Resizing Stuffing Up my Presentations. Any tips?

[zzzzxxxxzzzz]

Hi Folks

I am currently creating presentations that feature portions recorded from our intranet site. This includes typing text segments.

Initially these "typing text" segments played just fine. However I had to drop the presentation size down to 70% of the original.

Since resizing portions of animated text have become missplaced on the screen and it a) looks terrible and b) will be very confusing for learners.

Can anyone tell me how I can stop this happening?

Fig 1 at 100% the animated text appears in the correct field.

Fig 2 at 70% size the animated text has become displaced.

Any suggestion for fixing this would be greatly appreciated. I have saved a version at full size.

Thanks

M

[zzzzxxxxzzzz]

Another thought occurs. Does anyone know where the "typing text" animation is saved? It shows on the timeline as an object but I can't seem to move it or manipulate its location on the slide. Is it part of the background?

Could I just drag and drop it into the right spot?

Thanks

M

[RodWard]

Yes it is part of the background and therefore cannot be effectively resized or dragged to a new position.

You can however right click on it and convert it to a typing text animation object, which you CAN then drag and drop to reposition.  The typing text animation won't look quite as crisp as the original captured animation, and you may need to fiddle with the fonts and font sizes to make it look close to the resulting input text.  But if your MUST resize your project then this may be a better way to go.

[zzzzxxxxzzzz]

Hello again Rod

"The typing text animation won't look quite as crisp as the original captured animation,"

Nope, but If push comes to shove I know I can go down that route, so thanks for that.

"But if your MUST resize your project then this may be a better way to go"

I am trying to capture an intranet page. In order to get the important detail across I pretty much have to record the whole screen.

If the user were to play this 1:1 size within a windows explorer page it will not fit. I actually did this and people complained that they couldn't see the playbar.

Hence my need to make a small version.

Can I record at a smaller scale but still capture the whole screen? I.e. it captures the whole PC screen but records it at a 70% scale?

I could rescale no-problem in Cap 3.

Do you know if this resizing issue is a bug? If so is there a fix?

Thanks

M

[RodWard]

The resizing issue is NOT a bug.  It's just the way Captivate capture was designed to work.  It wasn't meant to be resized.

If you REALLY need to resize the content, I would suggest you either do the entire capture as Full Motion Recording set to 24bit quality (so that the colours look right).  If you have the budget, upgrade to Captivate 6 for this job.  The new Cp6 video capture is very smooth and will resize a lot better than the older versions.  You would also then have the option of using Pan and Zoom.

Alternatively, if you have Camtasia available already in your toolbox, you could do the capture with that and insert the resulting video.

Either way, trying to resize a Capture slide that contains typing text objects is NOT going to go well for you.

[zzzzxxxxzzzz]

"If you REALLY need to resize the content"

"Either way, trying to resize a Capture slide that contains typing text objects is NOT going to go well for you."

Your tone would seem to imply that resizing a project is out of the scope of Captivate.

I was of the opinion that it was perfectly normal thing to do in Captivate. Even the Cap Channel on You Tube has a tip about rescaling projects.

Is there an issue/technique I am missing here?

[zzzzxxxxzzzz]

Hi Rod

I recored in full size and croped image down without shrinking anything.

It STILL moved the text box!!!!!!???? I simply cannot comprehend how croping the image without rescaling would move the typing text.

Are you positive this isn't bug? There was an earlier discussion on the board that mentioned a patch to fix something similar.

Thanks

M

[RodWard]

No.  I nowhere stated that Captivate doesn't allow you to resize a project, only that doing so can have some downsides. 

One of the negative aspects of resizing captures is that your project may lose resolution clarity as soon as you move away from it being exactly 100% of capture size.

And another issue (as you discovered) is that resizing a slide that contains a typing text capture will result in repositioning of the capture because the object uses the top-left corner of the slide as its positioning reference.  So typing text capture objects do not scale proportionally as other objects or backgrounds might.  If you want the typing text box to remain in the right position, do not change the X or Y distances from the top-left corner of the slide when your resize.  In other words, if you are going to crop the slide, crop only the right and bottom sides.

If the Captivate channel on Youtube showed tips about rescaling projects, did they mention anything about rescaling slides containing typing text?

[zzzzxxxxzzzz]

"No.  I nowhere stated that Captivate doesn't allow you to resize a project, only that doing so can have some downsides."

I never said you stated that Captivate doesn't allow you to resize a project. I was just a little stunned to hear that you imply that resizing is such a big issue it is. Resize gave me no headaches at all in Captivate 3.

Like I say it is even included as no-trouble feature on a You Tube clip. And no it certianly DID NOT mention what a pain the process is.

It is a bit shocking to see the performance nose dive so badly in an upgrade.

So from my point of view I had tool that allowed me to resize; and now I have tool that sort of allows me to resize with lots of rework and hassle.

[RodWard]

I've been using Captivate since version 1.  The issue with resizing simulation capture slides that contained typing text has always been there.  That hasn't changed at all.

I've not seen a nose dive in performance between version 3 to 5 or 5.5. even though the underlying technology HAS changed significantly since version 4.  There are certainly some things that worked a little better in earlier versions, but I've found overall the benefits of 5x versions outweighed any downsides.

The fact that the Youtube clip didn't mention all the possible issues you might encounter with resizing is no surprise.  It's quite rare for a video tutorial to cover all possible scenarios.

[zzzzxxxxzzzz]

"but I've found overall the benefits of 5x versions outweighed any downsides."

Well these things are subjective. I am yet to reach that happy place where I notice more advantages than disadvantages (or indeed any benefits).

Our IT partners are trying to shunt us toward Articulate. Currently I am the in-house Captivate advocate believe it or not.

[RodWard]

Storyline is a fine product.  I have it in my toolbox in case a client requires their content created with it.  As a professional e-learning developer mainly working under contracts that last for a given project I have to be versatile enough to use just about any tool I might encounter.

I also have all versions of Cp from 3 through to 6 on my development PC.

Overall, comparing Storyline with Cp6 (even Cp5x) I find there's more power under the hood with Cp.  But your mileage may differ...Storyline is certainly more targeted at the less experienced developer familiar with PPT that wants an easier learning curve.

[zzzzxxxxzzzz]

"As a professional e-learning developer mainly working under contracts that last for a given project I have to be versatile enough to use just about any tool I might"

I always assumed you were an employee of Adobe.

If you are giving all this advice in your own time then thankyou very much indeed.

M

[Kurrykid-jzpfVq]

Most of the people on these forums are NOT Adobe employees...which as you say makes it that much more awesome that they take the time to help us out!

[RodWard]

No, I don't work for Adobe.  My little family company Infosemantics contracts out our services to corporate clients for e-learning development, mainly using Adobe e-learning tools.  We also build and sell a number of well-known AS3 widgets for Captivate versions 4 through to 6.  That's how come I know so much about this product.

Since I'm NOT an Adobe employee, I can be a little more free as to what I say when I think someone is being unfair on this forum, even if it's Adobe doing it.  So occasionally you'll see me speak out in ways the Adobe employees can't. 

I commend Adobe for NOT 'creatively' moderating their user forums (like some other vendors do) allowing ONLY posts that say positive things about their product.  They'll step in if things get too out of hand, but by and large they allow people here to speak their mind, even if it's not very flattering at times.  To me, that's how it should be.

[Erik_Lord]

One option may be to let the scaling be done via the user's browser instead of trying to rescale the actual CP project.

In other words, when a Captivate project (SWF) is displayed in the browser, it's shown at 100% height/width.

Modify the HTML containing the SWF to present the content at, say, 75% and see how that looks. It won't be great, as you're scaling down, but a published SWF tends to scale better than CP itself.

Alternatively, or in addition, make use of zooming/panning.

Alternatively, scale the browser window for your intranet recording smaller. If that means you have more scrolling to do to show the various components, well...then that's what you have to do.

[AnitaHorsley]

I have a blog post on how do open the project at 100% of any browser window. At www.captivatecrazy.blogspot.com check the March or April archives

If you need further assistance email me at anitahorsley@gmail.com

[zzzzxxxxzzzz]

Yeah, I did try rescaling the original page. It has been partially effective (the image quality isn't very good).

I tried capturing in Cap 3 (which seems to handle rescales pretty well) then playing that presentation and capturing in Cap 5. It was like a copy of copy of copy.

it's all a bit of a headache, but I think its going to be messy work around or nothing.

[Joe@Majiq]

For future projects, you might try zooming out with your browser, like 80%. You'd have to experiment to figure out which zoom level provides an acceptable quality level, but it might be helpful.