Quick editing of text using XML import/Export
With the growing popularity of Adobe Captivate in the e-learning community across the globe, there comes the need of easy scalability.
A demo created in one language should be easily converted to another. Instead of redoing the project from scratch, CA3 and later versions provide a feature called XML Import /Export to effectively address conversion from one language to another.
A three step procedure could solve the problem:
1. Export English demo to XML by File->Export->To XML.
2. Replace the text to the desired localized text in the XML file.
3. Import the updates XML file by File->Import->From XML.
Adobe Captivate uses XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format) version 1.2 for this feature and UTF -16 encoding.
To know more about XLIFF, you could visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLIFF
Note that each object /text has a one to one correspondence in the XML file. If we have deleted the object in our project, and import the original XML file, it will not add a new object. Similarly, if we have added removed a XML tag for an object, no changes would be made to the Captivate file when the XML is imported.
For a simple text caption, the following information is exported to the XML.
<group cp:datatype="x-object" extype="69" id="10124" restype="x-cp-items">
<group cp:datatype="x-object" extype="19" id="10184" restype="x-cp-text-caption">
<group cp:datatype="x-rtf" datatype="rtf">
<group cp:datatype="x-paragraph" css-style="text-align:center">
<trans-unit id="10184-19-1">
<source>
<g css-style="font-family:'Arial, nil';color:#0000FF;font-size:12.0pt" ctype="x-cp-font" id="10184-19-1-1">Type caption text here</g>
</source>
</trans-unit>
</group>
The user can not only change the text but also change the style, font, color and size.
The Import/Export XML can also be used to change font, size and color of the following:
- Text captions
- Text Animations
- Rollover captions
- Default text and correct entries in Text entry box.
- Success/Failure/Hint captions and button text for all interactive objects.
- Text buttons
- Slide notes
- Text and rollover captions in rollover slidelet.
- Quiz buttons and feedback captions
- Project info
- project start and end text messages for password and expiry messages
Apart from changing text form one language to another, it can be used to effectively edit the above from a single file.
