Adobe Connect Blog

We’re excited to announce the release of Adobe Connect Mobile 2.1, now available for iOS and Android.  The new release delivers significant enhancements for mobile learning in virtual classrooms, as well as several other feature updates and optimized support for iPad Mini and iPhone 5.

Over the past year, we have continued to see tremendous demand from our users for the ability to offer mobile access to training, whether in live or on-demand formats.  Mobile learning is becoming a necessity for more and more organizations and institutions, with learners demanding access to training when a laptop or desktop isn’t handy, and trainers needing to deliver training outside of the classroom.

Last year, Adobe Connect delivered a complete mobile learning solution through Adobe Connect 9 and our Mobile 2.0 client, supporting virtual classroom access, rich learner interactions, and tracking of on-demand training including Adobe Captivate and Presenter content.  In addition, complete hosting capability was delivered to trainers to fully host virtual classes directly from their mobile device.

With Adobe Connect Mobile 2.1, we’ve continued to innovate around mobile learning, enabling trainers to deploy training in Adobe Presenter format, and learners to conveniently access courses and content directly through the Adobe Connect mobile client when participating in a virtual class.  Learner progress and interactions can be tracked within the Adobe Connect Learning Management System or another integrated system of record, as they interact with training from anywhere, on virtually any device.

New features include:

• Deliver, interact with, and track Adobe Presenter training content in virtual classrooms, supporting multiple choice, true/false, and matching questions
• Viewing of meeting background imagery for personalization and branding
• Two live webcams (user and another attendee), and unlimited paused webcams, can be viewed simultaneously
• More information on features and updates can be found in the release notes here

Adobe Connect Mobile 2.1 is now available for free download on iTunes Preview here, and the Google Play Store here.

The app supports the following devices and operating systems:

Apple:

• Devices: iPad2, iPad3, iPad with Retina display, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (4^th and 5^th generations)
• Supported OS versions: iOS 5 or higher

Android:

• Devices: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1 and 7.0), Samsung Galaxy Tab (10.1), Nexus 7, HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Atrix, Motorola Xoom, Motorola Xoom 2, Samsung Galaxy SII/SIII
• Supported OS versions:  2.3.4 and higher

Last week, Adobe announced the availability of a new release of Adobe Presenter 8. The release is specifically for customers on Adobe Software Assurance plans for Adobe Presenter and the eLearning Suite – though all of the features will eventually make it into the next major release of Adobe Presenter.

There are a significant number of new features included in the new release.

Windows 8 & Microsoft Office 2013 Support
The latest update adds official support for both Windows 8 as well as Microsoft Powerpoint 2013. Newer Powerpoint objects like SmartArt and animations are also supported.

A new audio workflow.
The team has worked to simplify and improve the experience around recording audio and synchronizing it to your Powerpoint slides. The new interface is looks much more modern and makes the functionality easier than ever to use.

Closed Captions
Captions can now be generated automatically for your audio track in the video creator tool. Adobe Presenter translates your narration into text using cloud based computing. Captions are delivered back to the user who can make further edits. It’s very impressive functionality – and you can see it in action below:

Improved Interactions Library
Adobe Presenter 8.0 launched with a new feature that enables customers to add interactive elements to their on-demand courses. In this update, additional interactions have been added – including games like Hangman and Jigsaw.

Improved mobile app for Adobe Presenter.
The team has updated Adobe Presenter Mobile for iOS to incorporate tracking via Adobe Connect.

If you’re not familiar with Adobe Presenter, I’ve embedded a quick overview video below. Note that this overview doens’t include the great new features added to Adobe Presenter 8.1.

Paresh Kharya, our product manager for Presenter posted to our ConnectUsers.com group recently about the forthcoming Presenter 7.0.5 update:
In next few weeks we release a significant update for Adobe Presenter 7 which will provide a number of enhancement across the entire product. This update will be distributed through the automatic product update system (Adobe Presenter help-> updates) and would also be downloadable from the Adobe Presenter product update page. The update will be available for all the languages supported by Adobe Presenter 7.
Some of the key highlights of this update are
Improved PowerPoint Conversion and PPTX format support
This update will include support for various PowerPoint SmartArt Animations. It will now be possible to work with and synchronize PowerPoint SmartArt animations. This release will include enhancements for improving the flash conversion fidelity of embedded images in PowerPoint and also enhance the conversion fidelity for various text and shape effects created in PPTX format.
Accessibility
This update addresses a number of issues related to making Presenter content more accessible. There are three key changes
* Enhanced Presenter Presentation player controls, Quiz controls and Warning messages to make them assistive technology friendly and keyboard navigable
* Resolved issues where text content in presentations was not being exposed to screen readers
* Resolved issues where alternative text inserted using PowerPoint was not being exposed to screen readers
Audio Editing
This update will fix the issue where recording audio for a slide using pause and then record only kept the last part. This release will also resolve the audio clipping issue where first quarter second of audio would clip in the published presentations when they are played for the first time. The ‘Unknown codec’ error which is seen on playing certain MP3 files inside Audio Editor and Quiz Manager will also be fixed.
Embedding of Captivate Content using Presenter
We have enhanced the support for embedding Captivate created flash content in Presenter presentations. Captivate content containing full motion recordings will now play properly without the need to manually copy the Captivate output files to the Presenter data folder. We have also fixed issues related to loss of display fidelity when Captivate content sometimes get imported with incorrect dimensions.
Inserting Flash and Video Content
We have fixed issues related to play back of video in Presenter presentations in Connect Pro meetings including a streaming issue where video inserted using Presenter would get progressively downloaded rather than being streamed. We have resolved issues where Presenter would fail to import certain F4V files and fixed issues related to the size of the inserted videos being different from the original video size.
Publishing to Acrobat Connect Pro
We have resolved an issue where uploading presentations to Connect Pro servers having NTLM authentication enabled would result in a connection error.
Quizzing
We have resolved the issue where quiz button positions and the customized quiz button text were being reset to default when quizzes created using earlier versions of Presenter were modified using Presenter 7. We have also resolved issues related to positioning of questions and options like where answer options would overlap and the radio button becomes non-selectable in some cases with option shuffling.
LMS Reporting
We have resolved the issue where Presenter 7 presentations would show a Javascript error in the course window when launched from the SkillPort LMS system. We have also resolved an issue where Presenter content would not send the “Exit_AU” message to an AICC LMS when an AICC session is closed.
Thanks to all our loyal customers for providing feedback on improving the product and to all the participants of the Presenter Update Beta Program. If you like to submit bugs or feature request suggestions for Presenter or Connect Pro, please do via our product feedback form

One of the most longstanding feature requests out there is the ability to add printable certificates to Presenter Presentations at the end of a course. I can remember customers asking for this in the Breeze 4.x days.
The idea behind this feature is that once a learner passes the course, it would be great to display a certificate with the learner’s name, the course, name, date, etc. Andrew Chemey has just published a tutorial that shows you how to build a certificate in Flash and integrate it into your Adobe Presenter and Captivate Content.

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