ADOBE CAPTIVATE 2017: Setting the Capture Caption Style

by Kevin Siegel, COTP

If you create a software simulation using Adobe Captivate, you can elect to have Captivate automatically create text captions for you. This awesome feature isn’t new… in fact, it’s been around since the earliest incarnations of the tool. All you need to do to ensure that the captions are created is enable Text Captions prior to recording a simulation. You can find this option by displaying the Preferencesdialog box (Edit menu for Windows users; Adobe Captivate menu for Mac users), and then select the Modes category.

When recording a software simulation, Captivate will use the Text Captions feature to create captions on each captured screen as appropriate. In addition, each of the captions will be formatted using an Object Style.  By default, Captivate will use an Object Style named Default Capture Caption Style for each caption. If you’re unhappy with the appearance of the captions, you can modify the Object Style by choosing Edit > Object Style Manager at any time after the recording process is complete.

You can save yourself a little bit of work by editing the appearance of the Default Capture Caption Style before you record the simulation. Simply choose Edit > Object Style Manager with no projects open and then edit the style. Because no projects were open when you edited the style, you've set a global or application-wide Preference. From this point forward, all of the captions created in every new software simulation will follow your new formatting. (If you had made the same change with a project open, the change would only have affected the one open project.) But what if you don't want to use the Default Capture Caption Style. Perhaps you want to use another style availalbe within Captivate as the default capture style. Or maybe you've made your own style and want to use that during the recording process. Fortunately, you can easily instruct Captivate to use any style as the default recording style. With no projects open, open Captivate’s Preferences dialog box. From the Recording category at the left, select Defaults. Then, from the Text Captions drop-down menu, select the style you’d like to use as the new recording default (or create a new style on the fly by clicking the Create New Style button).

From that point forward, each software simulation you create will use the style you set as the default capture style.

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If you'd like to learn how to use Adobe Captivate, check out our live, online and very interactive beginner and advanced Captivate classes. If you're an experienced Captivate developer who wants to learn about the hot new features in Captivate 2017, check out this limited enagement mini course.

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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.