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Adobe Captivate Keyboard Shortcuts

If you've spent any amount of time at all using Adobe Captivate, it's a good bet that you've used some of the more basic keyboard shortcuts (copy/paste, save, etc). But check out the image below for some keyboard shortcuts you might not have known existed. (Feel free to right-click the image and save it to your computer for future use.)

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Free Captivate 8 Update Now Available

Adobe has announced a free update to its popular Adobe Captivate 8 software. The update fixes several bugs and includes some nice enhancements.

To get the update, choose Help > Updates from within the Captivate program. Once the update is installed, your new Captivate version will be 8.0.1.242.

Here's a partial list of what's new in the update:

• Responsive drag-and-drop interactions
• Google Maps enabled geo-location support
• Native app publisher
• Custom shapes and lines are now supported in responsive projects
• Streaming video support through embedded code in Web objects
• Success/Failure/Hint captions in quiz questions can now be replaced with smart shapes
• Swatches integration in color palette
• Symmetrical shapes
• The EXE publish option is back

More information.

Adobe Captivate: Adding Videos to eLearning

by Kevin Siegel   

You can add several types of video into a Captivate project, including AVI, MOV, and Flash Video (FLV or F4V). To insert a video, open or create a Captivate project and then choose Video > Insert Video to open the Insert Video dialog box. 

You have two choices when inserting video: Event Video (typically video that is expected to play on only one slide) or Multi-Slide Synchronized Video (video that is expected to play across multiple slides). Most developers elect to use Event Video since videos that are confined to a single slide are easier to control.

After you've made a decision between Event Video or Multi-Slide Synchronized Video, the next big decision is to load the video from a file that is already on your computer (by selecting On your Computer), or link to the video that is stored on a server (by selecting Already deployed to a web server, Adobe Media Streaming Service, or Flash Media Server).

If you choose On your Computer (which most developers do), you simply Browse to the video that's on your computer or network drive, open it, and the video will be inserted onto the slide. From there, you use the Properties Inspector to set the video's timing and other attributes. It's a clean process with one major drawback: when you publish an eLearning lesson containing video, the resulting output could be quite large. And large lessons take longer to open and view over the Internet than smaller lessons that don't contain video.

Instead of embedding the video in a Captivate project, you lower the size of the project and decrease load times for learners accessing your published content by linking to the videos that are stored on a server.

If you have a web server, you can upload the videos to the server in advance and simply copy/paste the URL to the video into the URL field. Your corporate IT can set you up with a web server or, if you're up to the challenge, you can create your own web server using free media server software.

If you don't have a web server, your server cannot handle large amounts of traffic, or you simply don't want to create your own server, a media service could be the way to go. Generally speaking, media services are servers available in the cloud that house your videos for you. When a learner watches your eLearning content and comes across a video you've added to a slide, the video is streamed from the media server to your learner. There are several pay-as-you-go companies/websites that provide media servers including Adobe Media Streaming Service, Wowza, Subsonic, and Plex.

I'd love to get feedback from you about this topic. I've created a quick poll that asks how you're using video in eLearning and, just as important, where you're storing the videos. You can take the poll here.

See also: Adobe Media Server 5 With Kevin Towes and a review on five of the top-selling media servers.

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

Adobe RoboHelp: Multilevel List Sub-Numbering

by Willam Van Weelden  

A few weeks ago I showed you how you can use multilevel lists to easily create complex lists with multiple levels. But multilevel lists are far more powerful than I could show you in a single article. This week, I'm going to expand on the multi-level list theme by teaching you how to add sub-numbers to lists: 

Sub-numbering is important for many procedures and legal documents. You simply can't have sub numbering in RoboHelp without multilevel lists, unless you want to manually type in all sub-numbers. But with multilevel lists, you control this behavior right from the style sheet!

To add sub-numbering to a Multilevel List, first Create a multilevel list. Then, on the Project Manager pod, double-click your style sheet to open the Styles dialog box. 

In the Styles dialog box, select your multilevel list. From the Apply Formatting To drop-down menu, choose a level that will use the sub-numbers.

 

Click in the Edit Style field and, from the Insert Level drop-down menu, choose 1.

 

Click OK to close the Styles dialog and save your changes.

And that's it. From this point forward, any of your multilevel lists can include sub-numbering (as shown in the image below):

 

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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: Watch for Large Cache Folders

I've written about Captivate's Cache folder in the past. In case you aren't familiar with it, a cached version of your project is created in the Cache folder every time you save your Captivate project. The cached projects can make the process of opening, saving and working on a project faster than what one experienced with older versions of Captivate. However, with Captivate 8, developers are complaining about the increased size of the Cache folder.

Those folks aren't imagining things. It looks like Captivate is creating more folders of each project than before. Adobe is aware of the problem and you can expect an update to Captivate that will fix the issue. In the meantime, you should manually backup your projects (to an external drive) and clear the Cache folder at least once a month (by clicking the Clear Cache button).

Adobe RoboHelp: Multilevel Lists

by Willam Van Weelden  

 

Multilevel lists are an often overlooked RoboHelp feature... a shame because multilevel lists are very powerful. As the name suggests, Multilevel lists allow you to create complex lists with multiple levels. For example: consider what you would have to do if you need a list that uses upper alphanumeric characters on the first level, lower roman on the second level and bullets on the third level.

 

You can achieve the numbering scheme shown above by using a standard numbered list, but you would need to assign the correct list styling to every list level. That's a lot of manual labor. And it's not easy to quickly change the list style, especially if you've applied the style manually across multiple topics.

With multilevel lists, you create a single style that can be used in multiple topics throughout a RoboHelp project. And best of all: you control everything through the style sheet, allowing you to change all the multilevel lists in a central location.

In this article I will show you how to create and use a multilevel list. I will focus on the basic settings first. With these basic settings you can use Multilevel Lists in your projects. In a future article I will show you some cool things you can do with multilevel lists.

Create a Multilevel List

1. On the Project Manager pod, double-click your style sheet to open the Styles dialog box.
2. In the Styles dialog box, right-click Multilevel Lists and chooseNew.
   
3. Enter a name for your list style and press [enter].
4. From the Apply Formatting To drop-down menu, choose Level 1.
   
5. From the Paragraph Style drop-down menu, choose a paragraph style. (I recommend using the Normal style so that the list uses the default topic formatting.)
6. From the List Style drop-down menu, choose a list style. (In my example I chose upper-alpha.)
   
7. Return to the Apply Formatting To drop-down menu and select and format other levels as needed. (In the sample list pictured at at the beginning of this article, I formatted the first three levels.)
8. When finished, click the OK button to save your changes.

The Multilevel list is now set up and ready to use.

Apply a Multilevel List To Topic Text

1. Open a topic and select some text.
2. Click the Create a Multilevel List tool. 
3. Select your Multilevel List in the Available Lists Styles field and then click the OK button.
   

Note: To change the level of a list item, click the Increase Indent  or 
Decrease Indent tools. 

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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: Adobe Captivate and Microsoft PowerPoint

by Kevin Siegel   

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Wait... before answering that, let's rework that classic question with this: what comes first, the eLearning or the PowerPoint presentation?

When developing eLearning, the content is often created in Microsoft PowerPoint first. I'm not going to get into what it takes to create visually compelling PowerPoint presentations (we have a mini course for that). Instead, I'm going to show you how to take existing PowerPoint content and quickly re-purpose it for eLearning.

Earlier this year I wrote an article teaching you how to take PowerPoint content and create eLearning using either TechSmith Camtasia Studio or Adobe Presenter. Over the next two weeks, I'm going to show you how to use your PowerPoint content in Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline.

Adobe Captivate and PowerPoint

You can import PowerPoint slides into an existing Captivate project or create a new project that uses the PowerPoint slides. During the import process, Captivate includes the ability to create a link between a Captivate project and PowerPoint presentation. Using this workflow, any changes made to the original PowerPoint presentation can be reflected in the Captivate project.

 

Note: Microsoft PowerPoint must be installed on your computer before you can import PowerPoint presentations into Captivate. Also, the ability to import PowerPoint presentations isn't new. In fact, Captivate has supported PowerPoint imports for years. If you're using a legacy version of Captivate (even version 4 and 5), the steps below will work for you just fine.

To create a new project from a PowerPoint presentation, choose File > New Project > Project From MS PowerPoint and open the PowerPoint presentation. 

The Convert PowerPoint Presentations dialog box opens, offering a few controls over how the presentation is imported.

 

The On mouse click option adds a click box to each Captivate slide. The other available option, Automatically, results in Captivate slides that, when viewed by a learner, automatically move from slide to slide every three seconds. At the lower right of the dialog box, there are options for High Fidelity and Linked.

 

During a standard import process, PowerPoint pptx presentations are first converted to the ppt format and then converted to SWF. If you select High Fidelity, the import process takes native pptx files directly to Captivate SWF (the ppt conversion is skipped). This option, which is available only in Captivate for Windows, results in the best-looking content in Captivate, but it takes much longer to complete the import process. 

 

The Linked option creates a link between the PowerPoint presentation and the new Captivate project. The link allows you to open the PowerPoint presentation from within Captivate. Additionally, any changes made externally to the PowerPoint presentation can be reflected in the Captivate project with a few mouse clicks. 

 

After the PowerPoint slides are imported into Captivate, you can add Captivate objects such as captions, highlight boxes, or animations. 

 

 

If you need to edit the PowerPoint slides, choose Edit > Edit with Microsoft PowerPoint > Edit Presentation. The Presentation will open in a window that can best be described as a union between Captivate and PowerPoint. If you've used PowerPoint before, you will recognize the familiar PowerPoint interface. 

There are two buttons you wouldn't normally see if you opened the presentation directly in PowerPoint: the Save and Cancel buttons at the upper left of the window. Once you have edited the PowerPoint slides, click the Save button and the changes will appear in the Captivate project.

If the PowerPoint presentation has been edited outside of Captivate, (perhaps your subject matter expert is adding or removing content from the presentation) you can still get the changes. Choose Window > Library. On the Library, notice that there is a Status column.

A red button will indicate that the PowerPoint slides within the Captivate project are no longer synchronized with the PowerPoint presentation. A simple click on the red button will update the Captivate slides.

  

Next week: Articulate Storyline and PowerPoint.

 

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

Adobe Captivate: Rescale Imported or Pasted Slides

by Kevin Siegel   

If you have created a Captivate project and need to reuse a slide in another project, all you need to do is right-click the slide on the Filmstrip, choose the Copy menu item, switch to another (or new) Captivate project, and paste.

Copying slides between projects gets a bit complicated if the two projects are not the same size. For instance, the original project size is 1024x768. The other project is 825x675. When copying and pasting the slides between projects, larger slides pasted into smaller projects will likely get cropped; smaller slides pasted into larger projects will "float" on the larger slide.

There is an easy way to ensure that slides rescale when pasted between projects. First, open the project that will receive the pasted slide. Open Captivate's Preferences dialog box (Windows users, choose Edit > Preferences; Mac users, choose Adobe Captivate > Preferences). From the list of Categories at the left of the dialog box, choose General Settings. Select Rescale Imported/Pasted Slide (the option is deselected by default) and then click the OK button.

With Rescale Imported/Pasted Slide selected, the slide you copied will rescale to fit the proportions of the active project after you paste. Keep in mind that if the two projects are not proportional to each other, copying and pasting slides between projects will likely yield poor results. For instance, if there are graphics on a copied slide that was sized to 2000x900 and you paste it into a project that is 700x500, the images will scale way out of proportion. When possible, copy and paste slides between proportionally-sized projects (for instance, copying a slide in a project that is 1024x768 into a project that is 800x600 would work well).

 

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

Adobe RoboHelp: Get the New Responsive Layout

by Willam Van Weelden  

 

One of the hottest new features introduced in Adobe RoboHelp 11 is Responsive HTML5 layouts. The Responsive HTML5 output dynamically changes the way the content is presented based on the device the reader is using. For example, while a reader on a desktop might see a traditional table of contents on the right side of the page, someone using a smart phone will see a table of contents that is optimized for touch: 

 

  

 

Responsive HTML5 output uses Screen Layouts, the skins for HTML5 output. With these skins you can control how your output will look for your users.

 

If you have used Responsive HTML5 before, you may have seen the following layout in the gallery:

 

  

 

The image above shows the Responsive Layout as it was delivered when RoboHelp 11 was released. You'll be happy to know that Adobe released an update of this layout with the RoboHelp 11.0.1 patch.However, even if you have installed the patch you may still be using the old layout.

 

While Adobe provided instructions on how to manually install the new Responsive HTML5 layout, they are hidden away in the release notes and you likely missed them. If so, here they are:

1. Close RoboHelp.
2. Using Windows Explorer, search for%appdata%\Adobe\RoboHTML. 
   (The RoboHTML folder hidden within your AppData folder opens.)
   
3. Rename the folder 11.00 to 11.00_old.
   (A new 11.00 folder will be created when you restart RoboHelp.)
4. Start RoboHelp.

You can now use the improved Responsive Layout for your output:

  

 

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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 Workspaces

by Kevin Siegel   

From a new user perspective, one of the major complaints about Adobe Captivate has always been its cluttered user interface. There are so many panels and toolbars in Captivate (and most are open and visible when the program starts), some people feel that the program is more difficult to learn than other tools like Articulate Storyline and TechSmith Camtasia Studio. 

People using Captivate versions 5, 6, and 7 have the ability to undock most of Captivate's panels and move them around the screen. Users can also save the location of the panels as custom workspaces (via Window > Workspaces > New Workspace). 

 

While being able to customize Captivate's workspace is great, if you aren't careful things can quickly become a hot mess. I can't tell you how many emails I get from developers who can't find this panel or that. In almost every instance it turns out they either closed the panel by mistake, or moved it to a second display and forgot. 

 

You can easily reset a Workspace (Window > Workspace > Reset) and get every panel back to its default location. However, many developers (even some with plenty of experience using the tool), don't know about resetting a Captivate workspace.

When Adobe released Adobe Captivate 8, the interface was totally overhauled--and simplified. To prevent new users from getting overwhelmed by Captivate's many toolbars and panels, toolbars have been consolidated and most of the panels are closed by default. To keep the interface from getting cluttered, it's now impossible to undock the panels. And, for the ultimate in interface simplification, you can no longer create a custom workspace.

The simpler interface is great for new users. But what about veteran developers who are upgrading from a legacy version of Captivate? As a long-time Captivate developer, I'll admit that I had a hard time navigating the new workspace. And I was upset with Adobe for taking away my ability to create a custom workspace. I understand that a simpler workspace is easier for new users... but I want complex. Give me back my workspaces!

 

If you're like me and you're missing the ability to customize your workspace, you'll be happy to learn that the option is still available... you'll just have to activate it.

In the image below, you can see Captivate's Workspace menu. There's really only one menu item: Reset 'Classic.' If you choose the Reset 'Classic' menu item, the Timeline and the Properties panel will hide (which is the default).

If you'd like to create your own workspace, open Captivate's Preferences dialog box (Windows users, choose Edit > Preferences; Mac users, choose Adobe Captivate > Preferences.) Select Enable custom workspaces/panel undocking.

Restart Captivate and you'll find that you can now undock Captivate's panels and move them around your display (just like legacy versions of the program). And if you choose the Window > Workspace menu item, you'll see that you also have the ability to create a New Workspace. 

If you tire of your custom workspace you can, at any time, return to Captivate's 'Classic' workspace (which will always be available in the Workspace menu).

 

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