How To Record Screens Using Captivate 3
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
Step Recording Projects
1
Set Screen Resolution for Captivate capture
a. Click
Start and select Control Panel.
b. Select
Display from the Control Panel window.
c. Select
the
Settings tab in the Display Properties window.
d. Set
the Screen Resolution to 1024 x 768.
e. Click
Apply, then click OK. If the Monitor Settings Confirmation window appears,
click Yes. Your monitor display will reset to the new resolution.
Adobe recommends 1024 x 768 resolution for usability with a variety of PC users. Higher
screen resolutions increase the Captivate file size.
2
Launch the program you would like to capture.
We will use Microsoft Word for this demonstration. Open Microsoft Word by double clicking
the icon on your Desktop
OR
Select Microsoft Word from the Start Menu.
Note: In preparation for recording a Captivate movie, click the Restore Down button (left of
the X) in the upper right corner of Microsoft Word. This resizes the window to the middle of
your Desktop.
3
Launch Captivate
Open Captivate 3 software by double clicking on the icon on your Desktop.
OR
Select Captivate 3 from the Start Menu.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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Prepared by: Julie Strauss, BlueStreak Learning, LLC
4
Launch a new project
From the Captivate main screen, click “Record new project - Record or create a new
project.
5
Select project options
Choose the radio button “Custom Size” and select the “OK” button.
A recording window will open.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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6
Set window capture options
a. Click the “Preset sizes” button, a drop-down menu will open containing window sizing
options.
b. Select the “800 Width X 600 Height” size. You will see a red box open, this is the
capture area, the size of the window you will capture your screens. This is a default
capture size and works best with most Learning Management Systems.
c. Next, you’ll need to select the window to record. From the drop-down box shown under
the Size area; select the “Optionally, select a window you’d like to record” if not
already selected.
Note: You will notice that all open windows will be listed in the drop-down menu. You
can select Microsoft Word from this list, if you do; the “Snap to fit” button will become
active. Do not click the “Snap to fit” button as it will size the window so that it captures
the whole window including the Menu and Status bars, which we will not be recording
for this demonstration.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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Prepared by: Julie Strauss, BlueStreak Learning, LLC
6
Set window capture options
d. Under
Recording, select “Recording Mode(s)” and then select the click boxes to the
left of “Demonstration” for a passive demo capture, or “Training Simulation” for a
guided practice capture.
e. Adjust the Microsoft Word window so that the capture area, the area inside the red box,
includes only the page with the right hand scroll bar. The right hand scroll bar needs to
be included to allow space for the Playback Controls when the movie is published.
f. Finally, select the “Record” button.
7
Record the task
Now that Captivate is recording, perform the task in the software.
Each time you perform an action on your computer, you will hear a camera noise indicating
that you have recorded a screen.
You may need to take extra screens of your capture if drop-downs are available. To make
sure that the drop-down list is captured, when the drop-down menu is displayed, click Print
Screen on your keyboard to manually capture the screen.
When you have completed capturing screens for that task, select the “End” key on your
keyboard.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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8
Save your project
A project will build and a window will open asking you to save your project.
Type in the name of the file under “Project Name”. Adobe does not recommend the use of
spaces in file names. However, you may prefer to use underscores instead of spaces in your
file names for readability.
Then select the “Browse” button and locate the folder you will save this project to on your
local drive. Click “OK”.
Note: Captivate adds “demo” to the end of the Demo project name. For your information,
Captivate adds “training” to the end of project name if you captured a training simulation.
9
Confirm capture and close Captivate
By default, Captivate opens in the Storyboard view, but you will want to revise your slides under
the Edit tab. Once in the Edit view, select Preview – Project to review the slides you just
captured. See pages 7 and 8 in this handout for instructions on how to edit text captions.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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10
Exit and Save Captivate project
To exit and save your Captivate project, select Close on the File Menu.
After exiting your Captivate project, you will be returned to the Captivate home page.
11
Project has been saved
You will see the saved project in the Recent Projects section of the left side of the screen.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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Step Edit Text Caption Settings
Open the Text Caption window, double click on the
1
text caption box on the slide.
For this example, we will select the following options.
Text Caption tab, under Caption type: select the
adobeblue.
If not already selected, select Font: Arial, Size 12.
Select the appropriate Call-out or plain Caption
2
box.
Note: The direction of the call-out box is determined
by the element it needs to point to on the screen.
Such as, upper right, lower right, upper left or lower
left.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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3 In
the Options tab
the
you will need to
Options tab
change
you will need to
the default setting to the following set
the default setting to the
t
following set ings;
Under Timing: select the
select th Display for:
y
drop-
down menu, then click on
then click o rest of slide
Under Transition: sele
sition:
ct the
sele
Effect: drop-
down menu, click on No transition
click on
Click OK
Click OK
4
Repeat this process for each text caption/call-
out box on each screen of the project.
If you need to make a change to a caption
box that applies to all captions in your project,
you can use the global change ability.
To make global changes, click the Settings
button at the bottom of the Text Caption
window and make the appropriate selections.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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Step Publish the Project
1
Publishing Configurations and Settings
Setting Flash Options
1. Click
the
Publish icon on the Menu bar, the Publish window opens.
2. Select
the
Flash tab in the left bar, if not already active.
3. Enter
the
Project Title; this will be the name of the SWF file after the project is
published. The name of the Captivate project should appear in this field by default.
4. Browse to the Folder location where the published SWF file is to be saved.
5. Click
the
Publish button.
2
1. When the publishing process is
complete, a Publish progress window
will open.
2. To review the output, click the View
Output button.
3. Or
click
Close.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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Prepared by: Julie Strauss, BlueStreak Learning, LLC
Adobe Captivate Resources
1. Adobe Captivate 3 Start page
2. Adobe Captivate Website
http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate/
3. Workbook: Essentials of Adobe Captivate 3 by Iconlogic
http://www.iconlogic.com/Captivate3.htm
ISBN: 1932733175
4. BlueStreak Learning offers custom Captivate training. For more information, please contact
Jennifer De Vries at (630) 842-1865 or Jennifer@bluestreaklearning.com.
How to Record Screens, Save, and Publish Your Project in Captivate 3
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