Too many clicks required on imported some PPT slides

[sn_GH]

Hello,

I am having a problem when importing some PowerPoint slides into Captivate 5 (from PowerPoint 2003). Most slides import animations, transitions, and text just fine. However, a few slides have a problem with the number of clicks required.

On these slides, instead of the user needing to click only once to see the first line of text, image, etc., he has to click around five times before everything is displayed. Each time the user clicks, the play indicator in the .swf skin momentarily changes to a pause, indicating that it is playing, and then goes back to play. This shows that the clicks are registering and the timeline is progressing, but nothing is happening.

The original PowerPoint files don't require these extra clicks.

I have added navigation buttons to all the slides, but I have set them to not pause the playback until the user clicks. I also have a final 'continue' click box over the slides that was added by Captivate during import. On 90% of the slides these work, but not the problematic ones.

I had the same problem with an embedded .flv video. As a slide with the video faded in, it would stop at about four different fade steps before it was shown clearly and the video could be played properly. I turned off the slide transition (no longer fade in, or fade in and out) and this fixed the problem with the video. Unfortunately turning off the transitions hasn't worked with these other slides.

I assume there is something in my timeline that is causing this problem, but I can't see what it is. If anyone has any ideas I would love some advice,

Thanks.

[RodWard]

It would help if we could see the timeline for one of these problem slides.   Can you upload a screenshot?  (Use the cameral icon on the editing toolbar here on the forum posts.)

[sn_GH]

Thanks, I should have done this earlier. The attached screenshot shows my timeline. The click box at the bottom is the 'continue' click box to move on to the next slide. The click box on the top is a click box that provides a hyperlink to a website. The buttons provide navigation, and the widget is a supplied widget providing page numbers.

The imported slide has several images that appear as the user clicks (all created in PowerPoint, so this is the entire timeline).

I should note that I have been able to fix some slides by creating a brand new slide in PowerPoint, saving the images to a different location (instead of pasting them from the problematic slide), and then recreating everything. In other words, creating the slide from scratch must get rid of some artifacts that were added somewhere else in the process by PowerPoint. However, this doesn't always work.

[RodWard]

My immediate suspicion is that somehow these buttons and clickboxes ARE in fact still pausing the playback.  Your timeline screenshot doesn't show any pause points, so according to what is visible on the layers in theory they shouldn't stop playback.  But the actual behaviour seems to indicate they ARE doing this.

I've found that sometimes the settings in the object Properties fields sometimes don't take properly and you can often fix issues by toggling the setting in question and saving each time.  Can you try setting a pause point for each interactive object, saving the project, then turning off pausing again, before finally saving again?  If the issue is simply that Captivate is not SHOWING you what is actually happening, this might force the timeline or properties display to update reality.

The only other suggestion I would have made is the one you already made...rebuild the slide from new.

[sn_GH]

Thanks Rod.

Unfortunately this didn't work. I tried setting a pause time on the components, saving, removing the pause and then saving again, but there was no change. I have also tried rebuilding this slide from scratch (which has been problematic because Captivate constantly freezes when importing PowerPoint changes - but that is for another post), but with no change. Finally, I also tried deleting the navigation buttons and click boxes, but to no avail. It seems as though there may be some pause built into the slide itself, or there is some timing issue that I am missing.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll just have to keep experimenting with this very frustrating problem.

[sn_GH]

This problem continues to frustrate my efforts.

I have removed all buttons and other objects that may have transitions that are pausing, etc. I have also re-examined the PowerPoint slides (this has happened on may slides) to ensure that there aren't any timing or transitions erorrs from there.

My latest trial suggests that this may be occurring on slides where I remove the default text box from the PowerPoint slide. For example, I have a slide that has only a large image to display. When I create the slide in PowerPoint I insert an image, the slide also includes a text box, which is part of the master slide. When I publish this to Captivate everything works as expected - it requires one click for the empty text box, and then one for the click box inserted in Captivate. I then go back into PowerPoint and delete the empty text box from the slide (it is still part of the master slide). When I now publish this to Captivate I need to click the slide four or five times to progress (with each click the timeline progresses a fraction of a second and pauses). However, there are no objects in the Captivate slide or the original PowerPoint that should force this; it seems to be caused by the missing text box.

[sn_GH]

I have another clue to this behaviour, though I still can't completely fix it.

My slide master in PowerPoint has a text box with bulleted text. It goes to five levels (I don't use five, but this is what has been formatted). When I create a slide with other objects on it, delete the text box, and then import it into Captivate, I need to click six times to advance to the next slide (five clicks plus my click box).

When I go back to the slide master in PowerPoint and then delete two levels of bulleted text, then update my Captivate project, I only need to click four times (three clicks plus my click box).

It seems that when I delete the text box from the slide Captivate is going back to the slide master for details. If I leave the text box on the slide but leave it empty, then things work almost correctly, except I still require an extra click to continue past this otherwise invisible text box.

I have fixed this by leaving the text box in PowerPoint, but leaving it empty, as required. I then add my image, etc. into the slide and import it into Captivate. I then add a click box to continue and make sure that it is visible from the very start of the timeline, pauses the slide until the user clicks, and is only visible for a short time (until the end of the slide). This seems to work, although I would love to know how to get rid of this other behaviour (I will try creating an empty slide in the slide master).

[sn_GH · Accepted solution]

I have found a reasonable workaround to this issue. It seems to be related to the PowerPoint master slide. The problem arises when I remove the master slide layout from the slide, and then it is imported into Captivate.

To fix this, I go back into the PowerPoint slideshow and apply the master slide layout. I then update the slide as required, and even leave a blank text box if necessary.