MenuBuilder Question: Is There Anything Out There for Creating Menus Besides MenuBuilder? 

 

I'm building some training CDs out of materials that we already had completed and I'm using MenuBuilder to make the cd menus. It seems a bit limiting and I was looking into other menu building software. Any suggestions?

 

Answer:

 

Here is a link to the only other tool I can think of (short of creating one yourself in Flash or via a Web application like Dreamweaver).

 

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Is There a Standalone Publish Format for the Mac?

 

I've developed a movie that our users (financial advisors) can send on a CD to their clients to help explain life planning. I've also done a SWF file that advisors can use on their Web site. This weekend, I ran the movie by a good friend of mine for his critical evaluation. He ran it on his MAC, which had to start Windows to play it. Is there any way that I can save a Captivate movie (and MAC equivalent of an .inf file) so that my .exe file plays on a MAC? If so, could I have both the .inf and .exe files and the MAC equivalent on the same CD? I would like our advisors to be able to send out the CD and have it run seamlessly, regardless of what kind of computer their clients have.

 

Answer:

 

Older versions of Captivate had a standalone format you could publish for the Macintosh (HQX instead of EXE). The HQX format was removed in Captivate 3 (I do not know why). Your only option for the Mac user is to publish SWFs.

 

Question: Can I Have Captivate Email What Users Type in a Text Entry Box?

 

I need to have Captivate, at the end of a project, email me not only the scores from a quiz but also the answers that were entered.  Basically this is like a survey project where there's no right or wrong answer.  However, the only thing I can get it to send me in an email is scores.  Is it possible to make this happen without some kind of LMS system?

 

Answer:

 

Yes, you can set your Quiz preferences to include interaction. Also, set your LMS reporting to email. If you select attachment, and use your email address, you will receive the quiz results in the form of an email attachment (an ATT file). You can then use our utility (CaptivateMyData) to grab the data in the attachment and drop it into Excel, Access or a text file. 

  

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Comments

[Mark]

I have created many custom flash-based user interfaces to load/unload sets of Captivate movies. The best solutions are those that incorporate XML so that the Captivate swf's can be setup with their respective file path, a title or any other type of dynamic text needed to show, etc.

Menu Builder is an atrocity and I can't think of one reason to ever use it.

Mark
www.elearninglive.com