eLearning: Sync/Align With the Playhead in Captivate or Storyline

by Kevin Siegel

You're developing an eLearning module in Adobe Captivate or Articulate Storyline. There's a slide that plays for 45 seconds. As you're listening to the audio, you'd like a screen object to appear in sync with the voiceover audio or some other screen action.

If the object in question is already on the slide, you can certainly select the object on the Timeline and drag it until its left edge gets to the desired part of the Timeline. Of course, if the slide is playing for a significant amount of time, that's going to require a lot of dragging.

One technique that I use when I want to match screen actions to voiceover audio is called Sync with Playhead (in Captivate) or Align with Playhead (in Storyline).

 

In the image below, I've positioned the Captivate Playhead on the Timeline by clicking at the top of the Timeline.

 

 

The technique is identical in Storyline (except as you'll see in the image below, the Playhead looks a bit different).

 

 

On the Timeline in either program, I can then right-click an object that I'd like to automatically move to the Playhead position and choose Sync with Playhead (Captivate) or Align with Playhead (Storyline).

 

 

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If you'd like to learn more about eLearning, come hang out in my next eLearning basics mini course. And if you'd like to learn more Captivate, Presenter, or Storyline, we've got a great collection of live, online classes for you.