The Insider

The good news keeps pouring in. Users are mighty thrilled with Fireworks CS5 and the CS4 patch. The initial misgivings have now given way to a flood of compliments. Twitter is awash with all the good things Fireworks users have to say about the new releases.

The Adobe Fireworks CS4 patch fixes some of the big issues related to text and stability. The update can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/downloads_updaters.html . The automatic update for the application from Adobe Update Manager (AUM) is coming shortly.

After applying the update, please ensure that the version screen now shows as 10.0.3.011.

Here are the pages that will help you get started with Fireworks CS5.

http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/fireworks/?view=gettingstarted

Go ahead, check out the features! Let me know what you think of them.

All the tutorials for Adobe Captivate have been posted to the design center at

Adobe Captivate 4 tutorials

Continue reading…

You can reduce the file size of the project by ensuring the following:

• Ensure that you have reduced the file size of any graphic in Photoshop before you import it into the project.
• Do not import heavy video files into the project.
• If you have multiple instances of the same graphic, audio, or video, reuse them from the library. Do not import them repeatedly.
• Delete unused items from the library.
• In the Library panel, right click anywhere, and select Unused Items from the menu. Delete the unused items. Note that your project is unaffected by removing the unused items.
• Externalize the following using the Publishing Preferences (Edit > Preferences > Project > Publish Settings)
  Skin.
• Record FMR files using the Smaller SWF Size option (Edit > Preferences > Recording > Full Motion Recording).
• Optimize the size of the SWF files generated using the Preferences dialog box. (Edit > Preferences > Project > SWF size and quality).

Check out the following URLs:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/captivate/articles/filesize.html

http://rajntechnlife.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/how-to-reduce-captivate-fileswf-size/

http://elearninglive.com/wordpress/2007/04/captivate-file-size-tips/

http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2006/03/captivate-file-size-tricks-for.html

SWF movie created using Raptivity uses _root inside its ActionScript. In most cases, SWFs referring to _root do not work inside any container that loads the SWF.

In the slide containing your SWF file, insert the Attached SWF , and publish the file. Both the files should be externalized when publishing.

To externalize the SWF file:

1. Select Edit > Preferences.
2. In the Publish Settings option of the Project menu, select Animations in the Externalize Resources list.

(C) Content provided by Krishna Kiran from the product team.

Now that Adobe Captivate 4 is here and how, it would be nice if you folks could tell me the things that were on your wishlist that we missed in this release. I have my own secret list that I plan to pass on to the team soon, and if you could meanwhile send yours, we should have enough to keep Santa Claus busy. Clauses apply.

The movie covers the process to create project templates, and use them to create projects in Adobe Captivate 4. To view the movie, Click Here.

To save the file to your computer, right-click the link, and select Save Target As.

The movie covers the process to use variables, and create scripts for Advanced Actions in Captivate. To view the movie, Click Here.
To save the file to your computer, right-click the link, and select Save Target As.

The movie covers the process to convert slide notes to audio using the speech to text converter in Adobe Captivate. The text to audio feature can help you save a lot of money spent on dubbing audio for your movies. To view the movie, Click Here. To save the file to your computer, right-click the link, and select Save Target As.

Check out this really cool presentation from RJ Jacquez, Senior Product Evangelist, Adobe on the elearning suite. The presentation has been created using Adobe Captivate and Adobe Flash. It provides a great workflow for the products in the Adobe Captivate elearning suite.

https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a295153/introducingels/

The movie covers the review workflow in Adobe Captivate 4. It is a part of the Getting Started Tutorials section in the product.  To view the movie, Click Here. To save the file to your computer, right-click the link, and select, Save Target As.