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Introducing Macromedia Captivate

Prior to October of 2004, if you asked an expert to name the best tool for easily authoring superior interactive simulations and software demonstrations in Macromedia Flash format, they would have likely answered: Macromedia RoboDemo. However, if you asked that expert the very same question today, their answer would now be Macromedia Captivate.

So what’s changed? The name of the authoring tool, for one thing. Previously called RoboDemo, the product was recently renamed Captivate to more appropriately capture its ability to create both attention-grabbing content and engaging interactive elements. However, at its core, the latest release of Captivate is not about name changes or marketing fluff, rather it’s about launching a new, more powerful solution improved by a host of product enhancements and functionality upgrades that make it robust enough for even your most demanding projects. In other words, it’s about taking an award-winning product with a successful history and making it even better.

Overview of Macromedia Captivate

Captivate is the easiest way to create professional-quality interactive simulations and software demonstrations in Flash format without any programming knowledge or multimedia skills required. With Captivate, you can automatically record all on-screen actions to instantly create software demonstrations complete with editable mouse movements and text captions or interactive simulations that include eLearning interactions and instructional feedback.

Captivate content is small in file size and high in resolution so it is ideal for rapid application training, user support tutorials, and online product demonstrations. Plus, Captivate projects are SCORM/AICC compliant so integrating files with a Learning Management System (LMS) is a snap. In addition, seamless integration with Macromedia Breeze and Macromedia Flash MX 2004 provides even more powerful design, development, and deployment capabilities.

In short, Captivate enables anybody, regardless of technical ability, to get professional results and create dynamic product demonstrations or interactive training simulations that keep viewers engaged from start to finish.

Anybody Can Do It

Content development in Captivate is fast and easy. A friendly user interface and a new start page with access to timesaving tutorials helps beginners get up and running immediately. An improved capture mechanism with full-motion recording automatically switches on and off for drag-and-drop actions, so all you have to do is click Record, and Captivate automatically does the work. The Object Toolbar enables you to quickly add a variety of elements including images and video, or insert eLearning interactions like quizzes and branching, by simply pointing and clicking.

If you need a voice to go with your visuals, creating and integrating audio into your projects is also painless. Simply record narration or import existing audio files and then use the new visual timeline to ensure that you have synchronized everything perfectly.

Captivate also offers multiple output formats, providing flexible, comprehensive delivery options. Distribute content as a SWF file for online viewing, an executable for CD deployment, a Microsoft Word document for printable handouts, and more.

Get Professional Results

Captivate ensures a top quality outcome and saves valuable development time with multiple automated features. After you record or import on-screen activity, you can professionally enhance, update, and maintain it in Captivate—eliminating the need to re-record content and enabling you to repurpose content for other projects. You can even fix audio mistakes quickly with the built-in audio editor.

Capture additional slides at any time and edit, rearrange, or delete existing slides easily. Through Captivate, you can also automatically create editable text captions, add highlight boxes, and include instructional feedback on the fly. A new visual timeline gives you precise control over the timing of objects, captions, and audio files. You can even customize Captivate projects to match your identity, branding guidelines, or the look and feel of any application.

In addition, you can export Captivate projects directly into Macromedia Flash MX 2004 for further development, and fully integrate them with Macromedia Breeze, Macromedia Authorware, and the Questionmark Perception assessment tool.

Keep Viewers Engaged

Adding interactivity or rich media to a project ensures audience attention and increases training effectiveness. Captivate makes it easy to accomplish this goal with audio and video import, as well as user-initiated interactions. You can even include multiple objects and interactions on a single slide, enabling numerous choices and making it possible to design complex, real-world scenarios.

Learners can practice actual procedures hands-on, and you can test performance with scored mouse clicks, keyboard shortcuts, and data-entry fields. Captivate contains customizable quiz templates with multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and matching formats to jumpstart quiz development. You can even limit question-response time and communicate final test scores through e-mail or to an LMS.

You can also add interactive simulations to Breeze presentations and Breeze Live meetings to allow every participant to practice procedures in real-time during live webcasts or at any time through recorded presentations. Section 508 standards compliance ensures that people with disabilities can access your Captivate projects.

Summary

Captivate offers an unparalleled combination of power, control, affordability, integration, and ease-of-use. Compared to inferior competitive tools that cost thousands of dollars, Captivate costs less than $500 per license. Whether you’re a seasoned RoboDemo developer, currently use a third-party tool, or are new to simulation authoring, you owe it to yourself to check out this fundamental release. We are extremely excited about it, and we think you will be too.

Learn more about Macromedia Captivate. The Macromedia Developer Center will have tutorials and articles to help you take advantage of new features in Captivate soon.

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