2 questions on Captivate 4.0

[JayJM]

I'm a new user of Captivate and have a couple of questions:
- When importing PowerPoint slides, the entire slide including all transitions appears as a single action in the timeline, so I can't adjust the timing of the transitions to correspond to narration added in Captivate. I'm using PowerPoint 2003. Does importing from PowerPoint 2007 make a difference? Are there any other techniques or workarounds? The only thing I've thought of is to recreate the entire presentation in Captivate.

- My text animation question is really more of a general problem that I'm trying to create a workaround for. Here's the issue... I need to create a presentation that displays the narrator's script when the learner doesn't want to or can't listen to audio. I'm aware of the display of Notes pages on the left, but the client doesn't really like that. Enabling Accessibility doesn't do it because (I think) the learner would have to change a Windows setting. So, to get the script on-screen and timed with display of bullet points and graphics, I've created a scroll box at the bottom. My intention was to use Text Animation to time and scroll the script with the screen actions. Two problems occur... 1. Text Animation doesn't word wrap, so I have to type each line as a separate animation — not a huge problem. 2. The Text Animation dialog box lets you locate the animation (left and top), but there doesn't appear to be any way to change or restrict the width. Any ideas?

[Captiv8r]

Welcome to our community, Jay

I'm not a huge PP user, so probably won't be of much help on your first question. Maybe someone else can answer that and I hope they do!

Keep in mind that you could always configure PP to simply play in a window, then play it back and record it using Captivate just as you would record another application. That could go a long way toward solving any timing issues.

On the second question, there should be no need to enable anything in Windows for Accessibility. All the 508 items are handled directly in Captivate. What you are describing that you are trying to do is already present in Captivate. It's called "Closed Captioning" (CC). Basically, with CC you take a slide with audio and add the text for the captions that should appear. You set points along the audio timeline where each new caption will display and replace the last one. The process is pretty easy and a bit on the fun side. At least for me.

Cheers... Rick

[JayJM]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've been playing around with CC and found a couple of things that I was doing that is incompatible. I was recording and embedding the audio with each bullet point or other object in the Captivate timeline. It turns out the CC only works with slide audio, so I'll have to rework my audio.

I am, however, still having trouble getting the CC to display. In the Project Preferences, I have "Enable Accessibility" selected. Closed Captioning is on the audio for my test slide, but nothing appears when I publish the slide and run it. Any suggestions?

[Captiv8r]

Hi Jay

Indeed CC will expect slide level audio to work. Keep in mind that you may leave all your audio clips intact on the timeline. Just create a long silent audio clip that is the duration of your slide. Nothing will play but it will enable the CC to be assigned and configured.

Note that by having CC it doesn't mean it displays automagickally. There are some prerequisites to getting it to display.

1. You must be including a Flash based playback control.
2. The playback control must have the CC button enabled.
3. During playback, your user must click the CC button to see the CC.

Fellow Adobe Community Expert Paul Dewhurst has a widget that will turn on CC automatically if that is what you want. If so, click this link right here to visit Paul's site.

Cheers... Rick

[JayJM · Accepted solution]

Thanks for all you help!

[LMS_90]

I know this is an old post, but in case anyone else is doing research on 508 like I am, they might find this tidbit helpful.  You do not need a widget to enable CC.  You can set the CC variable on the first slide and it will be on until the user clicks the cc button to turn it off.

Show the properties of slide 1 and OnEnter, Assign, cpCmdCC with 1

-- Lori

[er0425]

Hi,

The "Assign cpCmdCC with 1" at the first slide works perfectly in Captivate 4 to show the Closed Captions automatically. However, it seems to have a glitch in Captivate 5 where the initial showing of the CC area does not follow the stretch of the playbar. It only becomes normal after clicking the CC button to turn the closed captions off and then another to turn it on. Any idea on a work around to eliminate the glitch part?

--fred

[Captiv8r]

Welcome to our community

I believe the workaround for this is to insert a very brief slide as slide 1. Then you configure an on enter action for slide 2 that sets the CC.

Captivate seems to need just a wee bit of time to sort of "settle" and it should then work.

Cheers... Rick

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[er0425]

Thank you so much! It works

--fred

[SteveM7]

Hi. I am using Captivate 5 and trying to switch on closed captioning automatically at the start of the show. The solutions you suggest look great except that I don't have the cpCmndCC option in the list of available options.

Any ideas what's happening (or what I'm doing wrong?)

Steve

[Captiv8r]

Welcome to our community

Indeed the options aren't there to choose from. I'm at a loss to explain why the development team didn't include them in this location. Perhaps there was some technical limitation that prevented it.

What you have to do is to create an Advanced Action to set the variable and hide or show CC accordingly. You then choose the On Enter action of Execute Advanced Actions. You then configure the action you defined that sets CC.

Cheers... Rick

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[SteveM7]

Thanks Rick. I'll give that a try.

[er0425]

Hi,

Please do this:

1. In the On Enter: dropdown list, select Execute Advanced Actions. The Script: dropdown field will appear with a folder icon at the right. 
2. Click the folder icon. The Advanced Actions window will appear.
3. Enter the Action Name then double click the first row in the Actions table. The Select Action... dropdown field will appear.
4. Select Assign from the dropdown list. The Select Variable... dropdown field will appear at the right.
5. Select cpCmndCC from the list.
6. Select literal from the variable dropdown list.
7. Type 1.
8. Click Update.

Cheers,

--fred

[SteveM7]

Many thanks Fred. This worked perfectly!

[Guest]

Hi, I'm also want CC to show automatically but my properties do not include the cpCMDCC.  Instead, the option is cpCMDMute.  Is this the same as the cpCMDCC option?  Lastly, does CC only show in the web viewer or will it display while only viewing a couple of slides?

[SteveM7]

The problem I had was that the cpCmndCC option was not available in the drop-down list if I tried to use the Assign action

directly in the On Enter event for a slide.

Fred's instructions (er0425 above) resolved that by using the Execute Advanced Actions action in the On Enter event for the slide, and then setting up a script to assign the value of 1 to the cpCmndCC variable. If you follow his instructions you should get the required result.

One thing to be aware of is that if you set up the cpCmndCC script in the first slide of the show, the format of the captions is not correct - they come out in a small rectangle 2 or 3 lines high at the bottom left of the screen.To get around this problem, I inserted a blank slide at the very start of the show (duration 1/2 second) so the cpCmndCC script applies to the second slide in the show. The resulting captions then have the display format as specified in the setup options (CC Project Settings on the Closed Captioning tab of the Slide Audio dialog).

The captions are displayed if you preview the show using any preview option except "Play Slide".

Steve

[Guest]

Thanks Steve.  I will try this out.

[Captiv8r]

Hi Steve

If memory serves, the issue with setting the CC on too early is a version 5 issue. Admittedly I've not read the thread in its entirety, so perhaps what is being discussed at this point applies to 5. But the title of the thread indicates version 4. I don't believe the timing workaround was needed for version 4.

Cheers... Rick

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[SteveM7]

Hi Rick. I picked up on the CC part of the thread from a Google search and the replies were all relevant to the problems I was having in Captivate 5, so I fear it was my questions that dragged the thread off the Captivate 4 line.

I wish I had read your earlier comments my carefully as you had provided a solution to the problem with the CC displaying incorrectly as well!

Thanks for your help.

Steve

ps. I guess part of the problem with this type of forum is that it's simplest to just reply to a post, even if the reply is starting to wander off the original title. Mind you, there have been some useful solutions presented, so a Google search would pick up the details of the problem without needing to worry too much about the original title of the first post.