Testing Adobe Captivate – screen capture program

I have been working with a demo version of Adobe Captivate, which is a screen capture program used to show demonstrations and other things on the computer.

I have been using this program on a PC, and I do think it would work alot better on a MAC if the program is available for MACs.

The program is pretty easy it use, but there are alot of different options you can use, so I definitly reccomend watching the tutorials for each part of the program to get a good understanding/walk-thru. I tried creating a file without watching the tutorials, and I was very lost. the program interface is pretty intimidating if you havent used it before, so again, I reccomend the tutorial videos.

The captivate demo that I downloaded for my PC from CNET.com is a 30-day demo. the program can be purchased for $699.99.

The features that come with the program are pretty good, lots of different effects that you can use such as zoom, and different tools that enhance teaching and demo files. One of the eaiser parts of Captivate is the aduio recording part.

Once you have captured all the video you want, and you are ready to record, Captivate replays thefile you just made, so you can record your voice over the correct spots on the screen capture file. The program reccomends that you use a microphone plug-in on the computer.

Captivate lets you import content from a variety of formats, including SWF, FLA, FLV with metatags, MP3, and image file types (such as GIF, JPG, PNG, BMP, ICO, EMF, WMF, and POT).

The only file format that I could save my project as was a adobe Captivate project file (.cp)

The file output is relativly large. My example file has 12 slides and no audio and was 60.3MB. The more effect, slides, and audio you use, the larger the output will be.

Overall, I like captivate. On a fast computer, it will work very well. After working with the program for an entire weekend, I have learned alot about the program, it is pretty easy to use. for screen capture for PCs I would say tht this program is probably one of the best.

here is the link for my example file

I just tried to add my file using the “add video” button above, and it said that the file did not meet the requirements. This is the one problem i have had with Captivate. It wont let you save a a quicktime file or a flash file, so i am not sure how toget the file onto webpages. But I know there has to be a way to do this, but I have not figured it out yet.