The Logical Blog by IconLogic

Adobe Captivate: The Cure for Blurry Zoom Destinations

by Kevin Siegel   

 

Zoom Areas are typically used to emphasize an important area of a slide background. They are especially useful if you want your learner to automatically get closer to a specific area of the screen.

To insert a Zoom Area, click Objects on the Main Toolbar and choose Zoom Area.

 

Zoom Areas consist of two parts: the area of a background that you want to highlight (Zoom Source) and where the zoomed area of the background will appear (Zoom Destination).

 

In the image below, I have positioned and resized the Zoom Source over the area of the slide background that I want to get larger.

 

Then I positioned and resized the Zoom Destination on the slide. Remember, the Zoom Source won't move or resize when the lesson is viewed by the learner... that's the job of the Zoom Destination.



Right away you can see that there is a problem with the image in the Zoom Destination. Because a Zoom Area simply enlarges the Zoom Source, and I've resized the Zoom Destination quite a bit, the image in the Zoom Destination is blurry.

To fix the problem, you'll need a larger version of the image shown within the Zoom Source. In this case, I have the original photo of the handsome male model shown on the screen (in addition to being much larger, it has also been cropped similar to the image in the Zoom Source).

To swap out the blurry image in the Zoom Destination with the better image, double-click the Zoom Destination to open the Properties Inspector. On the Properties Inspector, click Add new image.

 

Click the Import button and open the larger version of the photo.



Compare the Zoom Destination below with the version above. The quality of the Zoom Destination image is much better.



If you would like to see a free demonstration of this concept, check out the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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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.

Adobe RoboHelp: List Images

by Willam van Weelden  

 

When you create a list, there are several list styles you can use in RoboHelp: bullets, squares, lowercase alphabet, and numbers. But RoboHelp brings one more great feature: you can use images instead of bullets.

Create a List Style with Custom Images

1. On the Project Manager pod, double-click your style sheet to open the Styles dialog box.
2. Right-click List and choose New.
3. Enter a name for the list style and press [enter].
4. Click the Create a bulleted list button.
5. Select the list images option.
   
6. Click the browse button to open the Image dialog box.
   
7. Select the image you want to use as a bullet and click OK.
8. Then click the OK button to save your changes.

Apply an Image List Style

1. Open or create a topic, and then create a regular bulleted list.
2. Select the list.
3. Right-click and choose Bullets and Numbering.
4. Go to the Custom tab and select your list style in the left section.
   
5. Click the OK button to apply your list.

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Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once a month. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your RoboHelp training requirements.

eLearning: More Reflection

by Kevin Siegel   

Last week I wrote about how you can use Reflector to create software simulations and demonstrations from your mobile device.

I received emails from several people who, having read the article, downloaded Reflector and attempted to create a simulation using Adobe Captivate or Articulate Storyline. While most folks were successful in reflecting the mobile device onto the computer, several people reported that none of the actions they took on the mobile device were captured by the eLearning tool. 

As I mentioned in last week's article, the reflection of the mobile device you see on the computer is passive; you cannot control the reflection with the computer. Instead, you can simply see what's happening on the mobile device through your computer.

During the simulation recording process, if you're creating a software simulation, programs like Captivate and Storyline only capture the screen if you click your mouse (or manually create a screen capture by pressing the appropriate keyboard shortcut). Since you're not clicking anything on your computer (remember, the computer is simply showing you a reflection of the mobile device), neither Captivate nor Storyline will capture anything.Unless...

On your computer, start the recording process using Captivate or Storyline. Just prior to performing an action on your mobile device, click the reflection on your computer to create a screen capture. Next, on the mobile device, perform the action. Back on the computer, click the reflection again to create a second screen shot that shows the result of whatever it is you did on the mobile device. Continue this process over and over until you have completed all of the processes you wish to simulate on the mobile device.

If clicking over and over again to create a simulation sounds too difficult, all three of the top eLearning development tools (Camtasia Studio, Captivate, and Storyline) excel at creating videos. If you create a video of the reflected mobile device, everything you do on the mobile device is captured because the video isn't creating individual screen shots, it's capturing everything you do without discrimination. 

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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.

Adobe Captivate: System Time Variables

by Lori Smith 

 

Last week I showed you Captivate's date variables. This week, let's take a look at the Time variables, the System Information variables, and a handy little variable called cpInfoMobileOS.


 
Specifically, I am going to address the variables listed in the table below using 2:15 PM and 32 seconds as my example. 



Perhaps you do not like military time (24 hour) and instead you want to use 12 hour time. A little advanced action can easily convert military time to 12 hour time. I have also created two user variables to help out: am_or_pm and myHour.

 
 
When added to a text caption as shown below, the variables will display 2 PM.

 
 
Now let's talk about the cpInfoEpochMS variable. It can be used to determine the play time for a lesson (or part of a lesson). By subtracting the value of the variable at the beginning of the lesson from its value at the end of the lesson, you can calculate the lesson's play time down to the millisecond. In the image below I have created a couple of Advanced Actions that make use or CpInfoEpochMS and a few user variables that I created:startTime, endTime, and timeElapsed.

First, you need to capture the lesson's start time using this Advanced Action:


 
At the desired point in your project, capture the time and calculate the timeElapsed.


 
Last but not least, let's cover the cpInfoMobileOS variable. It's only job is to indicate if the learner is using a desktop computer of a mobile device (iPhone, iPad, etc). If you have certain elements or slides in your project that you want to behave differently depending upon the learner's device, you can use this variable in a conditional Advanced Action to create the desired behavior.
 

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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate? We offer several Captivate classes. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your training requirements.

Adobe RoboHelp: Embed a YouTube Video

by Willam Van Weelden  

 

Last week, Kevin taught you how to embed YouTube videos in your eLearning projects. This week I'm going to keep with the YouTube theme and show you how you can embed YouTube content into your RoboHelp project.

1. Go to YouTube and locate the video you'd like to use.
2. Click the Share button below the video.
   
3. Go to the Embed tab and copy the embed code.
   
4. In RoboHelp, open a topic and switch to HTML mode.
5. Paste the embed code in the topic.
   
6. In the src attribute, type http: in front of the url.
   
7. Save your topic and generate your output.
   

See also: Embedding Captivate HTML5 output in a RoboHelp project.

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Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once a month. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your RoboHelp training requirements.

eLearning: The Origins of a Training Methodology

by Kevin Siegel   

 

I've been creating eLearning since the early 1990s. Back then, eLearning (or E-Learning, pick your style) was known as CBT (Computer Based Training).

My first attempts at creating software video training was with a program called CameraMan. That program was ahead of its time, allowing you to capture your mouse actions, add captions and audio, and then publish into a video format that could be viewed on most computers. It was awesome software for the times but crashed a lot and had very few options. It was pretty much a record-pray-publish kind of tool.

When TechSmith released Camtasia I gave CameraMan the heave-ho and began producing slicker content in half the time. Then RoboDemo came out (RoboDemo later became Adobe Captivate) and I was quick to add that to my toolbox.

Today you have plenty of options when it comes to developing eLearning, including Camtasia, Captivate, Storyline, and two Presenters (one from Adobe, the other from Articulate).

While developing content for my Getting Started with eLearning mini course, I became curious about the origins of eLearning. As I mentioned above, I began developing eLearning 20 years ago. Surely that makes me one of the more senior eLearning developers around. It turns out I'm am just a young pup when it comes to eLearning. In fact, at a recent conference I met a person who said she started developing eLearning 30 years ago. 30 years ago? Wait, wouldn't that be the 1980s? Sure computers were around in the 80s... I was an early Mac adopter and I remember PCs with early versions of Windows (heck, I used DOS and floppy disks when they were still floppy). Those early computers struggled to do just about anything beyond word processing. How could anyone have developed eLearning on those early systems?

At the same conference, I met another person who said he was creating eLearning in the late 1970s. And that got me thinking... just how far back does eLearning go? And who was the first person or company to provide eLearning?

It turns out that eLearning really got going in 1953 when the University of Houston offered televised college credit classes. A few years later, the first adaptive teaching system (named SAKI) went into commercial production. Basically, with this system, the course got more challenging as learners improved.

When I was creating eLearning in the 1990s, the eLearning content I published consisted of video files that were huge. The files wouldn't fit on a floppy disk and computer hard drives weren't very big. Thankfully, DVDs were available (expensive, but available). The content I published was burned to a DVD, and then I hired a DVD replicating service to mass produce my content.

With the ever-growing popularity and power of the Internet and cloud computing, the need for DVDs went the way of the dinosaur. While many people think the Internet got started in the late 1990s, it came along far earlier. In 1969 the U.S. Department of Defense commissioned the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), which became the Internet as we know it today.

In the 1970s, a company started delivering live training over corporate networks in what they dubbed "virtual classrooms." And in the 1980s, the first CBTs were rolled out. In my discussion with the conference attendees I mentioned earlier, they revealed that those first CBTs were little more than teaching machines. And while they were limited in scope, they were nevertheless CBTs.

What's your earliest memory of eLearning? What tools did you use back then? And when did you first notice eLearning replacing the term CBT? Feel free to post your experience below as a comment.

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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 about the history of eLearning, the infographic below is a great place to start.

Source: Roberta Gogos, Social Media & Content Marketing Consultant.

Adobe Captivate: Replacing PowerPoint Slides But Keeping the Audio

by Kevin Siegel   

I received an interesting email from a fellow Captivate developer who was in a bit of a pickle. The developer had imported a 60-slide PowerPoint presentation into Captivate and then added audio to each of the Filmstrip slides.

Just as he was about to Publish his finished project, he was told to use a different PowerPoint presentation. Mind you, it wasn't just that the imported presentation had changed and he needed to update it in Captivate. In that case, all he would have had to do is click the presentation's red "not in synch" icon on the library and the new PowerPoint content would have come into the Captivate project. In this instance, he was given a completely different presentation (the same audio was going to be used, but each slide visual was going to change).

Since the developer had already invested time importing the 60 audio files (files he was going to use on the replacement slides), he contacted me hoping he wasn't going to have to start over from scratch.

The bottom line is he didn't have to start over again and was able to reuse all of the imported audio files. Here's what I instructed him to do:

First, visit the Library and rename the audio files so the name of each audio file matches the slide where it was used. (To rename a Library item, right-click the item and choose Rename.)



In the image below, notice that I've renamed my audio files so the names match the slide that's currently using them (slide1Audio, slide2Audio, etc.).



Next, delete all of the imported PowerPoint slides. Because Captivate projects must have at least one slide, if your project only contains PowerPoint slides, insert a blank slide first (via Insert > New Slide From). Then delete all of the slides except the blank one.

The above step can seem extreme and nerve-wracking because you're deleting all of those awesome slides. But keep in mind you'll be replacing the deleted slides with new slides in just a moment.

Check out the Library. Even though you deleted the slides, the audio files are still in the Library. Notice the Use Count shows a bunch of zeros because none of the audio files are being used.



Import the new PowerPoint slides into the Captivate project (via File > Import > PowerPoint Slides).

Delete the blank slide you added earlier and, as a final step, drag the unused audio files from the Library onto their corresponding Filmstrip slides. 

 

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Looking for instructor-led training on Adobe Captivate? Check out our live, online, instructor-led Captivate classes.

eLearning: Add Some Character to Your Lessons

by Kevin Siegel   

Let's face it, some of the eLearning content you are required to create is a bit... shall we say, dry? A tad boring? A teeny bit heavy on the text and short on graphics?

One easy way to spruce up your eLearning content is to add characters (or guides). But where do you find quality images to use as guides? The good news is that both Articulate Storyline and Adobe Captivate offer some awesome, and most importantly, free Characters--out of the box.

Let's take a look at the Character features in both programs. While Characters have been around for several years in Captivate, and in both versions of Storyline, the images below are taken from the most recent versions of both programs, Captivate version 8; Storyline version 2.

Articulate Storyline 2

To insert a Character on a Storyline slide, open a slide and from the Insert tab on the Ribbon, click Character. You'll find two choices in the Character drop-down menu: Illustrated Character and Photographic Character.

 

In the image below, I've selected Illustrated Character, which opened the Characters dialog box. From here, you'll find multiple Characters, Expressions, and Poses.



I found the Expression options particularly cool... plenty from which to choose.



Shown below are Storyline's many poses. And if you look in the lower right of the dialog box, you'll even find three pose directions (Left, Front, Right).



And perhaps my favorite thing about Storyline's Characters is how easy it is to change the appearance of an inserted Character. In the Image below, notice that you can select a Character and totally change it to another character, change its Expression, Pose... even its Perspective. Simply awesome!



If you'd rather work with Photographic Characters, go back to the Character drop-down menu and choose Photographic Characters. As with the Illustrated Characters, you'll find multiple actors and poses.





Adobe Captivate 8

To insert a Character in Adobe Captivate, simply choose Media > Characters.



Similar to Storyline, Captivate's Characters dialog box presents you with several Categories, Characters, and Poses. (In the image below, I've selected a Character and Pose from the Business Category.)



If Captivate's Illustrated Characters work better for you, choose Illustrated from the Category drop-down menu and you'll be presented with four Illustrated Characters and various poses.



If you want to change the Character's pose in Captivate, you'll need to manually delete the Character from the slide and replace it with another (not as cool as Storyline's edit-on-the-fly technique, but perfectly functional).

Note: The Characters shown above aren't limited to Storyline and Captivate. You'll find many of the same Characters in Presenter.

 

Downloadable eLearning Characters

If you're not happy with the selection of characters that come with those programs, you'll find resources on the web offering thousands of eLearning characters. While you'll need to purchase those characters (typically in groups or packs), you are almost guaranteed to find the perfect character to fit within your scene. 

Two companies in particular jumped out when I went on an Internet search for characters: the eLearning Brothers and eLearning Art.

Between the two, the eLearning Brothers is likely the better-known company (orange anyone?). They call their Characters "cutout people," and they've got thousands of them. 

Over on the eLearning Art website, characters are referred to as "people cutout images." And like the eLearning Brothers, there are plenty from which to choose.

Another quick Internet search took me to eLearning.net where I found several free characters.

If you'd prefer stock photography for your eLearning projects, the eLearning Coach has compiled a handy list of resources. 

Lastly, check out AJ's article on free zombie characters... perfect for the season. 

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Looking for instructor-led training on Adobe Captivate? Check out our live, online, instructor-led Captivate classes. If Articulate Storyline is more your style, we've got you covered there too. 

Adobe RoboHelp: In Word We Trust

by Willam Van Weelden  

 

If you have attempted to create printed documentation with RoboHelp, there is a good chance you have run into a macro error. RoboHelp uses Word for printed documentation, and this error occurs if Word's security settings don't allow macros.

You can enable macros in Word, but that may not be enough. Some Help Authors receive unspecified errors when generating printed documentation even with macros enabled. To solve this, RoboHelp projects must be added to Word's trusted locations. I'll show you how to both Enable Word Macros and add projects to the trusted locations.

Enabling Word Macros

1. Start Word.
2. Click the Office button (Word 2007) or go to the File tab (Word 2010-2013).
3. Click Options.
4. Select Trust Center and then click Trust Center Settings.
   
5. From the Macro Settings area, select Enable all macros.
   
   
6. Close the Trust Center and the options.

Go to RoboHelp and generate the printed documentation. In most cases, RoboHelp will create a Word document out of your Help System. If RoboHelp still doesn't generate the printed documentation, you likely need to add your RoboHelp projects to Word's Trusted Locations.

Add RoboHelp Projects to Trusted Locations

1. Start Word.
2. Click the Office button (Word 2007) or go to the File tab (Word 2010-2013).
3. Select Options.
4. Select Trusted locations and then click the Add new location button.
   
5. In the Microsoft Office Trusted Location dialog box, click the Browse button and open the folder containing your RoboHelp projects.
6. Select Subfolders of this location are also trusted.
   
7. Click OK to close the Microsoft Office Trusted Location dialog box.
8. Close the Trust Center and the options.

Go to RoboHelp and re-generate the printed documentation.
 

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Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once a month. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your RoboHelp training requirements.

Adobe Captivate 8: Custom Theme Colors

by Anita Horsley  

 

When working in Adobe Captivate, it's possible that you will need to use colors that match your corporate brand. In that event, you'll be happy to learn that Captivate 8 allows you to easily create custom Theme colors. And once you've created your Theme colors, you can apply those colors to just about any slide object or learner interaction.

The first step to creating custom Theme colors is to apply a Theme to a project. To do that, click Themes on the toolbar and select any of the available Themes (Captivate provides several Themes out of the box).

Each Theme comes with a collection of Theme colors. You can use those colors as is or customize them. To access the Theme's colors, click Themes and then click Theme Colors.

 

Scroll through the list of colors and select any one of the Themes you like.

 
To customize the Theme colors, click the Customize button.


Click the title of the current color theme and type your own theme name.

 

Click the color swatches to replace the existing colors with your own. (Note: If your company does not have a style guide and you're looking for some guidance when it comes to selecting Theme colors, you may consider using your website colors. You can use the eye dropper tool to match the colors used on your website.)

 

As mentioned earlier, you can apply your custom Theme colors to just about any selected Captivate object. For instance, if you insert a Smart Shape, the Fill area on the Properties Inspector will include your custom Theme colors.


You can use customized Theme colors on Interactions. There will be a Theme Style option at the right of the Interaction. If you click Custom, you'll have access to Theme colors.


    

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Looking for instructor-led training on Adobe Captivate? Check out our live, online, instructor-led Captivate classes.