Create interactive simulations and software demonstrations

Captivate

Captivate 2 software enables anyone to rapidly create powerful and engaging simulations, software demonstrations, and scenario-based training without programming knowledge or multimedia skills. Based on the industry-leading Flash platform, Captivate 2 automatically generates interactive content in Flash format, without requiring users to learn Flash.

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Features

Getting started and recording
Editing
Special effects and rich media support
Output
Integration
eLearning and interactivity
Usability

Getting started and recording

• Scenario simulation
  Rapidly develop soft-skills simulations or scenario-based training by setting up the basics of your project. The wizard generates placeholder slides. Simply add the content and branching.
• Automatic recording
  Automatically record all of your actions while using an application, including mouse movements and keyboard activity.
• Smart full-motion recording
  No more toggling between recording modes. Full motion automatically switches on and off for drag-and-drop actions.
• Recording modes
  In Demo mode, Captivate 2 automatically adds mouse movement, text captions that describe onscreen actions, and highlight boxes. Simulation mode creates a project with scored interactions and instructional feedback.
• Audio at capture time
  Record audio narration and capture screen motion simultaneously.
• AutoText Captions feature
  Use the AutoText Captions feature to create captions automatically that contain text describing your actions. Before recording, choose the caption type and language for the AutoText captions.
  Adobe Captivate supports many languages.
• Customizable recording window size
  Customize the size of the recording window by selecting from a list of preset sizes, manually specifying height and width, or simply dragging and dropping the corners of the window itself. You can also automatically snap the recording window to match the size of any open application on your desktop, or vice versa.
• Project templates
  Project templates save development time by specifying major project characteristics, including background, caption styles, playback controls, and other preferences.

Editing

• Visual Timeline in Edit view
  Drag and drop to control the timing of objects, captions, and audio on the simple visual Timeline. Zoom in or out on the Timeline and use it for instant previewing after making slide changes. Scrub the playhead to preview a small section of the Timeline instantly. Drag and drop layers to change the order of objects.
• Visual Branching view
  Visually map out different learner paths. Collapse and expand sections of the simulation, and focus on branching for specific scenarios. Create complex scenarios by automatically branching at the end of slides based on a learner's choice at the beginning of the simulation. Adjust interaction properties such as score or number of attempts.
• Library
  Quickly access and reuse media objects that are already part of the project. Leverage existing content and import libraries from other projects. Update objects with a mouse click if the original inserted files have changed. Drag and drop objects from the library onto slides.
• Launch and edit capability
  Quickly update slide backgrounds, images, or audio files using your preferred editor. Captivate 2automatically opens the application of your choice for you and updates the audio or image file when you save and close the third-party application.
• Customizable workspace
  Drag and drop the floatable panes and toolbars and position them in the workspace to fit your workflow.
• Audio editing
  Edit mistakes and pauses, or add an external audio track to a presentation with the easy-to-use audio editor. Attach sound effects or narration to individual objects.
• Storyboards
  Much like a real movie, a project appears in Captivate 2 as an ordered series of individual slides. The Storyboard view displays thumbnail images of every slide in the project. Drag and drop to reorder slides, or double-click a single slide to edit it. Delete slides as needed or record and insert additional slides. No need to rerecord an entire project to fix errors or make changes.
• Edit view with filmstrip
  Use the Edit view to edit individual slides easily. On the right, a single slide is displayed, ready for editing. Zoom in to see close-ups of areas you are working on or zoom out to see the entire slide. The filmstrip of thumbnails allows you to navigate rapidly among slides, reorder slides with drag and drop, and access individual slides for editing.
• Unicode support
  Use any font and encoding supported by the Windows operating system, including double-byte character sets.

Special effects and rich media support

• Object zoom
  Focus attention by zooming into different screen areas. You can choose to simply magnify an area of the screen or place a different image into the zoom area.
• Grayout
  Highlight boxes now include the option to fill the outer area in addition to or instead of the inner box area. Using this method, you can gray out areas of the screen and help the viewer focus on a particular area on the screen.
• Customizable captions
  Customize the appearance, size, orientation, position, and display speed of captions, including font, size, color, and text formatting. Select caption styles from the extensive gallery, or create and import your own.
• Image insert
  Insert images in JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, ICO, EMF, and WMF formats into your project. Once imported, images can remain as movable objects or be permanently merged into the background of the slide.
• Text animations
  Use compelling animated text effects to introduce your simulations, transition to new lessons, or add a professional closing slide. Type your text and select an effect from the extensive gallery of animated text effects. Easily modify fonts and colors as needed.
• Rich media import
  Import SWF, FLA, AVI video, and GIF animations and create engaging training scenarios. Imported FLA files edited on-the-fly in Flash are updated automatically in Captivate 2. Leverage existing PowerPoint slides or entire PowerPoint presentations as high-quality images. With Captivate and Flash Video, it's a snap to include and synchronize videos in your learning content without affecting performance. Use alpha channels to place videos directly into your content.
• Import PowerPoint
  Import an entire PowerPoint project or only selected slides. Captivate 2 converts each PowerPoint slide into an Captivate 2 slide.

Output

• Multiple output formats
  Author a simulation once and generate multiple file formats - including SWF; standalone files for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux; Word, Pocket PC, and more - for easy distribution in your format of choice. Captivate 2 natively generates your simulation as SWF so there is no conversion required and file size is kept to a minimum. Over 98% of all computers already have Flash Player.
• Skins and menus
  Place customizable playback controls outside the simulation and customize the frame color to your needs or organizational standards. Add an interactive menu to link to additional content, or create a table of contents for large projects.
• Handouts
  Output your project in Word for complete printed training materials. Choose from generating a storyboard, handouts, step-by-step documentation, and lessons, or create your own export template. Choose exactly which content you want to export and define how it appears in the document. Export one slide, selected slides, or all slides, and choose to include or exclude objects, mouse paths, caption text, slide notes, and more.
• Accessible content
  Create Section 508 compliant simulations and demonstrations. Define text equivalents for a single slide or for an entire movie. Add animations without causing constant refresh for screen reader users. Insert clickable areas that also allow for keyboard access. Include multiple choice and true/false questions to movies with quizzes. Easily add closed captioning to audio for slides.
• Project resizing
  Resize a project even after recording is complete. Maintain the current height/width ratio, rescale, or crop as needed.
• Text for translation
  Export the text from all your captions as a text file for easy proofreading or translation into other languages. Once translated, text can be imported back into the project from the translated text file.
• E-mail export
  From within Captivate 2, launch your e-mail software and send your project as an Captivate 2 project file, Flash movie (SWF), self-executing file (EXE), Macintosh Projector file (HQX), or Linux Projector file (EXE).
• Access control
  Help maintain security and control access to content with password protection. Specify a loading screen for your simulation, fade-in/fade-out effects, and simulation looping. Specify a web address to launch at the end of your simulation. Set an expiration date to prevent viewing after a specified date.
• Customizable playback controls
  Customize the appearance, orientation, and position of the playback controls that viewers use. Select controls from the extensive gallery, or import your own bitmap (BMP) files for use as playback controls.

Integration

• Macromedia Flash Export
  Export Captivate 2 projects directly into Flash MX 2004 or Flash 8 for additional enhancement, ActionScript coding, or integration into a larger project.
• Macromedia Breeze integration
  Increase training effectiveness by adding interactive simulations to Breeze presentations or Breeze Meetings. Every participant can practice simulations during live events or recorded presentations. Publish directly to a Breeze server and use keyword search to locate existing materials.
• Breeze Training integration
  Manage Captivate 2 simulations, courses, and curriculums with Breeze Training. Measure the effectiveness of Captivate 2 content with detailed reports. Breeze Training automatically tracks all scored Captivate 2 interactions.
• SCORM/AICC compliance (LMS integration)
  Export scoring data in SCORM- or AICC-compliant format for use with a learning management system (LMS). Captivate 2 content is SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 certified. Captivate 2 automatically generates the manifest file, an XML file required by an LMS to interpret scoring data provided by Captivate 2.
• PENS
  Captivate 2 streamlines eLearning deployment with integrated support for standards-based automated publishing using PENS. Captivate 2 uses PENS to notify any compliant LMS or LCMS that an eLearning package is ready for deployment, and automatically triggers the import of the content into the LCMS/LMS product workflow. Captivate 2 with PENS enables single-click publishing to the LMS without requiring LMS-specific knowledge or cumbersome FTP or conversion and import processes.
• Authorware support
  Incorporate Captivate 2 eLearning simulations into your Authorware projects. All of your scoring data from the quizzing feature in Captivate 2 can easily be tracked in your Authorware course content.
• Questionmark Perception support
  Captivate 2 automatically generates a QML file so that you can quickly import Captivate 2 eLearning simulations into the Questionmark Perception tool to create robust, simulation-based assessments.

eLearning and interactivity

• Quizzing
  Choose from customizable quiz templates such as multiple choice, fill in the blank, matching, and more. Timed quizzes limit how much time students can spend answering a question, and quiz results can be distributed by e-mail.
• Branching
  Use branching to customize content in response to viewers' actions. Send viewers to a specific slide in the current simulation or to other simulations.
  Automatically branch at the end of slides based on a learner's choice at the beginning of the simulation.
• Scoring
  Capture scoring data from all interactive elements, including click boxes, text-entry boxes, buttons, and quizzes.
• Advanced Interaction dialog box
  View, access, manage, and edit all interaction and scoring settings in a single view. Each interaction is displayed in a table view with filter options by interaction type. The Add to Total column enables you to include only the highest score of an interaction as the maximum score possible for a particular slide.
• Instructional feedback
  Assign captions to click boxes, buttons, and text-entry boxes to provide feedback in response to users' actions. Feedback captions can offer hints about the correct action or answer, prompt the user to try again, offer praise for correct answers, or contain any other message to enhance the learning process.
• Rollover images and captions
  Rollover images and captions appear when a user mouses over a specified area of a slide. Use these effects to offer additional information about a particular region of the slide or to provide hints and tips during a lesson.
• Mouse clicks and keyboard interactions
  When creating click boxes and buttons, specify whether the required action from the viewer is a single mouse click, double mouse click, or specific keystroke, such as pressing Enter. Once the specified action occurs, the simulation proceeds as determined by the parameters set for that particular click box or button. Click boxes can cause the simulation to continue playing, jump to another slide in the same simulation, launch another simulation, open a web page, run JavaScript, or launch the user's e-mail software.
• Data entry
  Text-entry boxes allow users to type text into blank fields in your simulation. For example, you can simulate application forms by allowing users to enter text into the fields on the form. When the user enters the desired text, text boxes can cause the simulation to continue playing, jump to another slide in the same simulation, launch another simulation, open a web page, run JavaScript, or launch the user's e-mail software. Specify multiple correct answers for text-entry boxes. For example, if the answer is "Adobe Captivate," you might accept "Adobe Captivate" or "Adobe's Captivate" as correct answers.
• Buttons
  Buttons are visible, clickable interactive objects. Create buttons from the standard templates or import and use your own button images. When clicked, buttons can cause the simulation to continue playing, jump to another slide in the same simulation, launch another simulation, open a web page, run JavaScript, or launch the user's e-mail software.
• Customizable score slide
  Customize the look and feel of the score results slide. Choose which object you wish to display, how it should be formatted, and where to add the score slide in the slide sequence.

Usability

• Start page
  Access recently used files, online help, and educational tutorials from the intuitive Start page.
• Slide hiding or locking
  Hide selected slides in a project before generating a simulation to prevent the viewer from seeing those slides. Lock individual slides to prevent accidental editing by yourself or other team members.
• Hide or lock layers in the timeline
  Hide selected layers in the Timeline to easily work with slides that contain many objects located in the same slide area. Lock layers to prevent accidental changes to objects that are completed.
• Performance improvements
  Work efficiently with larger projects. Performance for opening, saving, closing, and generating larger projects as well as full-motion recording has been improved.
• Alignment grid and toolbar
  Use the alignment grid and x-y coordinates to align objects easily on a slide. The Snap to Grid option makes it easy to ensure that objects are correctly aligned. After selecting several objects, use the Alignment toolbar to adjust their relative positioning instantly, such as spacing them equally apart or aligning their left edges.
• Object toolbar
  Use the Object toolbar to insert or import any type of object with a single click.

System Requirements für Captivate:

• IBM compatible PC with Pentium III processor (600 MHz)
• Windows 2000 / XP
• 256 MB RAM (512 MB recommended)
• 100 MB of available hard disk space
• 800x600 display resolution (1024x768 recommended)
• Internet or phone connection required for product activation

Software and accessories: publishing and recording

• Internet Explorer 5.0 or 6.0
• Macromedia Flash Player 6 through Adobe Flash Player 9
• Microphone to record audio
• Speakers and sound card

Prices:

The following articles can be bought now directly from the supplier.

Captivate 3 Licence certificate with multiple licences TLP - single seat German WINXP / WIN2000 / WINVISTA	EUR 624,95
Captivate 3 Licence certificate with multiple licences TLP - single seat English WINXP / WIN2000 / WINVISTA	EUR 624,95
Captivate 3 Licence certificate with multiple licences TLP - upgrade German WINVISTA / WINXP / WIN2000	EUR 267,95
Captivate 3 Licence certificate with multiple licences TLP - upgrade English WINVISTA / WINXP / WIN2000	EUR 267,95