April 3, 2009

Captivate 4 tutorials

var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));

try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-7747520-1″);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}

,

Late last year, I had blogged about a set of Captivate 3 tutorials on the Adobe website. These were specifically crated for the education industry and most of our readers have found them very useful. This has now been completely refreshed for Captivate 4- with new topics on the key Captivate 4 features. The PDFs are below:

Also on the Adobe website are a set of video tutorials on Captivate 4 basics (some of these are present in the product itself). These Captivate movies can be accessed here:

Posted by Shameer Ayyappan4:26 PM
  • John

    These tutorials look great can you tell me how to create a user login in a Captivate Project that can carry through to the results of quiz page?

  • Ravi Kiran

    You can achieve by using a Text Entry Box. Follow the below steps1. Insert a Text Entry Box in the first slide of your project.2. From TEB Properties->Options, uncheck “Validate user input” option. Uncheck Hint Caption option if needed.3. Now select Advanced tab in Properties dialog4. Enter a variable say “user_name” in the Variable Associated field and close the properties dialog5. This variable will be automatically created in Captivate and will be available for Projects duration6. Now go to Results slide.7. Insert a Text Caption and insert the above variable into it.Whatever value the user enters in the first slide will be displayed in the Results slide.Hope it helps.thanks

  • Chris Scordo

    Hey everyone…great site!!!I am trying to use the new scripting capabilities in Captivate 4 to get text fields to be validated without the use of an event like a click button or keypress. I want a user to be able to type text into a text field and if he types the correct txt the movie will move to the next slide. This is for training simiulations and I am suprised more people do not want this functionality. It mimics real world scenarios….Basically I want the user to type 858 into a text field move to the next slide and do something else…I dont want the user to have to hit any submit button or Tab or Enter…Makes sense right?But how do i do it…The scripting features in Cap 4 only work on an Event. How do I get a script to continual check a field to see if the txt is correctly entered then perform an action?Please advise…Any help would be so appreciated and would help 100′s of others out there with the same problem…(btw, the shortcut key method does not work because of the numpads)Thanks so muchChris from NYC

  • Brenna from Redmond, WA

    We are having trouble launching our simulations that include audio. They time out at about 50 to 75 % depending on their size. Any suggestions or tips to help prevent the timing out issue?Thanks -Brenna

  • Duncan Buchanan

    Hi,I have created an eLearning project that consists of a flash exe loading numbers of different captivate swfs into the exe.This is working really well, however I would like to call a function that I have created inside the flash movie at the end of each captivate movie. Is there a way that I can call an ActionScript function from within a captivate movie?I have seen tutorials showing how to call a JavaScript function which then calls an ActionScript function, but because I won’t be loading this via an HTML page (only loading an EXE), this won’t work.Any suggestions would be very helpful.Kind regards,Duncan

  • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate Shameer Ayyappan

    Hi Chris, this is currently not possible. But it is a good usecase and we will consider implementing it in a future version.Regards,Shameer

  • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate Shameer Ayyappan

    Hi Duncan,You can leverage the new Widgets functionality in Cp4. Action Script functions can be called only through a Widget.Regards,Shameer

  • Shu-Hua Liu

    Hello,I have a question regarding Captivate 4.Our organization used to use Captivate 2. They recently purchased the new version Captivate 4.Captivate 4 has a new feature: Text to Speech.When I want to use this feature, I got the message said “Need to install with DVD or download”What does it mean?I went to Adobe website to see all the download products. I did not see there is a separate download for Text to Speech.My question is1) I got the message said “Need to install with DVD or download”What does it mean?2) Is the DVD a separate purchase or free download?3) If it is a free download, where can I find it in your website?I had gone to the section of downloading free trials.Thanks!Shu-Hua

  • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate Shameer Ayyappan

    Hi Shu-Hua, The Text-to-speech voices can be downloaded from the Captivate website http://www.adobe.com/captivateBrowse to the bottom of the page and under ‘next steps’ you will find a link that says ‘Download NeoSpeech voices for Adobe Captivate’.Regards,Shameer

  • Shu-Hua Liu

    Hello,Thanks for your quick reply.I did find the download based on the information you provided.However, that link takes me to the free trial download and we have to set up an account in order to download it.Now my question is our library has already purchased Captivate 4…1) Does that mean one of the staff from our library has to set up an account to be able to download this feature?2) Since this is a unique new feature that you promote for this new Captivate 4 product, why don’t you include it in the product instead of having us download it separately?3) Our library is owned by the city, there is a guideline that we’re not allowed to download programs on our work computers. Only IT Department has the right to do so.Is it possible for our IT Department contacts you directly to get the free DVD by mail?Do they call the general customer service phone number posted on your website or you have separate contact phone number or email for Captivate product support?Thanks! Have a nice day!Shu-Hua

  • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate Shameer Ayyappan

    Hi Shu-Hua,If you purchased and chose to download Cp from the Adobe store, the Text-to-speech (T2S) voices would have been a separate download link displayed to you. You can even now return to the store and locate the link. If you purchased a DVD, then the T2S voices are available on it, but have to be installed separately.Regards,Shameer

  • Mohammed

    good dayi have faced problem when i want to convert text to speech by NeoSpeech Text to Speech Voicesi think the qality not that so goodit seems like cutting the wordcan u help methanks

  • Cindy Christensen

    I have read all the books and looked at all the tutorials and can not fiqure out why my failure captions keep defaulting to a font called system (10). I have changed the font, tried apply, tried apply to all, and have set it up as my books say and when I press ok it defaults back to the system font. Do you have any ideas?

  • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate Shameer Ayyappan

    Hi Cindy, Delete the .dat file and try again. On XP, you can find this file at: C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe Captivate\captivate_v40.dat

  • Brice

    Hi,I’m preparing a one day Captivate training for client. As I’m based in France I would like to know if we can configure Kate and Paul voices to convert text to speech in French ?I know how to improve the prononciation but not how to change the language…??Thanks in advance.Cheers,Brice.

  • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate Shameer Ayyappan

    @Brice: Currently Captivate does not provide language packs in FrenchRegards,Shameer

  • http://riverbendmedical.acrobat.com Sue Kupiec

    I created a 35 question quizz in Captivate. Includes multiple choice, true/false and one matching. As suggested in quiz Tips, i added the SKIP button to allow users to skip a question. Problem is when the user gets to the last question, there doesn’t appear to be any way to go back to the “skip”ed questions. I did not put in the “Back” button as I read somewhere that could alter the number of attempts and proper scoring. Can you give me any information on how I need to set this up?

  • sterg

    Are Kate and Paul the only voices, or does neospeech have more voices?thanks!

    • Sue H.

      They have one called Julie that is wonderful.

  • jordi

    I want to open another project from a button,when i run the project and push the button theres a legend that says it´s not possible in the preview mode

  • Linda Williams

    I cannot get the T2S Pronunciation feature to work and I have not been able to get technical support to fix the feature for me.I hope you can steer me to someone who can help.When I try to use the dictionary feature, I get a message stating that my license has either expired or I need a verification file from a sales representative. My license is valid and each sales person I have contacted has been clueless about what a verification file is.I have tried every suggestion from technical support to no avail. Since you wrote about the feature on the blog, I’m hoping you can help.

  • Claude

    Hello,I am working on a certificate, is there a way I can add a button to the widget to save the certificate as PDF in the student local computer? the print function works well but not every one has a printer. I want them to save the certificate as pdf or JPG.Thank you in advance for your answer

  • kiran

    hi, is their way to create TOC and note on left hand side.

  • bill

    I’ve been working on the Username/PW tutorial (chpt. 11) in the “Captivate 4 User Guide” Pdf that comes with the trial version and it doesn’t seem like it’s written for Cap 4. Is this the case? thx.

  • Susan Gilliland

    I have a button on the last slide of my project that should open a pdf document when clicked. However, it doesn’t work. I’ve done this in the past and checked out how I did it in other successful projects and it looks just the same. In fact, the button worked only a month ago when I used it at a presentation. Any suggestions on what might be preventing the pdf from appearing?

  • mike

    Great site and info!I hope you can help me. I want to create a listening quiz from the quiz templates. Is there anyway to place a button attached to an audio file in a quiz template? Or do you have another suggestion on how to accomplish that? thanks in advance.

  • Maria

    Hi – is there an Australian accent available for the text to speech function? Or a British accent even? Thanks.

  • Gene

    I currently have the Macromedia version of Captivate. In this version, I am unable to redirect test/quiz results to a printer. I am looking into purchasing Adobe Captivate v4. Does it have this capability? If not, is there a way to print test results through some sort of script?

  • Kira McConico

    I am publishing quizzes for several different employees to use and take the quiz.How can I create user id’s for each employee so we can monitor their scores and know who has completed the quiz?

  • Casey Garhart

    I created a course with Captivate and added Accessibility tags, but I don’t understand how those get read in the final course. How do these make the material 508 compliant?

  • Linda Hassard

    I have been trying to crop a recorded slide within a project as it contains more information than I want displayed. I have gone to Project->Rescale and I have reset the size smaller than my original size and then selected the crop option. I chose the slide from the drop down list and clicked on finish. However all the slides were resized even though I didn’t select the option to apply to all slides. Any advice would be appreciated

  • MikeP

    Hi, I’m in process of creating elearning templates for my designer. I will not be using standard navigation skin from Captivate but I will be adding custom Next and Back button. My question: Is there a way to make Next and Back button global so I don’t have to put it on each screen? I also want to be able to disable Next button if there is an interaction on a page.

  • Wes du Toit

    Please Assist. When I insert text animation they don’t appear in the published files… They do show when I do a preview but not when I publish… PLEASE HELP! Thank You

  • Brian Donahower

    Great site ~ thank you …I am experiencing an issue with the Cp4 Quiz Manager. After publishing and uploading to our LMS (SABA 5.4 via SCORM 1.2), the Quiz Manager functions as designed but fails to mark the assessment from complete to transcript.Differentiating the Manifest settings fails to change this outcome.Suggestions?Thank you.

  • Ludovic

    Hi,I’m french so my english is not very good..I work on a simulation of Windows seven. In this simulation there is on every slide of the zones of imagesrollover which the learner can display when he crosses( his mouse above. I shall want that when we return several time in the project on the same zones glanced through before, slide appear only if I return above… In resume how is that the learner finds the slide exactly as if he consulted it for the first time?Can you help me ?

  • Peg Raiford

    I am an instructional designer at ACC. One of my faculty is using Captivate 4 for FMR, screen capture with narration. The 1 in the countdown before recording begins appears on his capture. I looked through preferences to turn off the count-down but could not find this option. Tried a new Captivate capture. Same problem. Any ideas?

  • Nkateko

    Hi,My company is considering purchasing Captivate 4.The issue we having is that we are unable to Run the trial on Windows 7.It installs successfully, but I cannot start a new project. I get an error message:”Adobe Captivate has stopped working”.The trial worked well on Vista.Please advice if it’s Windows 7 compatible or what the issue and solution could beKind regards

  • http://www.coremetrics.com Gabe

    Hello,I updgraded to CP4 from CP3. Although the features are great with CP4, I am having issues with the files being corrupted.Running Windows XP, downloaded the patches and reinstalled twice. http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/2009/03/adobe_captivate_4_installation.htmlThe issue I am having is that if I copy and paste images or try to insert slides from another captivate file – the file errors out and closes.When this happens, I am then unable to create buttons, text boxes, etc. I have to copy and paste slides from one file to a new one.

  • Nkateko

    Hi,Kindly assist with the following:My Company in South Africa needs the following questions answered before we can purchase Captivate 4 which we are highly interested in.1. Can we purchase Captivate 4 in South Africa or only from your site having it shipped here?2. Can we purchase a Enterprise License giving user permission to more than 1 user to use, if so what are the cost implications?3. When we publish a project as an exe, can we Password protect it, to require login details before it can be used?Thanks in advance

  • Thom

    Our IT dept installed Captivate 4 on our laptops. Obviously, they were not aware of the text to speech feature or that it must be installed separately. Because we are a very large company, it seemed to be easier to download and install this feature myself. I have followed the instructions above to download the text to speech feature; however, when I try it, it appears to want to download the entire Captivate 4 application, which is already installed. How do I download JUST the text to speech feature?

  • Scott

    when entering an answer for fill-in-the-blank or short answer, how do you assign the ‘enter’ key to submit the answer instead of clicking the submit button.

  • Chris Ramos

    I would like to know if its possible to set up a training demo or quiz where the user whom is taking the quiz can save their progress, and return back to the quiz whenever they want? I assume it would be a variable of some sort, but I could be wrong.Thanks. Chris

  • Elcajon123

    I have noticed that when using the e-mail feature that the ability to preview and publish disappear. Is this happening to others?

  • Deepa

    Hi,Is it possible to change the ‘tone’ and ‘pitch’ for T2S? Currently, the voice sounds pretty flat and I am unable to emphasize on important words.

  • Rick Walker

    Can you please help me with my small problem, I want to show a video in the bottom right hand corner of the screen at the same time as I am showing a powerpoint presentation using captivate. How can i do this, i have captivate 4 at the moment and have ordered c5.With thanksRick Walker.

  • Shameer Ayyappan

    Hi Rick,Will you have space within the dimencions of the PowerPoint slide to show the video? if so, you can import the powerpoint slides, and the use the ‘Multi-Slide Video’ synch feature in Cp5 to add and distribute the desired video across the set of slides.Regards,Shameer

  • http://ae.com Jaswerl

    I am trying to do a training simulation for an IBM iSeries application. This has a “green” screen interface where the F keys are used frequently to call functionality. When I use the F Keys in the simulation, It seems that the browser functions override the F keys in the simulation. Is there any way around this. Can the IE function keys be changes or turned off simply?

  • Robbie

    Hello, I have Adoce captivate 4. I’m trying to use the text to speech feature but it tells me I need to download Voices….where on the Adobe Webiste can i find this voices package to download? Thank you . Robert

  • Gabriella

    I made a widget, and i couldn’t display the name of the user in the widget certificate.
    That is the instruction : but it doesn’t work
    “The name of the user should be taken in a TEB on the first slide. The ‘Validate user input’ checkbox option in the TEB should be deselected and the TEB should be associated with a variable ‘v_Name’ “
    Could someone help me it?

    • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/ Allen Partridge

      Gabriella, In Cp4 add a text entry box on the first slide. In the name field for the Text entry Box – call the box v_Name – note the capitalization etc. Once you’ve done that it should work, assuming your widget is on any subsequent slide.

  • http://mrsvowell.org Dabareh

    I inserted a text box as instructed and then the certificate widget. Although the quiz results display in the last quiz slide, they will not go into the certificate. It always says, 0%, Fail. What step am I missing?

    • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/ Allen Partridge

      Dabareh, Two other steps. In the Text Entry Box Properties under Options, be sure to set the NAME of the Text Entry Box element to v_Name – it has to be EXACTLY that (v_Name) not a different case, not without the underscore etc – but exactly that. Also the ‘Validate user input’ checkbox option in the TEB should be deselected and I generally deselect the hint text option.

      It’s worth noting that in Adobe Captivate 5, there is no need for those modifications to the project, you just add the Certificate Widget and go.

  • Amandar

    I have a published Captivate v4 simulation that uses a text entry box with (2) numbers that have to be validated. Instead of entering the number and pressing enter to validate, i use a USB hand held scanner 4820i to scan a bar code which automatically enters. When playing the movie sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Hand held scanner is programmed correctly. Its a hit or miss is there a way to truely have a real world scenario.

  • Annette

    I need autorun for my Captivate CD, for some reason it won’t create an INF file….I have followed all the instructions…what could it be????
    thanks

    • Shameer Ayyappan

      We don’t create .ini files; the user has to create these manually.

      • Annette

        I said INF not INI, actually it does create the inf file but am still having problems getting the Captivate training to autorun….

  • Annette

    How do you get a Click Box to show the hint on the third try? I realize the hint button is setup as a rollover, is there a way to change this so when the user clicks in the wrong place on the third try the hint message appears? What am I missing?

    thank you!

    • Shameer Ayyappan

      Hi Annette, In the current version you cannot have the hint appear on the third try. There is an enhancement request on file currently to allow users to configure the failure message for each attempt. once this is implemented, you will be able to meet your requirement.

      For now, you could use advanced action to achieve this. Have a variable that increments with each attempt, and then display a specific caption based on the value of the variable.

  • Annette

    I am pulbishing my Captivate file for CD, for some reason it won’t create an INF file so I can’t burn the Cd’s to include autorun. It creates the exe. file so that part is fine. What could be the problem?

    Thanks

  • Maureen

    Click boxes do not work when they should jump to a slide. They freeze in a blue screen. Adobe support is awful. Can anyone help?

  • Leslie Ann

    Problem with Quiz: In project info, there is an option to submit the quiz results as an attachment in an email. Problem is, the results continuously appear as Body Text and will not attach. What am I doing wrong? My deadline to publish this training is approaching, please help A.S.A.P. Thank you

    • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate Shameer Ayyappan

      Hi Leslie, Could you tell me which Cp version you are using? and the email client you have…
      Thanks

  • pandit

    I have created a Text Entry box. The Success and Failure captions have text and a formula. The formula is brought in as an image. When I run the slide, the formula shows up all the time, not just when the caption appears. How can I make the formula image appear with the Success/Failure aption? Tried Advanced Actions but it won’t list the captions as selectable items.

    • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate Shameer Ayyappan

      Success/ Failure captions are not selectable in adv actions. You can uncheck the default success caption, and insert your own a.caption and b.image, hide them by default (uncheck visible), and use adv actions to show them on success. You can implement something similar for ‘last attempt’ (replicating a true failure caption workflow will be more involved).

  • pandit

    Thank you for your response. I had already tried deselecting the captions, creating a text box and image and creating an advanced action. However, when I enter the correct answer in the text entry box, it still brings up the failure caption. So, it’s not recognizing the correct answer for some reason.

  • Atul Bhalerao

    hi guys i m new to adobe captivate 4,
    i have created some clips in adobe captivate 4 with audio and converted it to SWF and combined it in new adobe captivate file, now wht problem i m facing is the audio gets mixed can u please tell me wht is the actually problem
    thanks – atul bhalerao

  • Freddy

    Hi, I’m a newbie and I have a basic question on something I just recorded. Upon playback, I do not hear the “clicking” of the individual keys (which is good), but I DO hear each mouse click. Is there a way to get rid of that after I recorded? Thanks!

  • Phil

    Hi we have been using Captivate 4 for some time without too many problems. We have recently developed a new course which has 100 slides and is no more than 8.5Mb. An original version of this course had relatively few buttons (next, back, jump to etc) and worked fine; a later version has added a number of additional buttons. This one is not working well: when loaded on the LMS it occasionally jumps from slide to next slide, as if Autoplay was on. Next and Back buttons are on every slide timed. Any ideas why this may be happening? Thanks!

  • Syedumersumra

    Can I set the time for activating a button in cp 4 please tell me how can I set the delay time I want to use another button to activate the button after clicking 20 seconds.

  • Subscribe to RSS feeds
  • Loading

  • Categories

  • Archives

  • Authors

  • Recent Comments

    • Wescravn: Hi, Can you please share your swf and .cptx files? My email-id : wescravn@hotmail.com Thanks
    • Rhonda Neswald-potter: Hello, I would like to have different quizzes for specific branched areas of a tutorial. Is...
    • Shirley Lacy: The latest version of Presenter is installed on my machine and it was working with Powerpoint 2010....
    • Magic: Yeah, I discovered that as well. at least going forward I’ll know to have the backup setting on. Too...
    • Magic: it would be REALLY nice if this option was listed as a workaround BEFORE the instructions to “clear your...

  • Captivate & eLearning Videos

    Subscribe to Adobe eLearning on YouTube.

    Check out the latest eLearning Videos on AdobeTV

  • Live and on-demand eSeminars

    Attend a free eSeminar to learn how to create engaging eLearning content with Adobe Captivate 5.