Captivate Alternative

Captivate has served my needs generally well, and v 2.0 is an
improvement. There is still alot to be desired: variable playback
speed, integrated right click functionality, movement
functionality, a better interface that allows editing dozens of
slides easier, preview of just one slide (and not the entire
project or "from this slide", etc.
Has anyone investigated alternative programs to Captivate
they they've found to be better?

Hi vetius
Comparing Camtasia Studio to Captivate is like comparing a
dump truck to a sport pickup. Both will manage to get things moved
for you, but they are really designed for doing it in different
ways.
Note that I'm not saying one is inherently better than the
other. I'm fond of both actually. But each has its strong points
and weak points.
If your goal is to capture full motion from the onset,
Captivate isn't for you. This is the way Camtasia works and you
will be nothing but frustrated with Captivate. So I'd recommend
Camtasia.
Personally, I find Captivate to be much more intuitive than
Camtasia. However, I should also balance that with the fact that I
began playing with Camtasia long after I had been using Captivate.
So I might be a little biased in this respect.
You stated that Captivate has served your needs generally
well. This would imply that you have been using it at least for a
brief period prior to upgrading or looking at 2.0. But the fact you
have only posted 5 times (at the time of this writing) seems to
imply you haven't used it very long whatsoever.
I see you are asking about something called "variable
playback speed". I'm not sure that even Camtasia Studio offers
that. At least other than dragging the progress slider manually.
I have never seen a right click in Camtasia, so I'm doubtful
it will surpass Captivate there.
I see you are asking about "movement functionality". What are
you referring to? Full Motion Recording? Ability to click an object
and drag it from one area to another?
You also mention an inability to preview just one slide. Are
you unaware that if you press the F3 key the Spacebar or click the
play icon beneath the Timeline that the slide will "Preview" right
inside the editor?
Sincerely... Rick

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  • How can I assign points to the alternatives in a question?

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    Hello,
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  • Is Captivate 4 the right tool for my purposes?

    This posting should not be misunderstood as bad mouthing Captivate 4. For the most part, I really appreciate Adobe products and have invested a significant amount of personal money into many Adobe products over the years.
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    -    Too easy to accidentally move objects. Double clicking on a small graphic or a text caption can easily cause it to move or change size slightly. No way to lock their position only (e.g. lock text position but still allow editing).
    -    Text caption boxes mysterious maximize (vertically) from time to time.
    -    Grouping of objects is not possible.
    -    Previewing “From this slide – F8” does not take into account (or initialize) persistent graphics (or otherwise) on the first slide or template; this results in missing objects when doing a quick preview.
    -    Item names/variables are unwieldy. I have a number of graphics which I re-use throughout a lesson. I want to give each of them common names, such as ico_jobaid, img_core_splash, etc. Unfortunately, I cannot use identical names throughout a lesson. Each page requires a unique name for every object. This results in an item name like ico_interactive.png (as it is named in the library), appearing as TImageItem681 and TImageItem680 (copied twice) on a slide.
    This is common for every object and makes it difficult to control objects.
    Major issues
    -    Occasionally I insert a graphics that can’t be made visible.
    -    .cp file size seems to continuously increase in size, despite removing unused resources.
    -    Text bullet issues (ending bullets occasional show up as a larger size)
    -    Roll-over slidlets do not work as intended in AS3 mode. I must preview or publish in AS2.
    -    Recording Software Simulations!
    Captivate 4 allows recording of simulations in up to four modes (Demonstration, Training, Assessment, and Custom). Unfortunately, it appears to record these simulations are separate and distinct recordings. This is a problem because call-outs and other edits must be repeated for each simulation. Other simulation tools record once and can be edited once for passive and/or interactive viewing.
    -    Buttons! Multiple buttons/text captions on a slide.
    If I want to place multiple buttons on a slide, I must follow these steps to make these buttons/captions work properly. This is an unreasonable amount of work in order to use buttons on a single slide.
    Step 1 - Determine the frame value. Note: It seems that if the frame value is not included, the lesson will move to the next slide, after clicking one button. Another caveat is that adding or removing slides may change the correct frame value.
    1. Click Insert from the top menu,
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    3. Select Text Caption,
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    5. Select System from the Variable Type pull-down menu,
    6. Select rdinfoCurrentFrame from the Variables pull-down menu.
    7. Position the text caption appropriately on the screen. You may need an appropriate pause inserted in order to see the value.
    8. Click Preview and select Project from the pull-down menu (or Click F4),
    9. Step through slide show to the slide where rdinfoCurrentFrame text variable was inserted and record the displayed value.
    Step 2 – Insert Button control
    1. Click Insert from the top menu,
    2. Select Standard Objects,
    3. Select Button,
    4. Choose appropriate button and button options (skipping steps),
    5. Click Ok,
    6. Position button appropriately.
    Step 3 – Setting up advanced actions.
    1. Click Project from top menu,
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    3. Click the Advanced Actions tab,
    4. Click the Edit / Create Action Pull down menu and select Create a New Action…,
    5. In the new action name: text box, type action name (i.e. but_core_console),
    6. Double click twice on Add Statement (sometimes it doesn’t behave as it should),
        – this feature seems error prone.
    7. Double click twice on Statement (in red),
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    9. Select Show from pull-down list,
    10. Select object name (text caption) you wish to show,
    11. Repeat (if necessary),
    12. Select hide and the element name you wish to hide and repeat as necessary,
    13. Double click twice on Add Statement (sometimes it doesn’t behave as it should)
    – this feature seems error prone.
    14. Double click twice on Statement (in red),
    15. As the last step, select Assignment from pull down list,
    16. Select rdcmndGotoFrame from pull down list,
    17. Select Value from pull-down list,
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    19. Click Save.
    For the next buttons,
    1. Click the Duplicate button,
    2. Edit the New action name: name appropriately,
    3. Edit the information in the Advanced actions for the this action. (skipping steps)
    4. Click Save.
    Repeat as necessary!
    Configuring buttons
    1. Double click on first button,
    2. In the section, “If the user clicks on the button”,
        click on “On success” pull-down menu and select, “Execute advanced action”.
    3. Click the Action pull-down menu and select the appropriate named action.
    Repeat as necessary.
    -    Building buttons for several slides will create a large number of advance actions. Even though these advanced actions are only applicable to a single slide, they are viewable from any slide in a lesson. The number of actions (or advanced actions) quickly adds up in a complex lesson.
    -    Cannot find a way to edit the default look (object positioning/object sizes) of a quiz. The only attribute that seems changeable is the font size.
    Lock ups and crashes
    -    Double clicking on a .cp file will often result in Captivate freezing at the start up screen.
    -    Captivate crashes and sometimes predictably, especially where animations are inserted.
    I am using both a Windows 7 64 bit and a Windows Vista 32 bit OS. I have tried the following options with seemingly no difference: RUN AS Admin, XP Compatibility mode
    Examples from Windows Applications log:
    The program AdobeCaptivate.exe version 4.0.1.1658 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: 16f0 Start Time: 01ca623e805d8f30 Termination Time: 81
    The program AdobeCaptivate.exe version 4.0.1.1658 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: 1654 Start Time: 01ca622b67764380 Termination Time: 70

    The only one that can answer that question is yourself ;o)
    I wrote my comments and suggestions with red text here. My company uses Captivate to develop courses and so far we have been very happy with Captivate. Earlier we used Flash to develop courses, but the development time was very long so Captivate has allowed us to speed up the development process with 2-300%. We still use Flash quite a lot to build interactions etc. and import these into Captivate to add extra features.
    We did look at a variety of tools when we wanted to find an alternative to Flash but at that time (we started with Captivate 2) we found that the best option was indeed Captivate. I regularly check up on competing products and there are some interesting alternatives available now but they are not as advanced as Captivate imho.
    When that is said. Captivate is (and has always been) full of weird bugs and things that aren't working properly. This is extremely annoying but we have learned to work our way around most of them. It also seems that the stability of Captivate varies greatly from installation to installation. We are 8 people in my department all working with Captivate. Our computers are all the same and the OS is a corporate standard. Despite this some people here have some weird problems with Captivate that I never experience. I can't explain why it happens (and neither can they) but it could be the installation or it could be the way people work. An example is "missing/corrupt" Captivate files. We have always been working directly on a network drive. This is something that is often recommended against doing because it can cause corrupt Captivate files. The interesting thing is that I have never once experienced a corrupt Captivate file even though i have opened, worked on and saved many thousands of them from/to our network drive. One of my colleagues had around 20 occurences of corrupt Captivate files in the same timespan and from the same network drive.
    The biggest problem in Captivate is the quiz module in my opinion. The quiz module is probably the most important when we talk about E-learning development tools and that is where Captivate is the weakest. You can't really customize your quizzes, there isn't enough different question types and interaction types, you can't use video but worst of all - it is unstable and buggy. Users can get stuck in a quiz without being able to move forward or backwars, the review quiz is buggy etc.
    One thing I often see with Captivate developers is that they try and do everything in Captivate. While most things are possible to do in Captivate then it might no be the best solution. Some things can be created in Flash and imported into Captivate saving you tons of time and grief and in the end give you a much better end-product. I know that everyone doesn't have access to a Flash programmer, but then you can buy your way out of the problem.
    If you are looking for a tool where you can have full control of everything in your courses then the only real solution is Adobe Flash. This will allow you to build the courses exactly as you please but it comes at a big price. It gets way more complex to create courses, which results in longer development times and updating your existing course becomes much more difficult and time consuming.
    Minor annoyances
    -    Too easy to accidentally move objects. Double clicking on a small graphic or a text caption can easily cause it to move or change size slightly. No way to lock their position only (e.g. lock text position but still allow editing).
    Doesn't really bother me but I guess it's different from person to person. You could just click on the object in the timeline instead to avoid moving the object.
    -    Text caption boxes mysterious maximize (vertically) from time to time.
    I never experienced that.
    -    Grouping of objects is not possible.
    I agree that this could be handy on slides with many objects.
    -    Previewing “From this slide – F8” does not take into account (or initialize) persistent graphics (or otherwise) on the first slide or template; this results in missing objects when doing a quick preview.
    Yes but if Captivate was to take into account everything that happened earlier than previewing from this slide you might as well click preview project (F4).
    -    Item names/variables are unwieldy. I have a number of graphics which I re-use throughout a lesson. I want to give each of them common names, such as ico_jobaid, img_core_splash, etc. Unfortunately, I cannot use identical names throughout a lesson. Each page requires a unique name for every object. This results in an item name like ico_interactive.png (as it is named in the library), appearing as TImageItem681 and TImageItem680 (copied twice) on a slide.
    I think this is the same in any application.. The whole idea of naming objects is that they have a unique name to be identified and manipulate later. I do however agree that the default naming in Captivate sucks. If the resource is named ico_interactive.png in the library, then Captivate should name it slide1_ico_interactive.png as the object name. It would make it easier and quicker to identify the correct resources.
    Major issues
    -    Occasionally I insert a graphics that can’t be made visible.
    I never experienced that with properly configured graphics. Sure you can have problems if you insert a CMYK image or a 300 dpi image, but if you use RGB 72dpi images then it works fine. (at least it always have for me).
    -    .cp file size seems to continuously increase in size, despite removing unused resources.
    True but I never really experienced this as a problem. In Captivate 3 it could really get out of hand, but in CP4 it's much better. Alternatively create a blank Captivate file with the same dimensions and copy/paste your slides into that. (Don't know how it will behave with all your advanced actions though).
    -    Text bullet issues (ending bullets occasional show up as a larger size)
    It is because you have a different font size on the last line of the caption. Just do a CTRL-A to select all the text and select the proper font size. Alternatively adjust the default font and size to what you want in Captivate to avoid this in the future.
    -    Roll-over slidlets do not work as intended in AS3 mode. I must preview or publish in AS2.
    Didn't know that - you should probably report it as a bug if you haven't done so already.
    -    Recording Software Simulations!
    Captivate 4 allows recording of simulations in up to four modes (Demonstration, Training, Assessment, and Custom). Unfortunately, it appears to record these simulations are separate and distinct recordings. This is a problem because call-outs and other edits must be repeated for each simulation. Other simulation tools record once and can be edited once for passive and/or interactive viewing.
    Agree - this is rather annoying.
    -    Buttons! Multiple buttons/text captions on a slide.
    From what I understand you have a whole bunch of buttons on a slide and then when the user clicks on one it shows some text / image? If that is the case then yes it will be a tedious process to build all this. I don't know if it would be easy in any other applications though (surely most of the other Rapid E-learning tools won't even be able to do it). Perhaps it would be better to rethink the way you build the course. Can't you use rollover captions / images instead?
    Another alternative is to build these "interactions" in Flash and then import them into Captivate. Basically you would need to build a couple of different templates where you would be able to reuse the Flash framework and only change images/text in Flash and then importo it into Captivate.
    -    Cannot find a way to edit the default look (object positioning/object sizes) of a quiz. The only attribute that seems changeable is the font size.
    This is a major handicap in Captivate and one of the reasons why we don't use Captivate quizzes in our courses. We build all our course in Captivate (and add Flash and other interactions) but we always use a Flash Quiz. The Captivate quiz is simply too ugly and unstable. We deploy courses to 35.000 people worldwide so stability is our number one priority and sadly Captivate quizzes don't offer that at this point.
    Lock ups and crashes
    -    Double clicking on a .cp file will often result in Captivate freezing at the start up screen.
    I never had that problem. I use Win XP, Vista 64-bit and Win7 64-bit.
    -    Captivate crashes and sometimes predictably, especially where animations are inserted.
    I am using both a Windows 7 64 bit and a Windows Vista 32 bit OS. I have tried the following options with seemingly no difference: RUN AS Admin, XP Compatibility mode
    My regular development PC runs Windows XP Pro. I never have any problems here. On Vista 64-bit I have a ton of problems, but Captivate didn't crash or lock up - it simply didn't perform the actions I wanted it to do. So far on Windows 7 I haven't encountered any crashes or problems. However there is no doubt that Captivate 4 was designed with Win XP in mind and Vista and Win7 are not native platforms for it.
    /Michael
    Visit my Captivate blog with tips & tricks, tutorials and Widgets.

  • VTML-Tags for text-to-speech do not work in Captivate 6 - are they working in Cap. 7 again?

    I had a hart time to find out, that the functionality was "forgotten" to be programmed in the version 6.
    Together with Neospeech I worked long to make single voices work in full functionality and it cost additional licence fee... unfortunately the voices sound tinny so I cannot really use them...and due to different time zones it is hard to find the error together with Neospeech
    Now I see that Captivate 7 is available.
    Is there already qualified info if the vtml tags work again like they did in older versions?
    Adobe Support hotline was NO HELP at all, very unfriendly... only idea was, that I should get the test version and find out myself, pretty impertinent.

    Hi
    You might already know this, but stating it here to rule out the simple failure cases.
    I have had a similar problem in the past using VTML tags inside Captivate. I used to type the slidenotes in my favorite editor and then copy paste the text from there to the slidenotes panel of Captivate. Turns out that my editor was using Unicode and hence the entire text pasted into Captivate slidenotes became unicode text, including the VTML markers. Though the pasted text "looked" fine the markers were messed up (for example, the double quotes around the value attributes looked like double quotes but they were actually multibyte unicode sequences) and this confused Neospeech. The output audio would be funny (for example it would read "Less Than...V...T...M...L...") or NeoSpeech will crash taking down Captivate along with it.
    The fix was quite simple. I started typing the slide notes from within Captivate slide notes panel and everything worked fine after that. Alternately I could type in my favorite editor (after making sure that it is operating in Plain text mode) and then copy paste work flow also worked fine.
    Another common mistake (at least, I do that often) is to select the speech agent from the drop down at the top of the dialog and forgetting to choose the speech agents for individual slide notes, which may still be referring to a non-neo-speech agent which does not understand the VTML tags.
    No other software tool was required like the German Adobe Support team may have mentioned. I am using Captivate 7.
    Cheers
    Siva

  • VMWare Fusion vs. Parallels Desktop for Mac + Captivate?

    I'm likely to purchase a new MacBook Pro in the very near future, and wish to run Captivate on it. I've seen a few posts in this forum by folks using VMWare Fusion with mixed results. The posts are a couple of years old, so I'm curious to get the latest thoughts.
    1. Which software -- VMW or Parallels -- would you recommend to run Captivate, and why?
    2. Which version of Windows should I purchase?
    3. What configuration do you recommend for the Mac: RAM, processor speed, hard drive speed (7200 vs 5400 rpm)?
    Thanks.

    HI,
    I use VMWare Fusion on a souped up PC platform. I had been away from the MAC platform for over 10 years and had to allow myself time to get used to the new MAC OS interface. I found that switching between VMWare Fusion and the MAC OS was straightforward - after I got used to things. Since I don't want to invest in a new Adobe Technical Suite and a new Adobe CS4 Master Collection, I use VMWare Fusion on a daily basis.
    I would much rather run everything on a real MAC, but since that alternative is not economic (nor are all features available) I am happy to run the MAC OS with my graphics card, and still have the full benefits of the graphics card when I'm running Photoshop and Illustrator from VMWare Fusion.

  • How to Enter a Checkmark in Captivate 5

    I want to have a box on a screen that when the learner clicks it they will see a checkmark appear.  I am using Captivate 5.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

    You can see if there is anything in the exchange for Captivate that would do that.
    Alternatively, you could create a button. Each button has 3 states (up, mouse over, and down) and you could create a button where the up and mouse over states were without the check mark and the down is with, so when the user clicks on the button the check mark appears.
    You should be able to find the source for the existing buttons in the Gallery folder located at C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 5\Gallery\Buttons
    I'll also move this to the Captivate forums, as someone there may have an idea as well.

  • Multiple Click boxes in Captivate 5

    Hi
    I'm a new user of Captivate (using 5) and trying to figure out capabilities and suitability to my needs.  I've also searched through the forum and can't find similar so I apologise in advance if this has been answered.
    Ideally I would like to produce a slide in my Captivate project where a user is presented with multiple boxes containing text.  Say 6 boxes.  This would initially just be for a learners reflection, so no scoring required.  The User would have to select 3 of these boxes (any box, no right or wrong) to progress to the next slide.  I envisage the user clicking on each box which would then remain highlighted until all 3 selected.
    Does this make sense?  and can anybody reccomend a work around?  Is this something which could be achieved with 'click boxes'
    Any advice appreciated.
    Marek

    Thanks Rod.  Great suggestion.  I actually picked up the widget on Thursday as the 'drag and drop' interaction was something I initially saw as the ideal route.
    Its such a good tool and very simple to use.  There are one or two little additions I would like to see.  Unless you can already do this and I haven't quite figured it out.
    - The ability to place a drag item on alternative targets
    - allow the drag items to be visable after been placed onto target.
    Can this already be done??
    I would certainly recommend the widget though. Its excellent.
    I'm just getting around to trying some of the initial suggestions and will report back.
    Thanks

  • Multiple text boxes in captivate 5

    I have several text boxes in a powerpoint slide in captivate 5. I would like for users to be able to fill in these text boxes in any order. I was able to do this in version 4, but in version 5, it only allows users to respond in the order of the text boxes. Is there anyway to correct this?
    Thanks!

    Thanks Rod.  Great suggestion.  I actually picked up the widget on Thursday as the 'drag and drop' interaction was something I initially saw as the ideal route.
    Its such a good tool and very simple to use.  There are one or two little additions I would like to see.  Unless you can already do this and I haven't quite figured it out.
    - The ability to place a drag item on alternative targets
    - allow the drag items to be visable after been placed onto target.
    Can this already be done??
    I would certainly recommend the widget though. Its excellent.
    I'm just getting around to trying some of the initial suggestions and will report back.
    Thanks

  • Inserting a 2 page word document - captivate 4

    Hello All,
    I have created an eLearning module for a client, and they are requesting i attach or insert their Terms and Conditions of Use document to the module, which will have to be printed and signed by their users.  It's a 2 page word document with a ton of information on it.  Anyone have any input or ideas for me?
    Linking isn't really going to be an option for me...This is something i'm going to have to embed in the module.
    It looks like someone asked for help with something like this years ago and didn't get anywhere.  Hope you guys can hook me up.
    Thanks!

    There isn't really any good way to insert a two page word document into a Captivate project to be honest. The best way would be to convert it to a PDF and have it open in a new window when the user clicks a button in Captivate.
    Alternatively you could use a widget that allows you to insert a large text and use scroll bars to navigate the content. Chris Dorna create a widget like that - http://www.dorna.nl/?p=338 - but putting a two page document into this would be a disaster seen from an instructional design perspective. Also I have no clue on how to get it printed and signed.
    In my view the best solution would be to break up the two pages into more accessible chunks of information over several slides. On the last slide of this text you can have the user "digitally" sign that they read and understood it and then have a widget send an email to the HR department or relevant person that would recieve the regular printed copies. Of course it would require a custom widget and also access to either PHP or ASP on the server where the content is being delivered from.
    /Michael
    Visit my Captivate blog with tips & tricks, tutorials and Widgets.

  • Is it possible to "convert" a PPT/Presenter file to Captivate and retain the audio, video, etc.?

    Hi - I'm wondering if someone has done this or can recommend the best way to do this.
    We have a PPT/Presenter file that was created using PPT 2010 and Presenter 9. We recorded audio for the training right in Presenter and have also imported videos into the file using Presenter.
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    Or, alternatively, if there is a way to publish our Presenter file to DVD format, that would work for us too.
    Thank you for any information or suggestions!
    Emily

    Hi Emily,
    Presenter contents and captivate contents are different. but you can achieve it using the following steps in presenter.
    1. Open you presentation.
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    3. Check the CD package checkbox and publish the content.
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    I hope this will work  for you. Kindly let me know if you are facing any problem.
    Thanks,
    Sunil
    Adobe Presenter Engg Team

  • Export PDF in Captivate 5 and Publishing CP4 project in CP5

    When I publish flash (swf) videos in CP4, I always tick the "Export PDF" option to also get the PDF version - and then offer the PDFs for download as an alternative to watching online (or send them via e-mail).
    I have learned to live with the fact that the PDF version  - sadly - becomes somewhat blurred. But now, as I am trial testing CP5, I see that besides blurring, the video in PDF gets also distorted - if this is a good word for it: As the software screens change in the video (I record software demonstrations), the new screens show some left over graphics (mainly lines or points - as if remnants of borders of objects, lines, shadows, etc.) from the previous screen.
    The similar thing happens when I publish CP4 projects with CP5 (which I want to do as the Neospeech voices sound much better in CP5) - I see the same leftover graphics, mainly in the full-motion segments.
    Any suggestions on avoiding these issues?

    Hello and welcome to the forum,
    For this purpose you need Acrobat Pro, could you let me know if you have this app? It is coming with the eLearning suite. To export a Captivate file to pdf you do not need it.
    Lilybiri

  • Files Are Not Transferring Correctly from Captivate 4 to 5

    My files from Captivate 4 are not transferring correctly into Captivate 5.  The images and quiz questions are not in the same place. Help!

    This is a bug.
    We all have it.
    Keep CP4 for the old courses, and develop new ones in CP5. That is what I am doing.
    Alternative is to manually adjust everything (don't even get me started on rollovers...)
    Terry

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