What's in a Captivate 3 Template?

Question

Our team created a template in Captivate 3. Our intention was
that Helvetica would be the default font for recording. When some
of my colleagues opened the template Helvetica is the default font,
when I open and record Arial is the default font even though I have
Helvetica properly installed in my fonts folder.
I tried an experiment. My intent was to transfer my knowledge
from my experiment to the problem at hand. So bear with me. This
approach to problem solving is a bit convoluted.
I set Arial Baltic as my default font in Captivate
Preferences. I then attempted to record. Bizarrely Arial not Arial
Baltic was resulting font. When I clicked on the font to look at it
after recording Arial Baltic wasn’t there, no indeed it was
Arial – just plain Arial. Now mind you I had gone into
Preferences and set Arial Baltic as the recording font for the
project. And I went back into Captivate Preferences Recording and
looked there it was staring me in the face - Arial Baltic –
the default font.
I performed this little experiment because I wondered about
font substitution and what might be happening with that. I
suspected that Captivate 3 performs font substitution when it
cannot find a matching font. But then I wondered why Arial Baltic
was available at all if Captivate if one could not record using
Arial Baltic. I thought the same logic would transfer to my
Helvetica problem.
I went into Preferences Recording Default and changed all the
fonts to Helvetica. Magically the Captivate template would record
in Helvetica. But then I wondered why have a template at all if you
couldn’t make the fonts specific to your project by using the
template. What I found astounding is that if you go into the
Recording preferences the Preferences actually appear to be
non-specific to the template – they appear in fact to be
Adobe Captivate 3’s preferences, not preferences specific to
the project – even thought “Project” is the
section of the preferences you are taken to and fill in.
What gives? Any ideas?:frown;

Answer 1

Hi there
I'm going to answer for Captivate 3 here. Captivate 4 brings new functionality with Templates.
Basically any project may become a template. You simply click File > Save As and save the project as a template. The primary objective of using a template is consistency. For example, let's say you wish to record a series of Captivate videos showing the user how to do different things using Windows Notepad. Beforehand, you know you are going to create several movies. You also know that you would like to have a standard look and feel to them. Perhaps you always start off with a specific title slide to announce what the movie is about. Perhaps you also always have a second slide that presents navigation instructions. And, of course you always want a conclusion and closing slide. Maybe you have a specific Skin that uses a specific playback control. You also don't wish to use a Preloader and you want to change how the movie starts and ends.
All of this may be configured in a Template. You then use the Template when you create new projects. The dimensions are pre-determined by the template. You record your actions and just sort of "fill in" the middle of the Template.
Note that one of the issues cited in the original post (OP) was a certain expectation that by setting the Caption styles and fonts in the template, you are setting them for the recording process. But if you read it carefully, the OP reveals that this isn't the case. During the recording process what ends up in the project is the choice made for your individual installation of Captivate.
As many folks seem to expect the Template to also govern the captions used when recording a Demonstration, it would make sense to see that built into the product. So please take a moment to suggest it to the Development Team using the Wish Form. (Link is in my sig line)
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links
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