I Came, I Saw, I Learned...

eLearning: Discover Your Learner's Thinking Style

by AJ George 

Do you wish you could get inside the head of your learners and know exactly how their thought processes work? Me too, but we can't all be Professor Xavier.

Learning assessments provider Pearson TalentLens has managed to make a bit of self-examination possible at least. They have created the My Thinking Styles assessment to help people explore their unique thinking styles. The two part online assessment is free, takes only minutes to complete, and provides a basic report of the participant's thinking styles.

The service is not perfect. The end report focuses mainly on the benefits of each thinking style, rather than giving tips for improvement. Additionally, according to this report, I use nearly all thinking styles to a large degree so it would be difficult to focus on one style if I wanted. That being said, it is a useful free resource and may be one you would like to add to your metaphorical tool belt.

Allowing clients to complete the survey prior to creating eLearning for them (or passing it along for them to administer to all members of their team) might give you another perspective on how to approach their training. In a company setting it might also help you in the hiring process or to delegate tasks best suited to each team member's thinking style.

Give the assessment a try.  How accurately (or inaccurately) does it peg you?

PowerPoint & Articulate Studio: Resolve Performance Issues

by AJ George 

While working with a PowerPoint developer this week I learned that she was experiencing performance issues while using PowerPoint and Articulate Presenter.

I looked into her issues and found that it's a bad idea to work from a network or USB drive. In fact, it appears that doing so can cause crashes. The Articulate web site suggests that developers ensure that all associated files (presentations, audio, quizzes, etc) are on the C drive or local hard drive.

If you are sure you are working locally but are still seeing performance issues, try running a repair on Articulate Studio '09.

Still not working? There's one more solution. You may need to repair the software you are trying to use with Articulate (ie Microsoft Office). Click here and select your version of Microsoft Windows for applicable troubleshooting.

Adobe Captivate: Sometimes Manual Labor is the Best Kind of Labor

by Kevin Siegel  

During the recording process, Captivate typically does a wonderful job of creating screen captures on processes you perform within an application. I said "typically" because there are occasions when Captivate fails to create some of the screen captures and you are left in a bit of a pickle. You won't know Captivate missed an important screen capture until you stop the recording process and begin producing the lesson in Captivate. By then, the missing screen(s) may require you to record additional slides.

Assuming you are using Captivate's Automatic recording mode as you record a series of clicks on your computer, Captivate is supposed to automatically create a single slide (screen capture) every time you click your mouse. Alternatively, you can use Captivate's FMR mode during the recording process. Using this mode, Captivate will create a Full Motion Recording (FMR) video if you drag your mouse instead of individual screens. You will end up with fewer slides, but you'll have less flexibility since videos are harder to edit than individual slides.

What if you wanted to record your mouse pointer, along with the pointer path, as you pointed at screen objects? You weren't planning to click anything, you were just going to point at screen objects. Since Captivate's Automatic recording mode requires you to click your mouse to create a screen capture, you're stuck. If you don't click, you won't get that all-important screen capture. You could record an FMR, but you don't want a video. What's a developer to do?

To get around the problem, you can create the screen captures on your own--manually. First show Captivate's Preferences dialog box (Adobe Captivate menu if you are using a Macintosh; Edit menu if you are using Windows). Select theKeys category and make a note of the shortcut required To Capture a Screenshot. (If you don't like the default key, you can click in the field and type your own preferred keyboard combination.)

During the recording process, press the Manual Recordingkey on your keyboard whenever you want to capture the screen. Every time you press the Manual Recording key you will create one screen capture, just as if you had clicked your mouse.

There is one final thing thing to think about when it comes to screen captures. During the recording process, I have heard from developers that the Automatic recording type simply doesn't work (often times there is only a single screen captured during the recording process). While Captivate records the screen actions in most applications, some applications don't appear to get along with Captivate. In that event, I'd suggest using Captivate's third (and least-used) Recording Type: Manual. Just prior to recording the lesson, select Manual from the Recording Type area.

Using the Manual recording type will require you to press your keyboard shortcut each and every time you want a screen capture. If you forget to pull the screen capture you'll be out of luck since Captivate won't do anything for you at all. While this Recording Type will certainly require a significant amount of discipline on your part, your finished recording will contain every screenshot you were expecting.

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? We offer two live, online classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

Adobe Captivate: A Font Frenzy

by Kevin Siegel  

I received the following from fellow Captivate developer Johan Van Eeden. It seems Johan ran into some nasty font issues on his computer that totally derailed Captivate. He found a solution and shares it below.

Hi Kevin,

I recently sent you some information about a Captivate problem that I experienced: 

Soon after the green Captivate splash screen appears, the program freezes. 

The problem of Captivate hanging up on start-up is, according to the Adobe forums, one that is encountered quite a bit with versions 4, 5, and 5.5."

I tried installing, uninstalling and reinstalling Captivate several times, to no avail. The Captivate forum pages offer various remedies. I found a solution that worked on this page (at the bottom).

Apparently, if there are corrupted fonts on the PC, this can cause Captivate to hang up.

To resolve the issues, developers will need to:

1. Download and install FontFrenzy.
2. Take a Snapshot of the fonts on the PC.
3. "Unfrenzy" -- this moves all the non-system fonts on your PC to a specified directory. All you will have left in the Windows\Fonts directory will be the fonts that were installed with Windows.
4. Start Captivate.

To get your fonts back, you can "Refrenzy" them, or a selected group of fonts. I'm currently re-installing my fonts one letter of the alphabet at a time, then running Captivate after installing, for example, all the fonts starting with "C." In this way I hope to eventually track down the corrupted fonts."

UPDATE

I installed the fonts, alphabet letter by letter, until I got to I. After each letter's fonts were installed, Captivate would run. However, after I installed the fonts starting with the letter "I", Captivate froze again.

When I looked at the font names, I noticed that there were two fonts with an umlaut in the font name, on the letter "e", thus "ë."

I deleted both fonts from the Windows\Fonts directory and Captivate loaded without a problem.

It seems that, for whatever reason, Captivate can't handle fonts with an umlaut in the font name... something to bear in mind when people mention that they're experiencing the "Captivate freezes while loading problem." 

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? We offer two live, online classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

Adobe RoboHelp: Importing & Linking Word Documents

RoboHelp allows you to integrate content created by different authors in Microsoft Word and Adobe FrameMaker. You can create projects by linking or importing Word and FrameMaker documents and then publish in different formats, including printed documentation. You can also use Word and FrameMaker documents as source files in an existing RoboHelp project. 

This article is a quick summary of the import and linking process.

PowerPoint 2010: Copy a Master Slide from a Previous Presentation

by AJ George 

Ever received a PowerPoint presentation from someone and wished you could apply your own, previously created master slides in the presentation? Easy peasy; here's how:

1. Open both the recipient and the source presentation (the source presentation is the one that has the master slide you would like to use in the recipient presentation).
2. From within the source presentation, choose View > Master Views > Slide Master.
3. In the slide thumbnail pane on the left, right-click the master slide that you would like to copy. (Selecting the larger slide master at the top will automatically select all of its associated layouts. To copy just one layout, you would right-click and copy just that master slide.)
4. Choose View > Window > Switch Windows and select the recipient presentation. 
5. In the recipient presentation, choose View > Master Views > Slide Master.
6. If there is not already a customized slide master in the recipient presentation, right-click one of the blank slides and choose Paste (or press [Ctrl] [v]).
7. If the recipient presentation already contains customized slide masters, right-click below the last customized slide. You can select either Use the Destination Theme (the first image below) to use the theme of the current presentation; or Paste Keeping the Source Formatting (the second image below) so the pasted master will have the theme of the source presentation.
   
      
8. When you are finished, choose Slide Master > Close > Close Master View. 

Writing & Grammar: The Importance of Knowing (at least some) Parts of Speech

by Jennie Ruby  

If you have spoken English since infancy, you probably have a lot of the structures of English built into your head. You don't need me to tell you, for example, how to fix this sentence:

Towel the into the dryer went.

You probably immediately saw that the sentence was backwards (Yoda-speak) and that the word the goes beforetowel, not after it. The normally structured sentence would read:

The towel went into the dryer.

Why do we have to study grammar rules, then, if we know things like this without even thinking? Because not all areas of English are equally obvious. Punctuation, for example, is an area where we often have to fall back on rules instead of relying on, let's just call it "instinct." So in the interest of being able to punctuate correctly, today, I give you the coordinating conjunctions.

A conjunction is a word that joins things. We have several types of conjunctions in English, but the most commonly used are the coordinating conjunctions. They are used to coordinate two or more equally important points or ideas. There are only seven of them. I recommend memorizing them. Here they are:

But, Or, Yet, For, And, Nor, So

I have capitalized them here to facilitate memorization using the mnemonic device BOYFANS (or maybe you like the music of the Backstreet Boys, so you are a BOYS FAN). Either way, I recommend memorizing these seven words. Once you have them memorized, you can make snap decisions about punctuating compound sentences.

 A. She went to the grocery store early but they were all out of kale.

 B. She went to the grocery store early however they were all out of kale.

Which of these sentences requires a comma, and which requires a semicolon? If you have the seven coordinating conjunctions memorized, you can easily make this decision. Which example is actually two complete sentences joined by one of the seven coordinating conjunctions? If you said A, you'd be correct. Two complete sentences joined by a coordinating conjunction require a comma before the conjunction.

A. She went to the grocery store early, but they were all out of kale.

Try it on your own. My challenge this week is this: which of the following sentences consist of two complete sentences joined by a coordinating conjunction, and where does the comma go in each? Feel free to post your answers below by replying to this post. 

1. The teacup is on the table but the saucer is on the floor.
2. The File menu contains all of the commands for opening, saving, and renaming files.
3. The birdfeeder was full of sunflower seeds and corn yet the birds did not come.
4. The show featured two major stars so the budget was higher than normal.
5. The shadow of the billboard fell across the front windows and darkened the space within.

Also, keep an eye out for these kinds of sentences this week. Happy hunting!

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Jennie teaches two of our writing classes: Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts and Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts.

Adobe RoboHelp: Apply a CSS Project-Wide in a Snap

by Kevin Siegel  

If you want to ensure that the appearance of your topics is consistent project-wide, one of the first things you should think about doing is creating a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) and then assigning the CSS to all the topics in your project.

To assign the CSS to a single topic, open the topic. On the Formatting toolbar, click the Assign Style Sheet or Create New command. Select an existing CSS from the drop-down menu (or create a new one on the fly) and you are done.

Using the technique above will get the job done. However, you can only use this technique to assign a style sheet to one topic at a time. A typical RoboHelp project is likely to have hundreds (if not thousands) of topics.

To assign style sheets to multiple topics, use the Topic Listpod to select as many topics as you want (you can select all of the topics by clicking once on any topic and then pressing [Ctrl] [a] on your keyboard). With the topics selected, chooseEdit > Properties to open the Topic Properties dialog box.

On the Appearance tab, select the CSS you'd like to use from the list of Style Sheets at the left (in the Style Sheet area) and click the OK button.

Since multiple topics were selected before you opened the Topic Properties dialog box, all of the selected topics will now be using the same CSS.

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Need to learn RoboHelp? We have a 2-day class starting January 30.

Adobe Captivate: FMRs With all the Trimmings

by Kevin Siegel  

Last week I showed you how to use Captivate to create a seamless video using the Full Motion Recording (FMR) mode. One of the problems with FMRs is limited editing ability. If you use Captivate's Automatic mode, every time you click your mouse a screen capture will be created. However, if you use the FMR mode, a single video will be created.

When it comes to post-recording editing, the difference between the Automatic and FMR modes is very stark. Using the slide-based screen capture approach of the Automatic recording mode, you can edit every aspect of a slide, even a slide's background (using external programs such as Photoshop or Paint). With the FMR mode's video-based recording approach you still have editing options, but they are limited.

Edit an FMR

To begin the FMR editing process, select the FMR on the Timeline. 

On the Properties panel, locate the FMR Edit Options group. There are three options: Insert, Split and Trim.

If you choose Insert, you'll have an opportunity to record another FMR within the selected FMR. This is a handy option if you need to add more video in the middle of an existing scene.

The Split option will splice your video wherever you position the Playhead on the Timeline and create a second segment. The new segment will automatically appear on a new slide. I've found this option to be useful when a single slide FMR is simply too long. In my opinion, slides that play for a shorter duration will be more effective in the long run when compared to slides that tend to play on and on and on.

I've found the final option, Trim, to be the most beneficial, especially if I've made a mistake during the recording process and need to get rid of it.

Using the Trim option is simple enough. With the FMR selected on the Timeline, choose Trim from the FMR Edit Options drop-down menu.

On the Timeline, select the area of the FMR that you'd like to remove. If you find it difficult to manually select specific areas on the FMR, you can use the Trim From and To fields on the FMR Edit Options group. Or you can let Captivate do the selecting for you by choosing a Start and End Marker.

The last step is to simply click the Trim button on the bottom of the FMR Edit Options group.

 

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? We offer two live, online classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

 

Adobe Captivate: FMRs Rule?

by Kevin Siegel  

I've been teaching and developing with Adobe Captivate for years. The program has always been able to record Full Motion Recordings (FMRs). Never heard of an FMR? You are not alone. Usually developers learn about them by accident. If you record your screen using Captivate's Automatic mode, every click of your mouse will result in a single screen capture. Those screen captures convert to single slides in a Captivate project once you end the recording session.

During the recording process, if you perform a mouse drag (click the mouse clicker and then move the mouse around the screen), Captivate won't capture a single screen. Instead, Captivate will capture the entire drag event as a video--it'll be as if you've pointed a video camera at the screen and turned it on. When you finish with the recording, you'll see a single slide in Captivate representing the captured event.

Since FMRs aren't as easy to edit or control as single slides, I usually tell new Captivate developers to shy away from dragging the mouse during the recording process. Instead, I encourage everyone to click on screen items to ensure they get single screen captures.

In retrospect, I may have been overly hard on FMRs--they do have a role. FMRs can be useful if you want to demonstrate complex mouse events smoothly. For instance, if you're trying to show someone how to use a specific filter in Photoshop, capturing the process with an FMR might be more effective than simple screen captures.

To create an FMR during the recording process, simply select Full Motion from the Recording Type area and record your lesson. 

 

Once you end the recording, the captured video will appear on the Filmstrip as a single slide. You'll be able to differentiate FMR slides from regular slides easily enough... FMR thumbnails on the Filmstrip have a little camera icon in the lower right.

 

Next week I'll show you how to edit the FMR. In the meantime, check out the FMR I created late last year (it shows thedifferences between Captivate 5 and 5.5).

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? We offer two live, online classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

Adobe RoboHelp: Import Word Documents and Keep the Shapes

by Kevin Siegel  

You can do a lot of fancy stuff in Word. In fact, if you're really comfortable using the program, you can create a book that looks every bit as good as those produced by desktop publishers using programs such as QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign or Adobe FrameMaker. (Okay, okay... I'm not going to venture any deeper into the muck... Word can create some pretty complex stuff, but it's not for me... I prefer to use FrameMaker.)

Many people who use RoboHelp also use Word as the main authoring tool for the content that will be imported into RoboHelp. Unfortunately, during the import process there's potential trouble around every corner. For instance, the more complex the Word layout, the higher the risk that something will go wrong when that layout is imported into RoboHelp.

Let's take Word's ability to wrap text around an item and the Shapes feature as examples. You can use the Shapes feature to quickly draw a line or a callout to a screen capture inserted into a Word document. The shapes may look just fine in Word. However, once imported into a RoboHelp project the resulting collection of screen capture, line and callout will rarely look very good. This is especially true if you use any of Word'sWrap Text features other than Inline with Text. (One would use Word's Wrap feature on an object to control exactly where that object appears in the Word layout.) For example, in the image below Word's Wrap Text was set to Tight. There's a callout to the right and a squiggly line. 

The image below shows the content after it has been imported into a new RoboHelp topic. Notice that the Shapes did make it into RoboHelp... but the integrity of the layout has been lost.

 

If you need to use the text wrap and Shapes feature in Word, I have a simple trick that will allow you to maintain much of the layout in RoboHelp.

1. Select the screen capture and shapes in the Word document. (Shift-click works nicely for this purpose.)
2. Cut the selected items to the clipboard (Ctrl-x).
3. On the Home tab of Word's Ribbon, click the bottom of the Paste command and choose Paste Special.
   
    
   
   The Paste Special dialog box opens.  
   
    
4. Select Picture (JPEG) from the As list and click the OKbutton.
   
   

The independent shapes have been converted into a single image. Once imported into RoboHelp, the Shapes will appear as they did in Word... and they'll Generate just fine too.

 

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Need to learn RoboHelp? We have a 2-day class starting soon.

Adobe Captivate: Nudge the Screen Area

by Kevin Siegel  

When creating a new Software Simulation in Adobe Captivate, the red box that you can drag to any area of your screen display is known as the Screen Area.

Anyone who has tried dragging the pesky screen area from one part of the screen display to another knows that grabbing the screen area's border can get a bit tricky. I don't know about you but I am rarely able to grab the edge of the screen area the first time. And I'll readily admit that it sometimes takes me two or three attempts before I am successful in moving the thing where I need it.

During my most recent online Captivate class, one of my students asked if it was possible to move the screen area without using the mouse. Specifically, he wanted to use the arrow keys on his keyboard to nudge the screen area this way or that.

I told the student that he had made a perfectly reasonable request, but the ability to nudge the screen area with the keyboard wasn't a feature found in the current version of Captivate.

A few minutes later, the student, Timothy Matthews, informed me that he had found a way to do it. I hate to admit it when I'm wrong... but kudos to Timothy. He did indeed, find a way. Here is what he discovered:

With the red-bordered screen area on the display selected, he clicked and held the border of the screen area (don't let go of the mouse clicker or the trick won't work). 

 

 

Next, Timothy pressed the arrow keys on his keyboard to nudge the screen area box. He also found that he could nudge in smaller increments by pressing the [Ctrl] key and the arrow keys.

While I think the ability to nudge the screen area with the keyboard is great, it would be even better if you didn't have to keep your mouse clicker pressed the whole time... that just seems like too many contortions to go through or remember. I'd like it a whole lot better if you could just click on the edge of the red box to select it, release the clicker and then press the arrow keys. Perhaps Captivate 6? In any event, thanks to Timothy, you now know that there is a way to nudge that pesky screen area.

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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner andAdvanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

Writing and Grammar: More on Lists, Bullets, and Tufte

by Jennie Ruby

"PowerPoint...has beaten the bulleted list to death," says Skills & Drills reader Jeannine Statter. "Add a new content slide to a PowerPoint presentation and up pops a bullet followed by Click to add text. [Because every]  new slide [is presented] this way, I'm lead to believe I need a bulleted list whether I really have items that need bulleting or not."

She goes on to say that "A list is an invaluable means of presenting information when it is used properly.  But a sea of bullets in a presentation or manual is just as ineffective as no bullets at all." Her colleague Michael Stein seconds this opinion:

Tufte's opinion [on bullets and builds] seems to be too heavy handed. The goal of a presentation is to convey information to the consumer in the manner that works best for the delivery of the content.  Sometimes bullets are not effective. Sometimes bullets are effective. Sometimes they are most effective when displayed one at a time. This is particularly true when the presenter needs to convey a dramatic point. If you saw all of the bullet points at one time, the presenter would lose the impact.

For example:

• In 1940, 4,000 molecules per million of carbon in the atmosphere
• In 1950, 25,000 molecules
• In 1960, 400,000 molecules
• In 1970, 2.5 million molecules

Displaying all of these at once would take away from the dramatic impact. Making the font size for each subsequent bullet larger would make it even more dramatic. The presenter should determine if bullet points are the right choice for conveying this particular piece of information. Tufte goes too far when he says that they should never be used.

Stein gives us some good guidelines, echoing Melanie Scott's comments from last week:

To design an effective presentation, the presenter must ask the following questions before deciding upon the presentation medium and manner of presentation: 

1. Who is my audience?
2. What do I need to convey to this audience?
3. What is the best method for conveying this information to this audience?

But what if we have multiple audiences using the material in various ways and in various situations? Stein tells us:

If the presentation is to be given to the audience in an electronic format for later personal use, then the presenter must change the presentation for this format. What works effectively for a live, in-person presentation does not work effectively for the person viewing the presentation on a computer or iPad. When presenters provide the audience with an electronic copy, it is necessary to provide presentation notes to explain the slide content.

Failure to heed this last point: providing notes to explain slide content, is the pet peeve of reader Julie Warnus:

If I ruled the world, every creator of a presentation would include his/her script in the Notes portion. We have thousands of PPTs posted on our intranet or saved in our records management system. A good number of them are utterly useless -- because there is no accompanying text that explains the slides.

This complaint is certainly well-taken, but I find that I do not add speaker notes because I often use PowerPoint to create a handout for the audience. I am concerned that if what I am going to say is in print in front of the audience, they will be distracted by reading instead of listening, or they will be reading ahead instead of participating in the current discussion. Am I just a control freak? Or is this a legitimate concern?

My practice is usually right in line with what reader Kay Honaker says:

I use a presentation as much for myself as for my audience: it helps keep me organized and assures that none of the amazing and salient points I want to make are left out. Thus, bullet lists on multiple slides serves the same function as an outline. Each list item is a talking point from which I can launch into discussion or analysis, follow a teaching moment, give background, answer questions.

She seems to share my concern about distraction:

If I'm [talking] for any length of time I blank the screen so the slide doesn't become a distraction.

What do you think? Should slide presentations always contain speaker notes? Should those be in front of the audience during the presentation? Is there a convenient way to create the handouts with no speaker notes, but then make the speaker notes available when putting the presentation online for wider consumption? Am I being, as Tufte says, "authoritarian" or too controlling if I want to use builds in PowerPoint to keep the audience with me? Can revealing bullets one by one be very effective, as Stein says? If you have techniques or opinions on these questions (especially on "Is Jennie a control freak?"), we would love to hear from you.

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About the Author:  Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Creating Pop-up Text in Adobe Captivate 5.5

Check out this awesome example of how to use Advanced Actions to create some nifty pop-up information in a Captivate lesson. I especially like the way the lesson makes full use of Captivate's Full Motion Recording and Panning features.

eLearning: Google Goggles Update

by AJ George 

I wrote an article about  Google releasing an app called Google Goggles for Android nearly two years ago. I wondered if it could be the next big app, and how it could positively impact the eLearning community. My feeling at the time was that in the right environment, Google Goggles could be used to scan images in real time and receive just-in-time learning on the go.

Now that it's had some time to develop and work out the kinks, Google has improved Google Goggles with its 1.7 update. Google has added a continuous shooting mode to its repertoire. This means you can scan the room for objects and get instant Google searches on them without actually having to press the shutter button. Additionally, Google has added text recognition to search, which I think is even more valuable for the eLearning community.

Imagine you are given a handout in a class/meeting/convention with an excerpt from a magazine or other printed publication. You would like to share the excerpt with your students/colleagues/twitter followers but you don't want to take a low-res image of the excerpt and have everyone go blind trying to read it. You also don't want to manually retype the whole thing. With Google Goggles, just scan part of the text  and, if there is an online version, Google will find it, allowing you to link to it for all to see. Technology!

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About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Adobe Captivate: Say Goodbye to the Mouse Click Sound

by Kevin Siegel  

I received an SOS from a fellow Captivate developer who was having a hate-hate relationship with the mouse click sounds he was hearing in his Adobe Captivate demonstration. He told me he had spent over an hour trying to figure out how to disable the mouse-click sound, project-wide. Project-wide? Heck, he was so frustrated at this point that he was willing to disable the mouse click sound, one mouse pointer at a time. The solution is actually quite simple, and can be used project-wide. I shared it with him and now I'm going to share it with you.

First, select any of the mouse pointers on any slide in your project. Then, on the Properties panel, open the Options group (if necessary) and deselect Mouse Click Sound.

To apply the change to every mouse pointer in the project, click the drop-down menu in the upper right of the Options group and chooseApply to all items of this type.

 

 

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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner andAdvanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

Camtasia Studio: Speech to Text

Camtasia Studio 7.1 can convert (transcribe) speech to text... an awesome feature that will help make quick work out of creating closed captions. Review this video to learn how to use the speech to text feature.

The Differences Between Captivate 5 and 5.5

I've received multiple requests from Captivate developers asking me to detail the differences between Captivate versions 5 and 5.5. I've written several articles in this blog that have gone into detail about the differences. And I've recently created a video demonstrating the differences. The video was created in Captivate using the FMR recording option.

Adobe RoboHelp: How to Create Adobe AIR Layouts

Adobe's Thomas Aldous has created a video demonstrating the process of creating an Adobe AIR layout that includes Commenting, Moderation of the Comments and Topic Ratings.

Multiple Language Options in a Single Course with Adobe Captivate 5.5

Adobe's Dr. Pooja Jaisingh shows you how to create a single Captivate project that contains multiple, on-demand languages. Check it out here.

eLearning and PowerPoint: Usage Survey

by AJ George 

I've heard from several eLearning developers expressing their frustration over being given lackluster PowerPoint presentations and asked to magically transform them into effective and engaging eLearning lessons and courses. Are you in the same boat? Perhaps you are creating the PowerPoint presentations as well? Maybe (gasp) you're the one creating the lackluster presentations?

Amongst my own office, opinions often differ when taking into consideration the presentation delivery goal and mode as to what constitutes a good presentation. Are layout and design concerns really that different when a PowerPoint presentation supports a public speaker, an online meeting/class or webinar, or is used for eLearning? Are the concerns design based at all, or is it really the content that must be different?

Whatever the case, we'd like to hear from you about your experience using PowerPoint in conjunction with eLearning. Please take a moment to fill out our short survey. Your responses will help us to help you and, more specifically, address your needs going into 2012.  

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About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Writing and Grammar: Responses from United List Lovers

by Jennie Ruby   

This week a number of our readers have joined me in finding some good uses for lists and bullet points. However, that does not mean they reject Tufte's criticisms of bullet overkill (pardon the pun) in PowerPoint use.

For example, Josie Chaney writes:

I agree with you whole-heartedly. I think Tufte is ananachronism. I do however agree with him regarding avoiding the "rollout" of information on each slide; I do think it's too controlling and that there's benefit to allowing the audience to "read ahead" in their attempt to understand and relate bits of info together. I also don't like the repetition of information much; I've seen whole presentations which seem just to repeat buzz-word bullet points and leave crucial questions unanswered. I think if presenters/editors were focusing on answering one or two key questions per slide, while trimming redundancy, it would become clearer whether the presentation provides all the audience needs or expects.

Skills & Drills reader Melanie Scott agrees:

I think Tufte may have over-generalized his hatred of bullets and/or the learning community may have over-applied it.  I haven't seen the whole presentation, but it sounds like Tufte is saying that in training and presentation content the right number of items in a list is zero but not that bullet points are all bad. 

She also says,

It sounds to me that Tufte is really railing against those presenters who create bland, all-bullet content (or word-for-word presentations) using graphics [that] are boring, unreadable and sometimes meaningless and who use canned backgrounds which have nothing to do with the presentation.  [He is also railing against presenters] who think that they must read every word on the slide (or make the class read them), and that is all they do. (This is what many of us were trained to do, me included.  We have to learn to do better and lead by example). Tufte's focus is the presentation of information, not the absolute eradication of bullets and lists in all areas. 

Scott goes on to specify some times when bullets can be used without contradicting Tufte's caution about using them as content:

There are times you need to list things-as Jennie mentions, objectives, steps, etc.  Objectives aren't content, they're introductory... a "here is what we want to accomplish" message. Checklists and process steps are not always necessary in the [content of] training. Sometimes they should be part of the resource material.

Nevertheless, Scott sees ways to avoid bullet lists on slides even when presenting step-by-step training:

Steps can be taught without bulleted lists-one slide per step in order, with specific instructions on why it is first/second/third, which also allows for effective use of images to highlight the step.

Scott sums up what a number of readers thought:

I think Tufte's biggest point is this: when presenting any kind of information (print, training, eLearning, etc), we should consider all the possibilities, with our audience in mind, and use the methods which present the information in the clearest, most concise manner.  According to research, adult learners need training/learning experiences to include experiential components, which allow them to think and apply what is presented.  Bad charts/graphs/visual, presentations and bullets don't do that.

We have more on the use of lists and bullets for next week, so it is not too late to weigh in. If you have particularly good--or particularly bad--example lists, I would love to hear from you.

***

About the Author:  Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Adobe Captivate: Export Audio

by Kevin Siegel  

You can import or record audio to just about anything in Adobe Captivate. Right-click a slide object and you'll find you can selectAudio > Import to (or Record to). Right-click a slide and you'll find the exact same menu items. And if you want to import or record background audio, you'll find that you can do so by choosing Audio > Import to (or Record to) Background.

Once you've successfully added audio to the object, slide or background, you can then choose Audio and Edit the attached audio file. However, once edited the imported audio clip will no longer match the original file that you imported.

Ever wondered how you can get the edited audio clip out of your project so it can be used in other applications that accept audio? You'll be happy to learn that you can easily export audio clips. Here's how:

While editing an audio clip, click the Podcast button (located in the lower left of the Edit tab).

 

The Save dialog box will open where you can select from either WAVor MP3. When in doubt, I would suggest MP3. While MP3 files are not as high quality as WAV files, the smaller size of a typical MP3 will more than make up for what you might lose in sound quality.

 

Looking for a more direct method of exporting project audio? Check out the Library (Window menu). You can right-click any sound file you see in the Library's Audio folder and choose Export. You'll have the same export options (WAV and MP3) as those found when using the Podcast option.

 

If neither the Podcast or Library route is your cup of tea, then I've got one more method up my sleeve. Choose Audio > Audio Management to open the Advanced Audio Management dialog box.

From the lower left of the dialog box, select Include MP3 files in export, Include WAVE files in export (or both) and then click theExport button.

Using any of the techniques above will result in external files that you can use in other applications or share with other Captivate developers.

***

Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

Writing and Grammar: List Lovers Unite!

by Jennie Ruby   

After reading AJ's Tips for Better Data Representation article, fellow Skills and Drills reader Nancy Elliott sent the following question/comment:

"Edward Tufte may think that the correct number of items that belong in a list is zero, but does Jennie Ruby agree? I am old school. I think bullets help people focus."

My immediate answer is "I do love me a list." I love almost all of the things Tufte hates in a list: hierarchy,  grouping, parallelism and repetition, signals as to whether the order matters or not, colors, shading, list builds in PowerPoint, and drop-shadows. Well, ok, I guess I can live without drop shadows if AJ can.

Why do I love all these things about lists? Because I know that people do not read. They do not read my handouts during classes. They do not read paragraphs of text on websites. They do not read solid pages of text before letting their eyes be drawn to the lists, graphics, and headlines. They do not read paragraphs longer than three lines in email. So if I want my audience to quickly absorb my main points, I make a list.

For example, one of my colleagues tells me that if she needs the answers to three questions she is sending by email, she makes sure to mention that there are three questions and to put each question in a separate paragraph (or bullet point). Otherwise, she says, recipients do not reliably answer--or even seem to notice--all of the questions.

Here is an example of an email message unlikely to get timely and thorough answers:

In reviewing your article (which I enjoyed very much) I found several areas that need attention. For example, I noticed that the page number was omitted for the quote in the first paragraph. I also need further information about your affiliation--did you write this during your tenure at the University of Maryland? In the endnotes, the third note is missing the publisher's city and state. Could you please send the missing information to me by Friday?

Here is the same email message recast as a list:

I enjoyed your article, which I reviewed for publication. However, before we can proceed, we need answers to the following three questions by Friday:

1. What is the page number for the quote in the first paragraph?   
2. Did you write the article during your tenure at the University of Maryland? If not, please give the correct affiliation.   
3. What are the publisher's city and state for endnote 3?

Other lists I love: The list of objectives for a training module. The grocery list. To do lists. Production checklists. Quality control checklists. Outlines. The list of steps in completing a complex procedure. In short, I agree with Nancy that bullets help people focus.

Although I disagree with Tufte's seeming universal hatred of bullet lists, I do agree with his concern that bullet lists in business presentations limit complex analysis, fail to provide background information, and sometimes group things that cannot logically be grouped. For example, in academic writing, I have sometimes seen contradictory items placed within the same list as though the relationships between them are self-evident, with the effect that the reader's eyes glaze over in confusion. 

***

About the Author:  Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

PowerPoint 2010: Creating a Spinning Animation, Version 2.0

by AJ George

After posting the first article, PowerPoint 2010: Creating a Spinning Animation, I got a tip from one of our readers, Konrad Schroth, for an alternate way to create a spinning animation. Today I'd like to share his method.

The previous method I shared involved duplicating the object you would like to spin, making it invisible, lining it up as a mirror image to the original image and then grouping the two images. This method shifts the center axis to the tip of the original image and changes the axis from which the image spins.

Here is an alternate way to achieve the same effect:

1. Locate the point upon which you would like the image to spin.
   
   By default, the image will spin upon its center axis, as depicted below.
   
   
   
   
2. Once you have determined the axis point, drag the Guides so they intersect at this point. (To view the guides, choose View > Show > Guides.)
   
   In this example, I have the guides intersecting in the center of the base of this clock hand.
   
   
   
   
3. Insert a circle (Insert > Shapes), large enough that it completely overlaps the shape you would like to rotate when it is centered on the axis point you have established.
   
   Note: To insert a circle, select the Oval shape and hold down the [Shift] key while drawing. In order to see my clock hand image in front of the circle, I have sent the circle shape to the back by selecting Home > Drawing > Arrange > Send to Back.
   
   
   
   
4. Group the image to the circle by holding down the [Shift] key and selecting both, followed by pressing [Ctrl] [G] on your keyboard.
5. From within the group, select only the circle, right-click and select Format Shape.
6. From the Fill category, select No Fill.
7. From the Line category, select No Line.
   
   The circle will now be invisible.
   
   
8. Apply the Spin animation to the group (Animations > Add Animation > Emphasis > Spin).
   
   The image (the clock hand in this case) will now rotate from the axis you specified by centering the invisible circle on it.

***

About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Adobe Captivate: Set a Master Movie

by Kevin Siegel

Last week I showed you how to remove the TOC from an Aggregated Captivate course. One reason that people elect to hide the TOC is that the TOC simply takes up too much space on the learner's screen.

One way to get around the space issue when it comes to the TOC is to create an overlay. Simply put, the overlay feature will keep the TOC hidden until the learner elects to expand (or show) it by clicking a button. If you've never used Captivate's Overlay feature, check out the TOC overlay article I wrote earlier this year.

While overlays are often desirable in a Captivate-published eLearning course, you may be surprised (bummed even) to learn that the feature simply does not exist within the Aggregator application. What's a developer to do?

1. Create an overlay TOC in at least one of the lessons you plan to add to the aggregated course.
2. Publish all of the Captivate lessons as SWFs.
3. Add the published modules (SWFs) to the Aggregator project. (Note: Only SWFs can be aggregated.)
   
   

And now for a bit of magic...

1. Select the module that contained the overlay TOC.
2. From the top left of the Aggregator application window, select Set as Master Movie.
   
   
   
   By setting the overlay TOC module as the Master Movie, the published Aggregator project will use the Skin (TOC overlay settings included) from the module. Nice!
   
   
3. Publish the Aggregator project and you'll see that the TOC is hidden until the learner elects to click the TOC button on the playbar.

***

Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

Adobe FrameMaker: The Page Count Variable for Books (Part I)

FrameMaker's Page Count variable makes it easy to track (and reference) the page count of a single chapter. The Page Count variable, which ships with FrameMaker, makes it possible to set up page numbers that look like this: 1 of 10, 2 of 10, 3 of 10, etc. Here's how:

1. Choose View > Master Pages.
2. Click within the header or footer frame.
3. Choose Special > Variable to open the Variables pod.
4. Add the Current Page # variable (double click to insert, or click once on the name, and click the Insert button on the Variables pod toolbar).
   
   
   
    
5. Press the [spacebar], type the word of and press [spacebar] again.
6. Finish by inserting the Page Count variable and return to the body pages. 

The Page Count variable works by inserting a reference to the last body page of the chapter. As you add and remove pages via editing, the variable updates.

Easy enough. But what about trying to keep track of the last page of a multi-chapter book? Tune in next week to learn more about that.

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

***

Looking to learn Adobe FrameMaker We offer Beginner and Advanced classes.

The Principles of eLearning (Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Design)

Check out these 10 videos covering the principles of eLearning as defined by researchers including Clark and Mayer. The videos are based largely on the cognitive theory of multimedia.

 

Adobe RoboHelp: Convert Glossary Terms to Tool Tips

Thanks to the ExtendScript capabilities found in Adobe RoboHelp 8 and 9, you can run a script that will automatically take existing glossary terms and convert them to either tooltips or text pop-ups. You can learn how to use the script here.

Adobe and the "Creative Cloud"

According to Adobe's chief technical officer Kevin Lynch, Adobe is in the midst of a "fundamental transformation from the world of software in boxes to the world of the cloud, touch interfaces on devices, and social connections."

"Creative Cloud is important to Adobe as it represents the next generation of how we see creative software being acquired and used, blending services in the cloud with creative apps on devices and PCs, along with connecting the creative community," said Lynch.

You can learn more about the Creative Cloud here.

Adobe Captivate: Aggregated? Go TOC-Less

by Kevin Siegel

I covered the process of using Captivate's Aggregator utility some time ago. The Aggregator offers a quick way to combine multiple published SWFs into one, seamless lesson.

Once the lessons are aggregated, they will share a single TOC, allowing learners to jump from one lesson to another at will. During a recent advanced Captivate class, one of my students asked if it was possible to remove the TOC. He said that he wanted the lessons to play one after the other, and he did not want learners to be able to skip over any of the lessons. While my preference is to allow a learner to skip around a lesson as they see fit (see AJ's article), the ability to hide the TOC in an aggregated project is simple. From within the Aggregator project, click the Publish Settings command (located at the top of the Aggregator window).

From within the Aggregator Preferences dialog box, select Hide Table of Contents and then click the OK button.

There will not be any obvious changes to the Aggregator project at this point. However, when you publish the project the shared TOC will be removed and the combined lessons will play one after the other.

***

Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

eLearning: Let the Learner Decide the Path

by AJ George 

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -- Albert Einstein

After attending Edward Tufte's seminar (that I wrote about last week), it got me thinking about being authoritarian with an audience. Tufte admonished the use of the "slow reveal" in PowerPoint presentations, suggesting instead that if you must use bullet points (he advises against using them altogether), present all your information--clearly and at once. I don't think this applies just to giving a presentation, but also to eLearning.

Have you noticed that a lot of eLearning constricts the navigation to prevent skipping slides? In theory I understand this. You want your audience to take in all of the information. Not only is it important information, but dag nabbit, you spent the time to put it there, why should they get to just skip over it? From an eLearning developer's point of view this makes total sense.

However, from a learner's point of view, it can be restrictive. Maybe your learner already knows this information. Maybe he would like to explore the lesson in an order than makes more sense to him. Maybe she reads faster than your slide thinks she does.

When I looked into it, I realized I was not the first person in the community to suggest freeing up the navigation, so rather than reiterate what others have said, I have instead gathered some of my favorite posts on eLearning navigation.

Visual Menus: Structure with Style

 

No Next Button: Some Examples

 

Curiosity Might Have Killed the Cat, But Learners Love It

 

Here's Why Unlocking Your Course Navigation Will Create Better Learning

***

About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

eLearning: Tips for Better Data Representation

by AJ George

I recently attended an Edward Tufte course on "Presenting Data and Information." If you are unsure of who Edward Tufte is, I would suggest checking out his Wikipedia page.

Here are some of the top tips I took away from the course:

Stop Assuming Your Audience is Dumb

Have you noticed that PowerPoint presentations and eLearning modules will often do the "slow reveal," only showing one bullet point at a time? Why do we do that? Do we think that our audience cannot handle all the information at once? That their poor, feeble brains will explode if the words appear before we say them?

Tufte advised to do away with the slow reveal, citing that using it makes you a bit "authoritarian." Let your audience decide what they need and want to read, and when.

Tufte pointed out that readers of George A. Miller's "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information," who deduced that only seven items belong on lists or slides, must have mis-read the paper. Tufte said that the correct number of items that belong in a list is zero. He felt that the real point of Miller's paper, among other things, was to suggest ways to place unlike data into context so as to make them easier for an audience to remember and understand. Perhaps one way to do away with the slow reveal would be to do away with the bullets you wish to reveal.

Think More Logically About Data Placement

Related to assuming your audience is dumb, do you really need to break up information into five different graphs on different PowerPoint slides? Could the information be compiled into one well-designed chart or graph instead? In Tufte's Beautiful Evidence he presents a clear and concise chart on cancer survival rates and then goes on to show how convoluted the evidence becomes when broken into many charts in PowerPoint, full of what he refers to as "chartjunk." You can see the example for yourself here in Tufte's online forum.

Additionally Tufte pointed out the seemingly obvious (but often overlooked) idea to provide data side by side for comparisons as well as placing important things adjacent in space. Don't make your audience leaf through pages or wait for a new slide to see the information as it relates to other relevant information. Put it all out there--together and at once.

Streamline Design

While Tufte advocated providing more (in fact, as much as possible) information in our data representation, he was clear that he did not mean more stuff, ie "chartjunk."

Things that can be removed:

• Drop shadows. (I know, this one hurts; I like drop shadows too.)
• Boxes around information. (He gave the example that tobacco companies are forced to add Surgeon General warnings to their products. They slap them on there in all caps with a big box on it. Do you think it's a coincidence that this doesn't improve the readability at all?)
• Linking lines without annotation. (Check out this link for more on this). Particularly pay attention to the graphic from Page 14 in his book for a good example of how linking lines can be annotated to give the chart more meaning. There is also a good example of eliminating boxes around information right below that on the page.)
  

Make the Information Your Interface

According to Tufte, "The best design can do is get out of the way." He suggested making the information the interface and was very happy to see gadgets with touch interfaces take off, eliminating the use of a mouse and the clutter of scroll bars.

For your viewing pleasure, check out this presentation Tufte made to Apple on where the iPhone's interface was strong and where it could use some work. And then, head over to Engadget to check out this post on a concept phone by Nokia. While still just a concept, the idea that this is the future of design and making the information the interface is pretty exciting.

***

About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Convert Captivate Quizzes to HTML5 Format

In September, Adobe made the HTML5 Converter for Adobe Captivate available on Adobe Labs.

According to Adobe, "With HTML5 Converter, you can easily convert Adobe Captivate generated SWF to HTML5 format and repurpose your countless hours of interactive trainings for mobile devices that do not support Flash content."

Adobe said "We received a lot of positive feedback from customers who were looking for an HTML5 solution and tons of requests for supporting more objects and functionalities, from which quiz and LMS support topped the charts."

You'll be happy to learn that a second version of the HTML5 converter is available and it supports the three main question types: Multiple Choice, True/False and HotSpot. Learn more here.

Adobe Captivate 5: Advanced Actions

So, you're pretty good with Adobe Captivate. But are you a bit worried about tackling Captivate's advanced actions feature? If so, this course is for you!

By the end of this highly-interactive, instructor-led class you will be able to create a Captivate project that contains actions and variables that will allow you to create this kind ofeLearning lesson.

Sprinkled throughout this advanced actions class will be best practices for creating actions, useful tips and tricks and pitfalls to avoid.

Instructor: Lori Smith

Click here to learn more or to sign up.

Adobe Captivate: Update Image Usage Project-Wide

by Kevin Siegel

Adding an image onto a Captivate slide is as simple as choosing Insert > Image. Once the image has been added to the project, adding additional instances of the image to more slides is a snap. All that you need to do is go to the Library (Window menu) and drag the image onto a slide.

Once an image is imported into a Captivate project, a link is automatically established between the version of the image within Captivate and its source file. If the source file is ever edited, every instance of the image in your project will usually get the update automatically.

I've come across instances where the automatic update feature didn't work. In that case, getting the updated image is still easy enough... right-click the image on the Library and choose Update to open the Update Library Items dialog box.

Click the Update button and every instance of the image within your project will be updated to match the source document.

Note: You can update multiple Library assets by shift-clicking or control-clicking items and then showing the Update Library Items dialog box. If you don't want to update some of the selected items, you can remove the check mark to the left of an items name.

***

Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

Adobe FrameMaker: Shading Behind a Paragraph

by Barb Binder

The question of adding shading to paragraph text comes up in my online FrameMaker class every now and then. In the past (meaning FrameMaker 9 and earlier), the solution was always a single-cell table. In FrameMaker 10, you have a choice: you can simply add a background color behind the paragraph text, or use a single-cell table. Which one is right for you?

FrameMaker 10: Adding a Background Color

1. Create a new paragraph format. I called mine Note.
   
   
2. Enable the Background Color checkbox in the Default Font properties sheet in Paragraph Designer and click Update All.
   
   Note: You may have to reduce the line spacing to remove white space between the lines of text within the paragraph.
   
   
   
   The resulting paragraph using Background Color:
   
   

FrameMaker 10 & Earlier: Creating a Single-Cell Table

1. Create a new paragraph format. I called mine Note2.
   
   
2. Select the paragraph and choose Table > Convert to Table.
   
   
3. Select Treat Each Paragraph As: A Cell with the Number of Columns set to 1. Heading Rows should be set to 0.
   
   
   
   
4. Click the Convert button.
   
   
5. Resize the table to fit the column width.
   
   
6. With your cursor still in the table, create a new Table format. I called mine ShadingTable.
   
   
7. Turn off the Table Title, set your Left & Right margins, set all of the rules to None and set the First 1 Row Shading to the color of your choice.
   
   
   
   
8. Click the Update All button.
   
   
9. The result using a single-cell table:
   
   

Comparing the results of both techniques, I think the single cell table looks better. Using a table format, we have control over the cell margins and I think that's going to provide the better solution.

In either case: don't forget to add the lead-in text to your paragraph tag so that it will appear automatically whenever you use that paragraph format. 

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

***

Looking to learn Adobe FrameMaker We offer Beginner and Advanced classes.

PowerPoint 2010: Animating the Pieces of a Grouped Object as a Whole

by AJ George

Last week I was revamping the presentation accompanying our Online Trainer Training: Engaging the Virtual Learner class when I ran into a bit of an animation shortcoming in PowerPoint. I wanted to animate the boat below so it "sailed" onto the slide.

 

 

Adding the animation effect was not a problem. I had the shapes grouped in one overall boat shape and selected Animations > Add Animation > Entrance > Fly In. Then from Animations > Effect Options, I selected From Right.

The problem was that after the boat "flew" in, I wanted little people to appear on the boat. For this to look best, I wanted part of the front of the boat, but not other parts, to overlap the people so they appeared to actually be on the hull of the boat like the image below.

 

To achieve this effect I would need to ungroup the drawing. However, once the drawing is ungrouped it loses its animation properties. If all the ungrouped pieces are selected and then the animation is applied, they will all fly in from the same place at the same time, regardless of their ending position, looking less like a boat sailing in and more like a boat exploding in reverse.

Here's the solution.

1. Assemble the pieces of the drawing, like in the first boat above.
   
   
2. Select all the pieces and group them ([Ctrl] [G]).
   
   
3. Copy ([Ctrl] [C]) and paste ([Ctrl] [V]) the drawing.
   
   
4. Apply the desired animation to the original boat (Animations > Add Animation > Entrance) and position it in its ending position.
   
   
5. Add a discreet exit animation to the original boat (Animations > Add Animation > Exit > Disappear).
   
   
6. On the animation pane (if you don't see this, select Animations > Animation Pane to view it now), click the down-arrow next to the boat drawing's exit animation and select Start After Previous.
   
   
7. Move the copy of the boat so that it exactly overlaps the original.
   
   
8. Ungroup the copy ([Ctrl] [Shift] [G]). Do not click anywhere else on the slide, so the pieces in the copy will all remain selected.
   
   Note: If the notion of keeping the pieces of the copy separate from the original sounds daunting to you, check out this article on using PowerPoint's selection pane. Naming all of the elements on your slide will help you keep them straight. Additionally, you can use the selection pane to temporarily hide things if they are in your way.
   
   
9. Add a discreet entrance animation to all of the copy's pieces (Animations > Add Animation > Entrance > Appear).
   
   
10. On the animation pane, hold down the [Shift] key while you select the first and last piece of the ungrouped boat on the list.
    
    
11. Click the down-arrow next to the first selected item and choose Start with Previous.

You have now set up the slide so that the grouped image of the boat first sails in, disappears and then, as it is disappearing, all of the ungrouped pieces of the same image appear.

Since you set the animation to disappear at the same time the pieces appear, your viewers will not notice that there are actually two boats on the screen. You will now be able to layer in other images to the drawing, such as the little people.

***

About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Online Trainer Training: Engaging the Virtual Learner

Published reports say "the average student in online learning conditions perform better than those receiving face-to-face instruction." That's encouraging news for trainers and training companies looking to offer classes online.

Before jumping into the online training world with both feet, consider this: the world is littered with online courses that fail. Why? Typically, online classes that do not succeed are dull and far from interactive. The simple fact is this: if you don't quickly and constantly engage your students, you've lost them.

During this live, 3-hour online training event you will learn how to facilitate online (synchronous) training classes. You will be introduced to the best practices for leading an online training class and the hardware, software and venture capital you will need to get started.

Who should attend this class? If you are a current trainer, training manager or are curious how online training classes work, this class is for you!

Instructor: Kevin Siegel

Click here to learn more or to sign up.

Adobe Captivate: Understand Cache and Possibly Save Some Cash

by Kevin Siegel

I first ran this article more than a year ago. In the past few weeks, I've received several emails about reviving corrupt projects and the role of the Project Cache folder. I felt it important to rerun the original article now, updated a bit for Captivate 5.5.

Note: Before ever clicking the Clear Cache button shown in the image below, please read through this entire article. A few moments spent now will save you a tremendous amount of heartache later.

After starting Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5, take a moment to display the Preferences (via the Edit menu if you are using a PC or the Adobe Captivate menu if you are on a Mac) and select the Global Category (General Settings in Captivate 5.5).

You will see two options in the Default Locations area: Publish at and Project Cache. The Publish At option makes sense (you can specify where your projects are published), but the role of that pesky Project Cache is about as clear as mud.



According to the folks at Adobe, the Project Cache folder will house components of all of your projects until you click the Clear Cache button. The cached projects can make the process of opening, saving and working on a project faster than what one experienced with older versions of Captivate.

Of course, you shouldn't confuse the Project Cache with the Generate Project Backup option, which is also one of the Preferences. The Generate Project Backup feature is a holdover from the previous version of Captivate. If enabled, Generate Project Backup creates a complete backup copy of your project every time you close the working project.

Should the Captivate project become corrupt, or get misplaced, and you have the backup file, change the name of the backup file to name.cp (if you are using Captivate 4) or name.cptx (if you are using Captivate 5) and you're all set.

Of course, if you don't have a project backup and the only version of your project refuses to open, the cached version of the project just might save your bacon. Assuming you know the location of your project cache folder, you might be able to resurrect a project by following the steps below (the xxx in the example below will be different on your system).

Note: Do not delete your Cache folder (or click the Clear Cache button in the image above). Without the contents of the Cache folder, the steps below will not work.

Special thanks to fellow Captivate developer Rod Ward, Director of Infosemantics, who had the misfortune (or fortune, depending on how you look at the world) of working with a Captivate 5 project that refused to open. Rod used these steps and was able to get back in the game.

1. Find the project cached folder (for example, C:\Users\your name\Documents\Adobe Captivate Cached Projects\CPDxxxxx\db).
   
   Keep in mind that this is the default location of the cached project and you can change this via the Global Preferences as mentioned above.
   
   The folder will contain the following:
   
   A folder called Compressed_data. (This folder will contain several cpd files.)
   
   A folder called Objects. There should be a file within the folder called objects.cpo. The size of this file should be greater than 0 kb.
   
   A folder called uncompressed_data.
   
   A file called audio.cpad.
   
   A file called info.cpi.
   
   A file called text.cptd.
   
   A file called thumbnails.cpth.
   
   
2. Select the files named above and use them to create a zip file.
   
   Note: There may be other folders and files in the db folder mentioned above. Be careful not to include any other files in the zip other than those listed above. According to Rod, "the other files that might be there seem to be files used in locking the project so that you cannot inadvertently edit two of them at the same time."
   
   
3. Change the extension of the zip file to cptx and the file should open in Captivate 5 (5.5).
   
   "Captivate 5 (5.5) saves one of these db folders each and every time you save a CP5 project file," said Rod. "If you don't have success with the first one you try (possibly because it is too corrupted), you can always try another one further down the list by looking at the time the folder was added."
   
   Rod went on to say: "The naming structure of the folders provides no clue as to which CP project corresponds to which cached folder. If you happen to be working on several projects simultaneously, it can take a bit of digging to find the one that you want. You basically have to keep creating and opening these zips until you get lucky. This of course is not a problem if you know the exact time when you happened to be saving a particular project."

***

Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

Training: The Value of Assessments

by Jennie Ruby

Very few readers commented on my recent question about course assessments. Although I do know of at least one training company that offers assessments and feedback after the class, I am deducing that conducting assessments is not the norm. I have read a couple of articles--and one book--saying that we will need to start proving that our training is effective by providing after-the-class assessment. Training on Trial, by Jim D. Kirkpatrick and Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick, published in 2010, makes this case.

According to their scheme, which they call the Kirkpatrick Business Partnership Model, there are four levels of results that can be assessed: Reaction, Learning, Behaviors, and Results. The class evaluation students fill in immediately after a class measures what they call "reaction" only. The other levels of assessment are largely left undone.

To begin to tap into these additional levels of assessment, we have to go back to the books and clearly define the goals of the training, and then assess whether measurable results have occurred. Have the students absorbed the material in a measurable way? Have they adopted new behaviors? And finally, have those new behaviors resulted in the business results that were the ultimate goal of the training?

One of our readers did talk about exactly this process of defining clear objectives and then observing behaviors:

Before you can discuss assessment, you have to go back to the objectives. If you have stated the objectives in behavioral terms you can readily determine whether those behaviors (or a simulation of those behaviors) can be assessed online.

Examples:

• Objective is to know whether the hemoglobin level of a potential blood donor is acceptable for donating. This objective can be easily assessed through simulations (e.g., "You just performed a finger stick on Geri, a potential donor. The result was xxx. What should you do?")
• Objective is to demonstrate effective listening skills during a simulated conversation with an irate customer. You could test whether the learner knows facts about active listening, but that isn't what your objective set out to do. You cannot assess the objective without watching the learner perform.
  
  Andrea Mitchell

Perhaps this kind of assessment is needed only for certain kinds of learning. But reading Training on Trial certainly gave me a lot to think about in my own training endeavors. If you have an opinion on the Kirkpatricks' work or on other aspects of how and whether we need to do assessments of training success, we would love to hear from you.

***

About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing. Jennie is currently teaching two classes for IconLogic: Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts and Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts.

Live Training vs. eLearning: Which is Better? The Results Part II

by Jennie Ruby

Last week we focused on the benefits of classroom training. This week, I planned to focus on eLearning or asynchronous learning alone. However, as I reviewed the responses from readers over the past two weeks, I found that far more readers favored a combination of classroom or instructor-led methods and eLearning.

Some additional thoughts on the benefits of classroom training came in this week. One reader tells us that surveys show that classroom training is preferred by learners:

"As a global organization, we have encountered the e-Learning vs. classroom battle as well....results from internal surveys have shown that the preferred method of learning is via classroom training." Christine Grauer

Another reader gives us reasons students like having an instructor with them:

"I was a college lecturer for over 11 years teaching computer graphics. I then set-up my own computer training company 20 years ago. I have found in my experience that delegates prefer to have a live person in front of them, either demonstrating or going through exercises with them, so that at any point they have a problem, I am there to help.

They can ask questions, I can show the group or individual why something didn't work for them etc. The number of times I have had delegates have an A HA moment never ceases to amaze me." Neil W Mason

Mason goes on to tells us that "eLearning and videos are fine as a backup or as an aid after the initial training." Whether used before or after live training, e-Learning is seen as providing variety to learners that are diverse in their needs and learning styles:

"Our company uses both instructor-led webinars and a self-paced video library as key components in the learning process. Some people seem to learn better one way or the other based on their personal learning style --for example [they may be] a take charge self-paced kind of person versus someone who needs the commitment of a specific class time and ability to ask questions. My personal feeling is that a combination is the two is best." Phil Eschtruth Harrison

"I've been a trainer for many years, in areas ranging from competitive equestrian sport to computer software skills. If there is one thing that I have learned, it's that learners range wildly in temperament, and one size will never fit all. The best form of training - be it online or in the classroom (or even in the arena!) - is that which allows for the most flexibility in pace, depth and interaction." Lia Scott

Another Skills & Drills reader describes how a combined system can work:

"In fact [students] can take the courses at their own pace, at their office, or from home. No need for [them] to travel, no need for an instructor to travel. Just need an instructor available to answer questions, and this can be done remotely. Students can call in to a help desk or the instructor can set up a time to meet with the students via conference call at a set day and time and answer any questions the students may have." One of our readers

"Our department developed system training using Captivate. We developed both demos and simulations. The instructor is in the classroom [and] provides a lecture, then the students complete a Captivate Demo. [After that,] the students complete a Captivate simulation. So in this situation ... there can be both e-Learning and instructor-led training being done in the classroom." One of our readers

Similarly, the combination of television and webinar could be a model for combining computer-based training and instructor interaction:

"You look at Oprah the last few nights with her Lifeclass on TV (could be a 15 minute CBT!) followed by a live webinar on Facebook -- [which] answers questions, many [viewers send in] as they are watching her TV program. I think this is the wave of the future. ... I think there are very few activities that can only be done in a classroom." Denise Farrar

Other new training uses newer technologies:

"Adults down the road are going to be more attuned and inclined to learn via tablets. It's more fun than trooping off to a classroom and passively listening to an instructor without any control. The student has control over the online training experience and, eventually, there will be a computerized instructor that will answer questions posed by students similar in the way the new Siri answers questions posed by IPhone 4S users." John Schuetze

The cost of classroom training may not always be able to compete with the economies of scale achieved by e-Learning:

"For many companies, classroom training is becoming a luxury, one that not everyone can afford. There are also constraints: it's not cost effective to do classes with just a few people ... sometimes travel costs are barriers to customers/clients, time zones come into [conflict], there are also licensing issues with some types of classroom training. So, for us, the next best thing is interactive software training. We offer task-based tutorials on how to learn our software. Some of our software packages have these tutorials built in....

"Also, many learners today are more comfortable learning via online or e-Learning and don't want to sit through longer classes when they can go at their own pace through asynchronous e-Learning. They see it as more efficient for them. If we can make the e-Learning interactive enough to give them that hands-on experience, then the training can be very effective. Over the past several years, we've added more and more e-Learning tutorials and less classroom training." Tracey Stokely

And eLearning may be especially appropriate for certain kinds of learning, such as computer applications:

"Most clients prefer the classroom environment for content related to machinery operations and maintenance. On the flip side, most clients are happy to go the eLearning route for content related to software or computer systems." Sanju

For now, it looks like the combination of training methods is the way many companies are going. But one additional reason some companies prefer classroom training is the need for assessment of learning.

A classroom trainer can often tell whether the students have reached the learning objectives--at least during the class. Can we provide this kind of assurance through some combination of eLearning and a Learning Management System? Does clicking through a Captivate module make for a fully-trained operator? My question this week is: Are you doing assessments of skills, knowledge, and/or application after training? Do online quizzes fill this bill? Does sitting through a class mean success? We would love to hear from you about testing, assessment, or skills ratings you are doing or seeing your clients do.

***

About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing. Jennie is currently teaching two classes for IconLogic: Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts and Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts.

PowerPoint 2010: Creating a Spinning Animation

by AJ George

Have you ever tried to use PowerPoint to create a spinning animation (such as the ticking hands of a clock)? If so, you may have gotten frustrated and quit because the most logical animation to use--the spin animation--spins objects from their center axes. To illustrate, let's say you made a clock, and it looks like the example below.

 

If you apply the Spin animation (Animations > Add Animation > Emphasis > Spin) to the minute hand you will see that it spins from its center axis, as opposed to the base. Rather than rotating from the center of the clock, it ends up looking something more like the clock below.

 

To work as planned, here's what you do.

1. Select the item you want to spin from its base, the minute hand in this example. (Ensure that the graphic is ungrouped by clicking it and pressing [Ctrl] [Shift] [G] on your keyboard.)
2. Copy the graphic ([Ctrl] [C]).
3. Paste the graphic ([Ctrl] [V]).
4. Ensure the duplicate graphic is selected and flip it vertically (Drawing Tools Format > Rotate > Flip Vertically).
5. Flip the duplicate horizontally (Drawing Tools Format > Rotate > Flip Horizontally).
6. Use the arrow keys to line up the bases of the clock hands.
   
   
   
   
7. Format the duplicate clock hand to have no fill (right-click the duplicate and choose Format Shape > Fill > No Fill).
8. Format the duplicate clock hand to have no line (right-click the duplicate and choose Format Shape > Line Color >No Line).
   
   The duplicate clock hand should now be invisible.
9. Hold down the [Shift] key while selecting the original and the duplicate clock hands.
10. Group the clock hands ([Ctrl] [G]).
11. Add the Spin animation to the grouped shape (Animations > Add Animation > Emphasis > Spin).
    
    When your clock hands spin now they will do so properly and look more like the image below.
    
    

***

About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Adobe Captivate 5.5: Lowering the Size of Published SWFs

by Kevin Siegel

I often hear from Captivate developers who are required to output smaller and smaller SWFs, while making their lessons more and more interactive. Fortunately, adding interactivity to a lesson does not negatively impact the size of the published SWF. Rather, imported assets such as audio, video and images are the main culprits behind SWF bloat.

There are some things that you can do while working in Captivate that may lower the size of the published SWF. Here are a few of my favorites:

Shorten the Lesson

Ideally, none of your lessons (modules) play for more than 5 minutes. However, if you can trim the lesson down to 2-3 minutes of playtime, you'll save on SWF file size. More, but smaller lessons are better than fewer, larger lessons. As a bonus to smaller SWFs, shorter lessons will allow your learners to move through the modules fast--something that all eLearning developers should make a priority.

Use Fewer Slides

Keep the number of slides in your Captivate project as low as possible. Simply put, the more slides in your lesson, the larger the published lesson will be, especially if your lessons are larger (a large width and/or height) and you captured pixel-heavy backgrounds.

Use Less Audio

I'm a huge fan of adding audio effects and voiceover audio to a lesson. However, nothing will bloat a published SWF quite like audio. If you need to use audio, check out the next section.

Use a Lower Audio Bitrate

The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality of your audio. However, since most people will be consuming your published content using a system with something less than high fidelity audio capabilities, consider a bitrate of 64kbps or lower.

Loop Background Audio

If you are going to include background audio, use a tiny portion of the audio file. During the import process, you can elect to loop the audio. The smaller the portion of the background audio used, the smaller the published lesson will be.

Avoid Animations

Adding animations to your lessons is a great idea. However, since the animations will be embedded within the published SWF, they will cause the SWF to bloat.

Avoid FMRs

Full Motion Recordings (FMRs) are videos created by Captivate when you drag your mouse during the recording process. Since FMRs are videos, they'll bloat your published SWF.

Externalize Resources

By default, your Skin, Widgets, FMRs and Animations are embedded in the published SWF. If you externalize them, the published SWF will be much smaller. However, you will now have to keep track of the resources and ensure they are stored in the same folder as the main SWF or they won't appear in your published lesson. You'll find the option to Externalize Resources by choosing File > Publish Settings.

Lower the Size of the SWF During the Publish Process

Earlier I suggested that you avoid or limit the use of audio, FMRs and use as few slides as possible. It's highly unlikely that you will be able to avoid those kind of resources completely (or at all). In that case, you can lower the size of the SWF when you publish.

1. Choose File > Publish Settings and select SWF Size and Quality. Select Compress Full Motion Recording SWF file to compress any SWFs in your lesson.
   
   
2. Drag the slider in the Settings area from High down to Medium or Low. As you do, notice that your Slide Quality Settings will lower to Low(8 bit), your audio quality will lower and the quality of the Jpeg images used in your lesson will lower.
   
   

Note: The lower you drag the Settings slider, the more your SWF will compress. However, the lower you go, the more you run the risk of altering the quality of the lesson's assets so much that the appearance of your lessons will suffer negatively. You can also drag the slider down to Custom and manually set the options for your lesson's resources.

The suggestions above aren't an exhaustive list of possibilities when it comes to lowering the size of your SWF. If you've got some sure-fire techniques to lower the size of your published SWF, feel free to send it to me. I'm happy to post your suggestions here in a future issue.

***

Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

Mac Troubleshooting: Spotty Internet? One Quick Solution

by AJ George

I use Parallels on my iMac with Lion OS X and Windows XP. Generaly speaking, my setup works very well. However, last week my computer was giving me headaches. I could start applications, do my work and send and receive email. However, I could not reliably access the internet.

Webpages would only load after being refreshed 3-5 times, or not at all. Streaming would stop playing right in the middle.

I tried wireless and Ethernet internet connections. I tried Safari and Chrome on the Mac side, Internet Explorer on the Windows side. Nothing seemed to resolve the issue.

Luckily, we have Apple Care so I was able to get some assistance direct from an Apple tech. Here is the simple solution I was given that I thought I would pass along.

1. From the Apple menu, choose Go > Computer.
2. Double-click Macintosh HD.
3. Open the Library folder.
4. Open the Preferences folder.
5. Find the SystemConfiguration folder and drag it to the trash.
6. Restart the computer.

Apparently it is not uncommon for network preferences to become corrupt. Throwing the SystemConfiguration folder away (it will automatically regenerate itself after you restart the computer) is a quick solution.

***

About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Adobe Captivate 5.5: Math Made Easy

by Kevin Siegel

So I'm working with a text caption in Adobe Captivate and the font size is 16 points. I'd like the font size to be twice as big. For many developers, figuring out what the font size should be if it's supposed to be twice as big as 16 points is easy... 16x2=32.

What's that you say? Math isn't your friend... not your thing? Most computers on the face of the Earth have a free, built-in calculator. (On Windows XP, choose Start > Run > Calculator. On Windows 7 or Vista, choose Start and type Calculator into the Search box. On the Mac, press [F4] on your keyboard.) And I'm willing to bet that just about every mobile device and tablet you can buy today has a built-in calculator.

Of course, if you use any of the devices mentioned above to calculate a desired font Size, you'll still need to return to Captivate and type the new Size within Captivate.

You can save a bit of time if you let Captivate do the heavy lifting for you. Here's how...

Select a text caption and, on the Character group, highlight the font size in the Size field as if you were going to type in a specific font Size. However, instead of typing in a specific size, use the standard math operators for multiplication, addition, subtraction or division. You'll find that in addition to calculating the math for you, the desired font size will also be applied to the text within the selected caption.

In the image below, I started with a font size of 108 points. My client wanted the font size to be one-third that size. There was simply no way I was going to be able to quickly do the math in my head. (I know, I know... you could easily do the math in your head... but not me.) No worries... it was a simple calculation on Captivate's Properties panel: 108/3 is 36 points. 

Go ahead and give it a shot on your own. You'll find that you can use an asterisk for multiplication, a forward slash for division and a plus or minus sign for addition or subtraction.

 ***

Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

PowerPoint 2010: I Installed Lion and Now My Shortcuts Don't Work!

by AJ George

Recently I updated my iMac to OS X Lion. I do a lot of work in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 on the Mac by using Parallels. In a previous article I covered how to move objects in PowerPoint less than the standard 6 points using the arrow keys. By holding down the [Ctrl] key in conjunction with a directional arrow key you can move objects 1.25 points at a time instead.

If you, like me, recently upgraded to Lion you may have noticed that this shortcut will no longer work in PowerPoint. Pressing [Ctrl] plus the left arrow key will now move your screen left, to Mission Control. Pressing [Ctrl] plus the right arrow key won't do anything (in PowerPoint anyway). Pressing [Ctrl] plus the up arrow key will take you to Mission Control and pressing [Ctrl] plus the down arrow key will show the desktop.

To reset your shortcuts to the way things worked previously, you will need to adjust your Mac's Preferences.

1. From the top menu bar on your Mac, choose Apple > System Preferences.
2. From the Hardware area, select Keyboard.
3. At the top of the Keyboard dialog box, click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
4. Select Mission Control at the left.
5. On the right, deselect both instances of Mission Control as well Show Desktop.
   
   
   
   Alternately, you could double-click each shortcut and hold down new keys to reset the keyboard shortcut to something that won't interfere with PowerPoint's shortcuts.
   
   Note: If you change your mind about deactivating (or changing) the shortcuts, simply click the Restore Defaults button to put everything back the way it was.

 ***

About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Adobe Captivate 5.5: The Hidden Font Size Menu

by Kevin Siegel

Changing the font size of selected text is a simple thing to accomplish in Captivate. All you need to do is select a text caption (or highlight some text within a text caption). On the Properties panel, Character group, type the desired font size and press [Enter] on your keyboard.

Have you noticed what's missing on the Character group? It appears that you cannot select a font size from a drop-down menu like you can in most other applications.

But looks can be deceiving. While there isn't a traditional font-size drop-down menu, you can in fact scroll through a list of font sizes.

With a text caption selected, move your mouse pointer over the current font Size on the Properties panel (Character group). Don't click inside the Size field... just move your mouse pointer over the field.

Notice that your mouse pointer becomes a hand-mouse pointer and a horizontal arrow. 

With your mouse pointer looking like the image above, drag your mouse right to see larger font sizes; drag your mouse left to see smaller font sizes.

As you drag left or right, the font size will increase or decrease by one point. If you want to use a specific font size, simply stop dragging once the size appears and release the mouse clicker.

Note: The largest font size in Captivate is 720 points; the smallest font size is 1 point.

***

Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

eLearning: Finding Google Images You Can Actually Use

by AJ George

I have previously written about some good, free stock image resources. In response to that article, a reader asked me if the images on these sites were royalty free and could be used in courses that he planned to sell. The short answer is that it's a case-by-case basis. Sometimes you can use the images, but only if you credit the original artist. Other times you can use the image, but not if you're going to sell your eLearning courses. And sometimes it's just really complicated and you would be well served to contact the owner of the image and get permission to use it.

An alternative to this would be to use Google to hunt down images that specifically fit how you're going to use them. I've written about this before, but thought it was worth re-hashing since I am asked this quite often.

While most of the images you find by doing a normal Google image source are NOT okay to use, that doesn't mean all of them are off limits. Here's how to find something you can work with:

1. From Google, click the Images tab at the top of the screen.
   
   
2. Click the Advanced Image Search link to the right of the Search Images button.
3. From the Usage Rights category, click the drop-down menu and notice that you can filter your results to only show images that are "labeled for reuse" and go beyond that to find images that are labeled for "Commercial use" and "Modification."
   
   

This method is a more sure-fire way to be at ease that the images you find are appropriate for your commercial use and modification without stepping on any legal toes. All the same, be sure that for any image you find and plan to use with this method, you check out the source to be sure that the image can be used. If the image is from a Flickr account, for example, there is a section on the bottom right labeled License that will tell you exactly under what conditions you can use the image.

Google put the following warning on their Usage Rights page:

***

About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

 

Live Training vs. eLearning: Which is Better?

by Jennie Ruby

I felt like a video star the other day. Well, at least in a tiny little way. I taught a class a few years ago on upgrading to Windows Vista and Office 2007. It was for a fairly large organization. The section of the class I taught had an attendance of about 40 people, and they had several more sessions scheduled. But I didn't teach them--at least not in person. They videotaped the first session, and although the audio quality their equipment provided was pretty terrible, they used the videos for the remaining sessions, and then continued to use them for new hires for a couple of years afterward. I walked by that company's building the other day, and a stranger said "Hey, Jennie Ruby!"

I think I am still pretty far from needing to wear sunglasses to avoid public recognition, but the incident made me think about how asynchronous learning extends the reach of one trainer. With one day's work, I had trained hundreds of people. However, people in the live seminar were able to ask questions and have them answered, while people who saw only the video did not have that opportunity.

On the other hand, people who saw the video could presumably stop the action, take time to practice the skills being taught, and then re-watch the action if needed. Even just the ability to re-wind and re-watch the action provides added value. That is still far from the interaction and involvement we try to encourage when creating eLearning courses, where we include constant opportunities for learners to practice the skills and actions they need to learn. Nevertheless, asynchronous training has some pretty compelling advantages.

But the reason I am thinking about all of this today is that I was recently asked how to show that live, classroom training still has an advantage over eLearning. What? For years I have seen people struggling to prove the opposite--to prove that eLearning works. And now I was being asked to justify classroom training.

My question for you this week is probably an old, familiar one, but one that comes up in both directions in the training world. Which is better, classroom training/live interactive training or self-paced/asynchronous eLearning?

Are classroom trainers going the way of the dinosaur? Will we ever? Are there different reasons for different kinds of training? Is there room for both? Are there new ways to combine classroom and eLearning modes of training? Are you being asked these kinds of questions in your work?

If you have been dealing with these issues and questions, we would love to hear from you. Whether you have long since reached an opinion, or whether you are doing on-going research about this, I would like to know. I'll share results next week.

***

About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.