Captivate 4 optimizing

Hi,
Looking for a way to optimize a training captsule made from captivate 4.
The feature of the project are:
Project Size: 1920 X 1100
Weight of publish: 20 MB
Slide Quality: Low (8 bit)
Audio Slide Setting: 64 kbps, 22.050 KHz, encoding speed 5
Publish Setting: SWF Size and Quality:
I segment into several small capsule my Captivates passing from one to the other by means of a flash shell. The tracking works well, however the loading time of a block to another is too long.
Do you have any solution for me?
Thank you!

Hello there,
You can optimize every slide individually.
Right click on the slide and then go to the properties and then go to quality and select optimised.
Check whether that helps.
Thanks.

Similar Messages

Optimizing more than one photo at a time for captivate?

I'm creating half hour training modules that use roughly 100 slides with more than 100 photos/images during the 100 slides. The file works just fine but the IT department would like the download time to be quicker (was set to 75% downloaded to view and took 5 min, now set to 10% and runs after 60 seconds without tripping up or any other problems). The 10% works perfectly but the new concern is the bandwidth being used each time these modules will be downloaded to be viewed.
We were recommended to optimize all of our images used in our captivate files. Because I've done 3 complete modules with more than 300 images, my concern is in the time it will take to individually optimize each of the photos I used and re-import them.
Is there a way to use photoshop to optimize an entire group of photos at once? say a folder of photos?

Hi there
I wouldn't expect those side effects at all!
I tried to post this earlier but the internet connection here is sporadic. I'll try again.
I might suggest a test. Choose 5 images to use. Make copies of the images.
Take the original unoptimized images and pop them into Captivate. Create a SWF and note the file size. Now optimize the other 5 and repeat the process. Then compare the two SWF files from Captivate. Difference in size? If not, perhaps optimizing beforehand is wasted effort.
In Captivate, you are able to control things at the slide level or globally. Click Edit > Preferences... > Project node > SWF Size and Quality node.
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links
Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form
Adobe Certified Captivate Training
SorcerStone Blog
Captivate eBooks

Optimizing captivate file for different screen resolution

Hi,
I've a problem in optmizing the captivate file for different screens like laptop,netbook and pc. In PC's and laptops, this is not a major issue as the size of the screen is large. But when we play the captivate generated swf file in a netbook, the whole website gets resized to fit in to the resolution of the screen except the captivate file.Captivate file gets truncated in such a way that, the user can read only half of the slide.
Thanks in advance
Parvathy

One thing you can try is adjusting the swf dimensions manually. I haven't found a way to do it in Cp. We had a similar problem with some eLearning we built that all our testers used just fine. But once someone undocked their laptop and was off their desktop monitor, had the same problem you describe, where the bottom of the movie was cut off.
Once you publish the files, open the .htm file with notepad or your text/html editor of choice.
Look for a line that looks something like this:
var so = new SWFObject(strURLFile + strURLParams, "Captivate", "1100", "798", "10", "#CCCCCC");
or
var so = new SWFObject("filename.swf", "Captivate", "1600", "1200", "10", "#CCCCCC");
Change those numbers in quotes to 100%, like this:
var so = new SWFObject("filename.swf", "Captivate", "100%", "100%", "10", "#CCCCCC");
save the .htm
My experience has been it will adjust the swf so it fits either the height or width of the display, whichever is shorter. That is, it will either fill the top to bottom OR side to side, but keep the swf in proportion.
hope that helps.

Detail Region as TOC for captivate (.swf) files

Hi All,
Not sure how to explain this, but i will do my best. I didnt like the TOC/Aggregator for CP 5. Thinking maybe to use Spry data using the Detail Region sample. I thought it would be simple to just combine the Detail Region code with the publsihed .swf and .htm code. But not sure what im doing wrong or if this is even possible to do. I was experimenting just using the exact same code and xml for Detail Region sample and modifying it a bit. See below...
Appreciate the Help! Thank you.
XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<products>
     <product>
          <name>Adobe Photoshop CS2</name>
          <category>Digital Imaging</category>
          <boximage>images/photoshop.gif</boximage>
          <bkgimage>M_1.swf</bkgimage>
          <descheader>The professional standard in desktop digital imaging</descheader>
          <desc>Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 software, the professional image-editing standard and leader of the Photoshop digital imaging line, delivers more of what you crave. Groundbreaking creative tools help you achieve extraordinary results. Unprecedented adaptability lets you custom-fit Photoshop to the way you work. And with more efficient editing, processing, and file handling, there's no slowing you down.</desc>
          <features></features>
     </product>
     <product>
          <name>Adobe Illustrator CS2</name>
          <category>Print Publishing</category>
          <boximage>images/illustrator.gif</boximage>
          <bkgimage>M_2.swf</bkgimage>
          <descheader>Vector graphics reinvented</descheader>
          <desc>Adobe® Illustrator® CS2 software gives you new creative freedom that lets you realize your ideas quickly and powerfully. Instantly convert bitmaps to vector artwork and paint more intuitively. Save time with intelligent palettes and optimized workspaces. Plus, tight integration with other software allows you to produce extraordinary graphics for print, video, the web, and mobile devices.</desc>
          <features></features>
     </product>
     <product>
          <name>Adobe InDesign CS2</name>
          <category>Print Publishing</category>
          <boximage>images/indesign.gif</boximage>
          <bkgimage>M_3.swf</bkgimage>
          <descheader>A new standard in professional layout and design</descheader>
          <desc>Join the growing ranks of creative professionals discovering new levels of creative freedom and productivity using Adobe® InDesign® CS2 software. Tightly integrated with the Adobe applications you use most, InDesign CS2 delivers faster production workflows and a more fluid creative environment for designing professional layouts with sophisticated graphics and typography.</desc>
          <features></features>
     </product>
     <product>
          <name>Adobe GoLive CS2</name>
          <category>Web Publishing</category>
          <boximage>images/golive.gif</boximage>
          <bkgimage>M_4_1.swf</bkgimage>
          <descheader>Professional, standards-based Web and mobile authoring</descheader>
          <desc>Adobe® GoLive® CS2 software lets you unlock the power of CSS with intuitive visual tools such as prebuilt CSS objects that you can drag and drop to build sophisticated sites. Jump-start your designs by easily converting Adobe InDesign® layouts into Web pages. Or, design Web and mobile content in an advanced, standards-based coding environment.</desc>
          <features></features>
     </product>
     <product>
          <name>Adobe Dreamweaver 8</name>
          <category>Web Publishing</category>
          <boximage>images/dreamweaver.gif</boximage>
          <bkgimage>M_5_1.swf</bkgimage>
          <descheader>Dreamweaver 8 is the industry-leading web development tool, enabling users to efficiently design, develop and maintain standards-based websites and applications.</descheader>
          <desc>With Dreamweaver 8, web developers go from start to finish, creating and maintaining basic websites to advanced applications that support best practices and the latest technologies.</desc>
          <features></features>
     </product>
     <product>
          <name>Adobe Flash 8 Professional</name>
          <category>Web Publishing</category>
          <boximage>images/flash_pro.gif</boximage>
          <bkgimage>M_6_1.swf</bkgimage>
          <descheader>Introducing Macromedia's biggest Flash release to date.</descheader>
          <desc>Flash® Professional 8 is the industry's most advanced authoring environment for creating interactive websites, digital experiences and mobile content. With Flash Professional 8, creative professionals design and author interactive content rich with video, graphics, and animation for truly unique, engaging websites, presentations or mobile content.</desc>
          <features></features>
     </product>
</products>
HTML Code:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:spry="http://ns.adobe.com/spry">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Detail Region and Effects Sample</title>
<link href="files/samples.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<style type="text/css">
.product {
     cursor: pointer;
.hover {
     background-color: #FFFFCC;
.selected {
     background-color: #CCCCCC;
#description {
     opacity: 0;
     filter: alpha(opacity=0);
     background-color: white;
</style>
<script src="files/xpath.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="files/SpryData.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="files/SpryEffects.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">

</script>
<script src="files/standard.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
<h3>Detail Region and Effects Sample</h3>
<hr />
<table width="100%" border="0">
     <tr>
          <td width="21%">
<ul spry:region="ds1" spry:repeatchildren="ds1">
                    <li class="product" onclick="fadeOutContentThenSetRow('{ds_RowID}');" spry:select="selected" spry:hover="hover">{name}</li>
            </ul>
          </td>
       <td width="79%">
   <div id="description" spry:detailregion=" ds1">
<div id="CaptivateContent">
   </div>
   <script type="text/javascript">
      var so = new SWFObject("{bkgimage}", "Captivate", "100%", "100%", "8", "#CCCCCC");
         so.addParam("quality", "high");
         so.addParam("name", "Captivate");
         so.addParam("id", "Captivate");
         so.addParam("wmode", "opaque");
         so.addParam("bgcolor","#F1F4F5");
         so.addParam("menu", "false");
         so.addParam("allowScriptAccess", "always");
         so.addVariable("variable1", "value1");
         so.setAttribute("redirectUrl", "http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash");
         so.write("CaptivateContent");
   </script>
        <script type="text/javascript">
      document.getElementById('Captivate').focus();
      document.Captivate.focus();
   </script>
      </div>
      </td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Message was edited by: drodax

Hi,
I think you will need a third party convertor - a quick
google sent me to this one
http://www.winavi.com/swf-to-avi.htm
which is free.

Win 7 Offline Files and Captivate

We save files to "My Documents" so that we can use Windows Sync to enable offline files (portability and server backup). Adobe products don't like pointing to network locations for output (published files and such). If I publish to a sync'd folder, it looks like a network file and Adobe products seem to hesitate or complain about this. I can point published files to the hard drive (C: for instance) but I lose the functionality of offline files (sync, backup). I have "aliased" a drive (for instance the L: drive) which Captivate thinks is a local drive (and not a network drive) and that works pretty well. The "aliased" drive points to the sync'd drive (read: networked drive).
Any suggestions for more suitable implementations are greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Michael

Hi,
Do you configure “Always available offline” on the clients? If so, disable it to check if the issue still exists. The Offline Files feature must be enabled on the client computer for files and programs to be automatically cached. Additionally, the
Optimized for performance option does not have any effect on client computers using Windows Vista or newer.
For more detailed information, please refer to the articles below:
Working with network files when you are offline
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/working-with-network-files-offline#1TC=windows-7
Configure Offline Availability for a Shared Folder
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755136.aspx
Best Regards,
Mandy
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected]

Animations imported into Captivate 5.5 not playing correctly.

This issue started when I tried to open a Cp 5 project in Cp 5.5. The animations don't play at all if the "Synchronize with Project" option is On and the anmiation starts at 0 sec on the timeline. Also, there is a visible "blink" between animations on the same slide and between slides.
I've been using Cp 5 for about a year and have worked out my issues with it so these are the things that AREN'T wrong: The transitions for slides and swfs are set to "No Transitions," there is no space between swfs on the timeline that would be making the "blink," there are no blank frames at the end of the timeline in the swf files(inside of Flash), the swfs are AS3, they are only as long as their original timeline, my Preferences are set to no fades on Start and End slides, and my timelines do not extend beyond their content to show white space.
The files work fine in Cp 5. The file animation links are also randomly missing/broken when brought into Cp 5.5 and even after I re-establish them, they periodically turn red (not up to date).
So I figured, "Maybe I can't work with previous version files. I'll just start a new blank project in Cp 5.5." Right? . . . Not right. Swfs still aren't visible when published if they are set to "Synchronize with Project" AND start at the 0 sec mark. They still "blink" between swfs and slides. So maybe I can't use Flash 5 files in Cp 5.5 either. If that is the case, this upgrade was a waste of time and money and should not have been released until these MAJOR issues were resolved.
Someone from support is looking into it, but so far the only advice that I got was "Turn the Sync option off and fade into your next animations." What?! The sync option is very important because that keeps your animations playing correctly when people scrub the playhead. If Cp 5.5 is programmed to do that automatically, then why keep the option button? If not, do you really expect me to NOT want my animations to play consistently when people drag around the playhead? As for the fading, maybe fading out after every animation swf is not an option for me, maybe I need it to be seamless. And to that I was told, "Put all your animations together in one Flash file." Duh, but that was how this needing Cp to assemble my separate swfs started in the first place. If any of you have tried importing 3D rendered pngs into Flash, you know that you can only have so many frames before the program can't handle the load and crashes. I can only support aoubt 250-300 frames of optimized pngs before Flash crashes on me and thats WITH 16GB of ram on a new 64 bit operating system.
If anyone has had this issue and found a fix or some kind of pending patch, please let me know, because by now, I'm wanting a refund.

Captivate 5 was a total rewrite from the Captivate 4 software architecture and it introduced a subtle but fundamental change in the way that Flash animations were handled in Captivate published content.
Basically the change means that if your animation was built down a level or two inside a symbol rather than on the main timeline at the top level, then you will find that Captivate 5 or 5.5 loads and executes the animation on the first slide of the movie. This means that by the time you get to the actual slide where you WANTED the animation to perform it's magic, it's already run and finished.
In Captivate 4 this did not happen. The animation was not really loaded until later in the movie timeline so as to be ready for the slide where it was required. It didn't matter if the animation was buried inside a symbol or not.
You have two choices:
Revamp your animation so that it all happens on the main timeline in the Flash FLA file that generates it.
Get your Flash programmer to add some ActionScript code to the animation so that it does NOT play completely when first loaded at the beginning of the project at runtime.
I agree that Captivate would have been regarded as less of a beast if this change had NOT been made, as users only find out about it AFTER upgrading projects with animations built as symbols. However, I have to trust that if the change was introduced, there must have been a very good reason.

Looking for best practices for web delivery of Captivate tutorials

I have a set of ~50 Adobe Captivate projects that are a mix of UI tour, business process overviews, and how-tos for configuring those processes. These "tutorials" as we call them, vary in length, ~1-3 minutes for the UI tours and overviews, and 4-10 minutes for the how-tos. We use narration, which we recorded in Audacity on Windows and imported as MP3s into Captivate. We are not using menus or interactivity, and are not integrated with an LMS.
The goal is to deliver these tutorials in-context in the UI of our web-based enterprise application. Our customers typically have several thousand users and when they kick of a new cycle of a business process, have hundreds of simultaneous users logged in, many of whom may view our tutorials when they first log in. This means optimal network performance is critical.
We initially output the Captivate projects to SWF format and used the standard HTML page as a means for a simple, progressive download. Users said it took too long to download before the tutorials could start playing. We tried converting the SWFs to FLV and delivered them via a streaming server. Even after optimizing the data rate and codec's compression settings, users reported that the volume of data being streamed to simultaneous users is too great and is adversely affecting their networks.As an example of the file sizes I'm talking, we have a five about are 6 MB for a SWF and 8.7 MB for an FLV.
Can anyone suggest strategies for optimizing delivery of the SWF files, the FLVs, or another format all together? I would like to stay with Captivate because of our investment in training and the fact it is included with our licenses for the Technical Communications 2 Suite. We are using Captivate 4.0.1 build 1658 on Windows XP, and Sorenson Squeeze 6 for compressing the FLVs with the On2 VP6 codec.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Alan

The tutorial I mention in my example below is five minutes in length.
Alan

Creating audio for another Captivate project

I am using Captivate v5.5
I have been asked to create the audio for a project that is being created by another person in our organisation.
They will send me a word document with the script - slide by slide.
As I do not have any other means of recording audio on my pc, my initial thought was to create a blank project in Captivate v5.5 and name and export each slide audio to a folder and then pass these on in order that they can import them to their project.
I am in UK and the project owner is in Switzerland - just FYI.
Does that sound like the best way or is there a smarter way?
Thanks in advance
Noel

Hi katwebwitch and welcome to our community
I know this doesn't really help your situation, but when you
choose to import slides from one project to another, the optimal
results are achieved when both are sized identically.
One possible way to try it differently is to open two
different instances of Captivate. Each has a different project
open. Then copy the desired slide from one and paste into the
other.
Beyond that, you may wish to resize one of them so it matches
the other. (Project > Resize Project) Then try the import or the
copy/paste. And if you need to keep the project the same size and
not resize, you would first click File > Save As... and save a
"throwaway" copy of the project. Resize it long enough to get the
slide(s) you need, import or copy, then trash the resized project.
Hopefully something here was helpful... Rick

Interspersed screen Issue while publishing the file in captivate

I have noticed some images/backgrounds in published file overlapping with images in previous frames (Interspersed screen).
It always happens when we publish the captivate file more than once. How can it be avoided.
Following are the details I think may be helpful in resolving this issue:
Captivate Version - CS6
Flash Player - 10
Operating System - Win7
Thanks in Advance for your help.

Try changing the slide quality if it is still Low to Optimized (now default in 6.1).
When publishing: uncheck Advanced compression, and check Force republishing

Captivate to Presenter -

We are evaluating Presenter for purchase. When I place a 3
minutes Captivate video in the presentation and publish, the
"Duration" of that slide displays on the menu as 5 seconds, the
default timing of slides without audio.
Is there a way to change the Duration of single slides to
reflect the length of their Captivate videos?
Thanks,
Julie

No. I used to insert Captivate SWF's into Presenter, but that will not solve your issue for certain. Presenter is really a PPT-plugin with a totally different structure, and lacking a lot of the features that are available in Captivate. And maybe your comparison that Presenter plays better than Captivate is not really correct, what is the filesize of the files that you compared?
Maybe you should focus on cutting down on filesize in Captivate: use a smaller resolution, be careful with audio (adds a lot more to filesize than graphics), keep the Optimized slide quality on only those slides that need it. Even using advanced actions to limit the number of slides can decrement filesize. Keep the slide durations as short as possible etc...
Lilybiri

Captivate movie as progressive download?

I've optimized my recorded movie as much as possible in
Captivate but it's still over 3MB. It's going to take a user
forever to download/play in their browser. Is there any possible
way to generate a Captivate movie that will download progressively?
Is there a way to generate an FLV file in Captivate?
Any ideas?

I think your issue may be due to the way you've opted to build your course.
When you jump ahead several slides in a Captivate movie, Captivate will attempt to render the slides in between just in case one of those slides had something that was essential to playing the slide you wanted to land on. In most Captivate movies this is not going to result in much of a lag unless you happen to be jumping dozens of slides.
Your case is different. By having a video on each and every slide you've effectively told Captivate that it needs to get that video (or at least know where it is) before it can render the slide you wanted to jump to.
Since your course content is mostly in the videos, what you're actually doing is using your Captivate movie just to organise them in sequence, or allow the user to navigate to the movies. Your using Captivate as a navigation system.
My suggestion is that, rather than adding each movie to a separate slide on a single Captivate movie, given the length of content here, you should either be adding each movie to a separate single Captivate project, or else using the Captivate project (or its TOC items) just to point to the location of the movie so that it plays for the learner (assuming they have a default app that will play that format of the movie).
This might not be good news for you because it's not a five minute fix. But it's the only thing I can suggest.

Pasted Images are Fuzzy in Captivate

Hey all,
I am trying to paste images taken using "snag-it" into a captivate presentation. When the image pastes into the presentaiton, Captivate asks if I want to resize. I have tried all of the sizes (100%, 50%, cropped, etc.) but the image always comes out fuzzy (i.e. the labels for the different fields on the screen).
So, I tried pasting it into word and then into Captivate, adjusting the dimensions in word first so I could bypass Captivate's auto-size function. It is coming in slightly more clear, but it is still fuzzy.
Any suggestions on how I can take a screenshot on my computer and get it into Captivate without compromising quality??
Thanks in advance!

Hello,
What is your default slide Quality? CP does set it to 8-bit to have the smallest filesize, but for most graphical images that is certainly not the best quality. Try to change the slide quality to Optimized, perhaps it will be better?
BTW you can also take the screenshot with Captivate... Just insert a recording slide, use PrintScreen to create manually a slide
Lilybiri

Why Does Captivate 4 Take So Long to Close?

I’m using Captivate 4. Sometimes it takes a long time to close a project and the next time I open Captivate, it takes a long time to open, moving very slow through “loading content.” Once I remove and re-install, and then update the patch, it works. But then it does it again. Someone said that it has to do with a corrupt preference or settings file, so when I re-loaded, I didn’t make any changes like adding for example, the alignment bar (which I usually use). Is there anything else that can be done? Does Captivate 5 have a fix for this by any chance?
Phyllis K. Day

Welcome to our community
Unless something has gone catastrophically wrong, you should never have to perform the uninstall/reinstall/reapply the patch hokey pokey. So that's just wasted effort. There is a simple way to perform what I call the "Factory Reset".
I recently described how to do this in the thread linked below:
Click here to view
I might question why this is needed at all. Perhaps you are unaware of some things that help you avoid issues with Captivate.
For example:
How many slides are in your projects? We normally recommend keeping projects somewhere between 50-65 slides as a rule of thumb guideline for the upper limit.
Where exactly are your projects residing when you make edits? Frequently we see folks working with projects on a network drive. This is less than optimal and will often cause issues and slowness and project corruption. Work locally off your C drive and periodically copy the project the network server to be backed up.
Hopefully something here was helpful to you... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links
Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form
Adobe Certified Captivate Training
SorcerStone Blog
Captivate eBooks

PNG Advice to beginners in Captivate

Hi beginner,
I have ecountered some problems with PNG and transparency - background becomming black etc. Various effects adds to the confusion. It is in fact not a bug or a problem - but a behaviour that simply needs some attention (usability work) in my opinion.
I find that this is not such an "intuitively obvious" setting and I would like to share my experience since I have seen some posts on this subject. None, however, have referred to this detail as the cause of the problem.
I failed to notice the connection between the "Quality setting" in the "General" properties box. When you import an image on a slide (or Copy one from another slide) you need to make sure that the Quality setting on that particular slide is "High - (24 bit)". Captivate doesn't help you on this - or give you a warning - and if you miss this little detail, then the slide will not export/publish the way you expect. Viewing in Captivate works fine, but output is adjusted to this setting, causing 24-bit PNGs with transparency to look "corrupted" and you will no doubt spend time reimporting, saving etc. since the slide view works fine.
Don't - just don't miss the setting. It is one of those things you have to be aware of.
Kind regards,
Nick

Nick, great call on pointing this out.
I was freaking out about my PNGs with transparency until I finally figured this out as well.
One thing that helps is to select all the slides in the Filmstrip view and then apply the quality settings to all of them at once.
1. Right-click on one of the slides.
2. Select All Slides.
3. In the Properties Palette, under General, set to the quality to Optimized or High.
If you have lots of slides it will take a moment to churn through them.

When I publish a movie using Captivate 6 I sometimes get a slide that is overlayed with part of a previous slide. Does anyone know why this might be happening and what I can do to prevent it?

When I publish a movie using Captivate 6 I sometimes get a slide that is overlayed with part of a previous slide. Does anyone know why this might be happening and what I can do to prevent it?

Which version of 6? Check the slide quality, if it is at Low, push it to High or Optimized. Then uncheck all compression settings in Preferences, Project, SWF Size and Quality.

Captivate 4 optimizing

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