Adobe Captivate - Software Simulation

In this first part of a two part video tutorial, I cover the procedures for recording your software simulation.

In this second part of a two part video tutorial, I cover the procedures for editing your recordings and preparing them for your learners.

Adobe Captivate - Setup Captivate Like a Pro

In this video, I show you how you can setup Adobe Captivate 2017 Release as the professionals do. Actually, I feel that this setup makes things easier. In this instance, I suspect that my clients would discover more features within Captivate if they used these settings.

Slide vs. Project Level Closed Captions

In this Adobe Captivate QuickTip, how you can assign project level closed caption settings over slide level closed captions.

Adobe Captivate QuickTip - Maintain Pan & Zoom After Video Demo Trim

I had a question about maintaining the pan and zoom settings after an edit or trim in Adobe Captivate's Video Demo feature so I put together this short video that explains my workflow.  

Adobe Captivate – Why Pay For It At All?

When I first started using adobe captivate it was purchased for me. I worked as an eLearning designer, developer and of course we used whatever software the company provided. Of course, then the decision isn’t yours to make and you have to use whatever software they give you. But I’ve found myself in different circumstances over the years and perhaps my experience can help you when it comes to making the decision for yourself.

Student Teacher Pricing

In between jobs, I decided to go back to school and get my college certificate for teaching and training adults. While enrolled at the college I found out that I was eligible to purchase the Adobe eLearning Suite at a substantial discount. The eLearning Suite is no longer available, but at the time it was a really great value because it included several of the Creative Suite titles for a very reasonable price.

Adobe and other software developers offer student and teacher discounts because if you can get the next generation of future creative people using your software, you will likely get a surge in corporate sales in the next few years because of it.

The downside of student and teacher pricing is that they are not subscriptions and therefore will become obsolete at some point. Technically I could still use my copy of the Adobe eLearning Suite, however, all the software included is well over half a decade old. Many of the features I use today just aren’t included in the old versions.

Perpetual License

Like the student and teacher pricing, a regular perpetual license is what you get when you pay a single lump sum for a software title. When Adobe Captivate 2017 Release came out, I saw many people on the Adobe eLearning Community and the forums complain that they had just purchased Adobe Captivate 9. These folks felt ripped off and I can’t say I blame them. Adobe and other software developers are between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they don’t want to reveal that new software is in pre-release because they need sales to continue to support their company. On the other hand, it does lead to disappointment. Adobe does offer complimentary upgrades for users who are usually within the 1 month period but if you fall outside that range you may be disappointed. Of course, this is why subscription can be so appealing.

Subscription

If price and obsolescence are your concern, the subscription model is really the best bet. Subscription costs you a monthly fee but requires a commitment of time, usually a year. The individual payment is lower and in the case of Adobe Captivate, less expensive than a perpetual license, assuming you will always upgrade to the latest version. I prefer and of course, require the most up to date version. While many people still watch my tutorials on Adobe Captivate 8, the real demand for me is to teach about the new features in 2017 release.

While many believe that subscription is solely a response to piracy, it also makes it easier for a software developer to support the software. For example, the Creative Cloud software is only available on subscription. What this means is that the support team at Adobe really only needs to support one code base. It is doubtful that many users of the Creative Cloud are running anything other than the CC 2017. Besides, why would you not want all the new features?

The real advantage to Adobe Captivate users is that you will never find yourself in the situation where you are the upset customer who just purchased the previous edition two or three months ago.

Why Pay For It At All?

Yes, you read that right. Why pay for it at all? At the present time, I am not paying for my subscription to Adobe Captivate. No I’m not stealing the software, nor have I installed some other software that tricks the activation servers into thinking I’m a paying customer when I’m not. What I’ve done is no different than what any of you can do. I’ll explain.

By participating in the Adobe eLearning Community, we can all accumulate points. You can exchange these points for complimentary licenses of your favorite eLearning software from Adobe. For example, if you downloaded the trial edition of Adobe Captivate, used it for one month and during that time wrote one blog post about your experience and wrote one testimonial about the product you would qualify for three months of complimentary license usage for Adobe Captivate. If you were like me and continued to post blogs and videos and answered people’s questions you might accumulate 1000 points and further extend your Captivate license for up to a year. In addition, you would also start to see other benefits in the form of being invited to various online and live events, get asked to be a speaker at one of the conferenced held by Adobe, and of course, other software would be provided to you as well.

For all the details on this program check out the page below that explains the badges and incentives, score information, and the rules around yearly points accumulation (yes there are some rules).

https://elearning.adobe.com/levels/

Adobe Captivate 2017 - Importing GIFT Files into Your Quiz

In this video, I will show you how to create a GIFT format file to import your quiz questions with great ease and reduced time. In addition, tune in until the end of the video to learn about a tool that can help you out.

DOWNLOAD SWIFT QUIZ MAKER HERE:
http://swiftquizmaker.eu/

Save Big On My Udemy Course

Last month I published my first Udemy course that focuses on custom question slides in Adobe Captivate 2017 Release. This course uses the new fluid box design method for responsive design. During this course, you will not only learn about the new style responsive design, but you will walk away with a solid understanding of how to use variables, how to write advanced actions and how to use multi-state objects to create dynamic interactive buttons. 

Udemy has a promotion going on that you can take advantage of. Sign up for this course before July 6 and only pay $15 USD. The regular price for this course is $50 USD so act now before this price goes away.  

https://www.udemy.com/adobe-captivate-2017-responsive-custom-quiz-questions/ 

Teaser Video for Udemy Course

#eLearning #LIVESTREAM

#eLearning #LIVESTREAM is now weekly. You can watch the July 3rd edition at 18:00 UTC below.

If you missed the live event the same link above will show you the recorded event.

Prevent Responsive Text Pop-Outs from Appearing

Some Adobe Captivate 2017 users are reporting seeing the following icon/button on their published responsive design eLearning projects.

Pop out button from Adobe Captivate 2017

The button you are seeing at the bottom of your text container (smart shape or text caption) is actually by design in Adobe Captivate (2017 Release). It appears when a text container has more text than can be accommodated by your minimum font size and the size of the text container. For example, when displaying large paragraphs of text on a smaller display. Tapping the button will display a dark overlay with all the text in white, and if necessary, with a scrollbar when the amount of text is too much for the screen.  Once your learner finishes reading all the text, tapping the screen will return them to the full slide. Sometimes it seems as if the button is appearing for no reason. There are a few possibilities as to why this happens.

1. Your text container is right on the threshold of when the button will be determined to be necessary. In these cases, slightly increasing the size of the text container may solve your problem. Alternatively, you could also select a smaller minimum font size on your fluid box properties.
2. Another item to consider is the margins set for your text container. Decreasing the margins will allow more space for your text and perhaps just enough to accommodate the text on smaller device screens.
3. Lastly, consider where the text has been. If you copied and pasted this text from a word processor, it may contain unnecessary formatting codes, invisible characters, or extra line breaks that could be causing the pop out text button to appear.

Here is a video from my YouTube channel that shows you how you can get rid of the extra hidden characters that might be forcing your project to show these buttons when they are not actually needed.

If you found this article and video useful please share it with your eLearning colleagues. If you would like to see other tutorials like this one, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Designing with Fluid Boxes

I had some people comment that I hadn't created a tutorial on building a fluid box drag and drop interaction. I suppose they were looking for a master slide for a drag and drop interaction, similar to what you would find for quiz questions. I understand the confusion. It's important to understand that Adobe doesn't treat drag and drop like other question slides, regardless of what we might think about that. 

Anyway, I took up the call to action and created the tutorial based on what I think needs to be setup. Of course, some people might think I've done some things wrong or they would have made different choices. I encourage that you take what I've done and built upon it. That's what a community is all about. Feel free to share your comments on this process and let me know if you would do something differently.

I think the most important aspect of designing fluid box projects in Adobe Captivate is your planning stage. When I started to play around with fluid boxes after the launch of Captivate 2017, I quickly learned that the fluid box wasn't something you were just going to experiment with until you got it right. It requires planning. Whether you storyboard it or just spend time in a temporary project experimenting until you have what you want. My advice is to know what you want out of each of your slides before you start developing.

That's what this video above is all about. I knew what I wanted from this slide before I began the video and was able to quickly build it. What you're not seeing are the hours I spent preparing to create this video by planning all the aspects of each fluid box.

I'm already planning a part II for this video where I take it to the next level and build a custom feedback capability so that it isn't just your run of the mill drag and drop. Stay tuned.