Audio settings ignored when exporting

[Guest]

Hi all,

I have fully up to date Captivate 5.

I have a captivate project that was created from a narrated PPT file, but when I choose to export no matter what audio settings i have (High, low, custom, any combination) the file size is exactly the same every single time. It is higher than the PPT that went into it, which makes me think it has stuck to it's default setting of high.

I have tried running as administrator, I have tried closing and opening and saving as other file names.

Nothing makes the slightest bit of difference to the size. There is no video, only a few slides with just text and some audio.

Could it be because there is a problem with the conversion from ppt? Or does it function better when audition is installed alongside.

I've never had a problem with Captivate before, but this is driving me crazy, I even pulled the audio out of the ppt, compressed it using another audio program, thus reducing the size of the exported file but the exported file is STILL too large and is now even bigger than the original PPT.

o0;

What in the heck is going on?

[Guest]

I have downloaded the trial for captivate cs6 and it is STILL DOING IT!

My published files are NEARLY AS LARGE AS THE ORIGINAL PPT. What. The Heck?!

I hve the settings on low bitrate, I tried the lowest constant bitrate, NOTHING WORKS!

Come on guys, someone didn't spot this problem in TWO versions?! When your own software, Presenter, can squish teh SAME FILE down to 20mb I have difficulty beliving that 167MB is the lowest it can go. That's insane! The ppt itself is  170! So you've saved... 3mb?! Seriously?!

That CANNOT be right on any planet in any of the million bizzare dimensions software I use apparently exists in. What. Is. Going. On.

If there really isn't a solution I am going to assume (and tell our staff) that this is a ploy to get us to buy the much more expensive Presenter as well as Captivate and I'll find something else to convert narrated ppt to web with.

[Erik_Lord]

Easy now...it's no conspiracy,

Do you have any unused items in the Captivate library? That's often a cause of large published files.

The audio is embedded as part of the PPT, but you've also pulled it out, right?

When you extract it, what format is it in?

Don't compress the audio outside Captivate. My preferred practice is to import good-quality .wav audio into the CP project and let Captivate do the compression on publishing. In fact, though this may not be true with newer versions, I've found trying to add compressed audio just confuses CP and results in larger, lesser-quality audio files when CP tries to recompress the audio...

At any rate, try:

1. pull the audio out of the PPT.

2. Save the PPT as a new file.

3. Import it into the CP file (if necessary - personally, I'd almost rather rebuild the slides in CP rather than link-to an external PPT...though CP6 supposedly improves on that process)

4. Import the extracted audio files and add to each slide as needed.

5. Set the audio to mid-range and publish.

Any better?