Specialists in
User Assistance
and eLearning
Adobe Captivate Training:
Captivate 7 Foundation/Intermediate
Who is the Captivate foundation/intermediate training for?
This course enables novice and intermediate users of Adobe Captivate 7 to use the full range of key features with confidence. No previous experience of working with Captivate is required—however, familiarity with the Windows operating system (XP or later) is a prerequisite.
How will I benefit from this Captivate training?
After taking the course, you will be equipped to work more efficiently and effectively, and to maximise the benefits of this powerful eLearning tool. The course is customized to your needs, and provides many practical guidelines and tips for creating both software demonstrations and interactive tutorials. You'll also learn how to integrate Captivate training modules with a Learning Management System (LMS).
Request further information about Captivate training
Captivate foundation/intermediate course duration
| Standard course: | Two days |
| Custom course: | One to three days, depending on your objectives and previous experience |
How is this Captivate training delivered?
This course is delivered in the following three ways:
- Hands-on classroom training for groups of up to ten students at your own place of work
- One-to-one coaching in Southampton, UK
- Web-based coaching as a series of 90-minute instructor-led interactive sessions
Captivate training course outline
- What you can do with Captivate
- Demonstration of sample Captivate movies
- The three broad types of Captivate project
- Top-level development workflow for each project type
- Guided tour of the Captivate Workspace
- Introducing the Captivate Timeline
- Top tips for designing engaging Captivate movies
Basic Skills for a Self-running Captivate Project
- Selecting default settings (preferences) for new Captivate projects
- Creating a new text and multimedia project
- Choosing an appropriate resolution
- Themes explained
- Selecting a Theme
- Saving a project
- Adding content to placeholders
- Adding new slides from Master Slides
- Adding Text Captions to Slides
- Adding Images to Slides
- Previewing a project
Customising and Enhancing a Project
- Changing the properties of slide objects
- Using Object Styles to change properties consistently across a project
- Adding a custom background to a slide
- The anatomy of a Captivate slide explained
- Adding Smart Shapes to enhance slides
- Controlling the timing of objects
- Timeline tips and tricks
- Applying entrance, exit, and emphasis effects
- Using rollovers for "on-demand" captions and images
- Overview of publishing formats
- The advantages and disadvantages of Flash (.swf) vs. HTML5
- Publishing to .mp4 format
- Publishing to YouTube
Adding interaction and branching
- Tips and tricks for adding interaction and engaging users
- Adding Continue buttons and other navigation buttons
- Button phases explained
- Using buttons to enable users to make choices
- Adding animations
- Using Smart Shapes as buttons
- Introducing Click Boxes as invisible buttons
- Using Text Entry boxes to request information from users
- Using Variables to store user input
- Using Variables in Text Captions
- Validating text entry
- Choosing the best properties for Text Entry boxes
- Explanation of how audio can enhance a Captivate movie
- Different types of audio (Background, Slide, and Object) and when to use each
- Using Text-To-Speech (TTS) to add audio quickly and easily
- Recording audio narration
- Adding Closed Captions (subtitles)
- Importing audio files
- Techniques for editing and enhancing audio within Captivate
- The Library explained
- Removing unused items from the The Library
- Locating backgrounds and images in the Library
- Editing and replacing items in The Library
- Tips and tricks for working with The Library
- Understanding the two different ways of adding video (Event video and Multi-slide synchronised video)
- Converting other video formats to .flv
- Synchronising video with slides
- Synchronising slide objects with video
- Copying slides from other Captivate projects
- Importing PowerPoint presentations
- "Round-tripping" text captions to and from Word
Quizzes, Scoring, and Reporting
- Adding Quiz Questions
- Overview of the question types, and when to use each
- Setting up Quiz Preferences
- Reporting Quiz results to an LMS or to Acrobat.com
- Creating Question Pools
- Adding questions to Question Pools
- Adding Random Questions
- Adding scores to interactive objects
- Tips for setting Quiz Properties for informal review questions and for formal assessment questions
Recording software demonstrations and simulations
- Comparison of demonstrations and simulations
- Creating a new project by recording
- The advantages and disadvantages of manual vs. automatic recording
- Refining the mouse movement, timing, and properties
- Adding Highlight Boxes
- Tips for creating engaging simulations that promote effective learning
- How to provide "on request" hints
- Multi-mode recording
- Recording a video demonstration
Techniques for working more productively and efficiently
- Understanding and exploiting Themes
- Creating and editing Master Slides
- Editing the Skin
- Saving new Themes
- Understanding and exploiting Project Templates
- What you should include in a Project Template
- Creating a Project Template
- Creating a new project from a Project Template
Introducing your trainer
Matthew Ellison has over 25 years of experience as an eLearning professional in the software industry, and is a qualified teacher (PGCE) and Certified Technical Trainer. He has worked with Captivate since the very first version in 2002, which was then called RoboDemo.
Matthew is an Adobe Certified Professional, and is well known around the world for his authoritative and entertaining presentations.
