I Came, I Saw, I Learned...

Adobe Captivate 4: Training the "Text to Speech" Agents

by Kevin A. Siegel  

As I continue to teach the new Adobe Captivate 4 in my beginner online class, one of the features that is getting the loudest applause is the Text to Speech feature. It's easy to see why... the Text to Speech feature is an easy-to-use utility that will instantly convert written text into audio files. All you have to do is type a slide note, select the note in the Text to speech column (in the notes area at the bottom of the Captivate window), click Convert to speech select a "speech agent," and click OK.







If you've spent any time with the utility, you have probably discovered that the pronunciation of the spoken words isn't always perfect. Unfortunately, if you don't like it, there isn't a pronunciation editor in Captivate that will help, so you're stuck. Bummer! Perhaps things will be better in Adobe Captivate 5.

The end! Have a nice day.

Oh, you were looking for solutions here? In that case, read on.

Believe it or not, there is actually a pronunciation editor for the Text to Speech utility, but it's not part of the Captivate interface and you aren't likely to stumble upon it accidentally.

If you have installed Captivate and the Text to Speech Utility, you'll typically find the tool in the following location:

• Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 4\VT\Kate or Paul (depending on the agent you selected when you recorded)\M16\bin

There is an application hiding in the BIN folder called UserDicEng.exe.



Open UserDicENG.exe and the English User Dictionary Editor will open.

To change the pronunciation of a particular word:

1. Open the unserdict_eng.csv dictionary file
   
   (Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 4\VT\agent\M16\data-common\userdict\)
   
   
2. Click Add word
   
   
3. Type the original word into the Source field
   
   
4. Type the correct word into the Target field using the correct pronunciation (using the letters or the Pronunciation Symbols)
   
   You can always click Read Word to hear the pronunciation of the new, target word.
   
   
   
   
5. Click OK
   
   
6. When satisfied, click the File Save button
   
   
7. Click the Close button
   
   The new pronunciation will be used by your Speech Agent within Captivate the next time you convert text to speech.

 

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Need to learn Adobe Captivate 4 fast? Attend a live, 2-day online training class. Click here for more information.

 

Note: Our new Advanced Captivate 4 class is now posted on our Web site. Click here for more information.

Trivia Question of the Week

Last Week's Question:

 

Globalization is a reality. Many technology companies in the United States are teaming with countries all over the world to develop software and eLearning. India is a main source of labor for these companies.

The United States has just over 300 million citizens. According to a report published by "USA Today," approximately 87 million Americans have college degrees (29 percent). Approximately how many English-speaking college graduates does India have?

Answer: We had a lot of guesses this week but nobody got within 100 million. Believe it or not, there are 300 million English-speaking college graduates in India, one for every man, woman and child in this country. (Source: Rick O'Sullivan, STC's Intercom Magazine, March 2009.)

 

This week's Trivia:

 

Let's assume that you have written some documentation and, when asked about how hard it's going to be for customers to read your text, you reply "a grade level of 8." Simply put, by saying "a grade level of 8," your text should be understood by anyone with an 8th grade education or higher.

Here is this week's trivia: Best-selling writers typically write for which grade level?

The first person to get the answer right will get credit here when we reveal the answer. Got the answer? Email us.

Questions of the Week

Adobe RoboHelp Question: Can I Get Links to Display Navigation Paths?

 

I have a project and some of the topics are linked by hyperlink, but I would like to link them so that they show up as part of the navigation path. Can you tell me the best way to make this happen?  Should I link the topics manually? If so, how do I do that?

Answer

 

You can do what you're asking via breadcrumbs. Simply ensure the topic in question is part of the TOC. Breadcrumbs are automatically added to the top right of your layout when you generate.

 

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Adobe Captivate Question: Customers Don't Have the Player. Now What?

 

I've developed a bunch of eLearning using Captivate. I just found out that a huge chunk of my users don't have the Flash Player. If I understand correctly, without the Player, the SWFs I publish won't play for them. Suggestions?

Answer:

 

Instead of publishing SWFs, you can publish Media (EXEs). When you publish in that format, the Flash Player is bundled into the EXE so your customer won't use a browser to watch your lesson, nor will they need the Flash Player (since it will be included in your EXE).

 

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Adobe Captivate Question: What Can I Do About a Slow Progress Bar?

 

I've been struggling to reduce the delay time after a user answers a question.  Even though one gets the "Correct - Click anywhere to continue" button right away, clicking anywhere results in the progress bar slowly moving forward, but the page doesn't advance.  This also happens on the results page when you click "Continue".  I have the results scored, but not going to a LMS.

 

Answer:

 

Set the action to Go to Next Slide instead of Continue. That will take care of the progress bar appearing to take too long to progress through the lesson.

 

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Adobe RoboHelp Question: Can I Add a Stop Printing JavaScript to all Topics?

 

Can I include a JavaScript in every topic in my RoboHelp project?  My company wants me to figure out a way to prevent, or at least discourage, employees from printing the topics.

 

Answer:

 

Your request sounds reasonable. While I have never tried it, the links below (from the RoboHelp forums) offer hope:

• 1 and 2

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Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.

Two New Online Classes

Upgrading from Adobe Captivate 3 to version 4

Adobe Captivate 4 is jammed full of new goodies... you may not be able to find them all without a little help.

 

Join me for a 3-hour, live online training event and learn how to use the new Captivate 4 features--and where the Captivate 3 features you've grown to know and love have gone.

 

To learn more about this class, click here.

Advanced Adobe Captivate 4

So, you've been working with Adobe Captivate 4 for a while; now you want to see what else the program can do to push your eLearning to the next level! Great! This class is for you.

To learn more about this class, click here.

Adobe Acrobat 9: Adding Images

by David R. Mankin  

Here's the problem: you have a PDF file. The source document is not available, but there is a last minute edit needed. You need an image added to the PDF. If the original document were at hand, you could open it up with the file's native application and import a new graphic where needed. Just re-convert to PDF with the image in place and your work is done.

Without the original document, you'll need to edit the PDF file itself. How can this be done? There is an Export command under Acrobat's File menu, but no Import. Hmmm... InDesign calls the command required to import an image onto a page 'Place'. But digging through Acrobat's menus doesn't uncover a Place command either.

Acrobat 9 Professional does have a Place command, but you won't find it under any menu. Here's the trick. With your document open, and with the spot you wish to add the image in your view panel, switch over to Acrobat's Touchup Object Tool (it's the right-most tool on the Advanced Editing Toolbar).



Your cursor will become a black arrow with a small square off to its side. Right-click to bring up a shortcut menu. THERE you will find the Place Image command.




Select Place Image and navigate through your file system for the desired image file.

For this example, I used a .png file to take advantage of the file format's transparency capabilities. Once the image is placed, it remains selected, scalable and moveable with the Touchup Object Tool. Once satisfied, you can switch over to the Hand Tool and click on the page to deselect the image. You can tweak the image at any time by using the Touchup Object Tool.

 

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Want to learn more about Adobe Acrobat? Attend Dave's live, 2-day online Acrobat class. Click here for more details.

 

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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.

Editing With MS Word 2007: Version Control

by Jennie Ruby 

Last week I talked about effective naming strategies as the first step to an editing with Microsoft Word 2007 workflow. This week, I'd like to move to the next most import aspect: Version Control.

Clear naming and separate folders may not be enough to guarantee that you don't have version control problems. Version control problems occur when two different people make changes to two different copies of a file at the same time. For example, you may have Smith Revised stored in the shared network drive. A colleague might make a copy of the file and take it home on a laptop computer to make changes. Meanwhile, you may open the Smith Revised file and make some changes of your own. Now there are two copies of the same file, with the same name, with different changes in them.

Word does have the Compare tool to allow combining the changes, but the additional work and possible confusion are worth avoiding if you can.

Methods for ensuring version control range from simple communication ("Hey, everybody, I'm taking the Smith file home-don't work on it anymore until I bring it back!") to sophisticated document management systems. Document management systems are preprogrammed databases that allow you to "check out" a document while you are working on it so that no one else can make changes. Some examples of document management systems are Microsoft's SharePoint, Xerox's Docushare, and EMC Corporation's Documentum.

But short of purchasing software or signing on to one of these services, you could consider using a simple renaming system to indicate files that are in use by someone else. Have everyone who might work on a file agree that before copying it to a laptop or elsewhere you rename it with the letter x in front of the name, like this: xSmith Revised. The x indicates to everyone not to work on that file. When the person who checked out the file copies it back to the shared drive, he or she renames it again to remove the x.

As long as the document remains on a shared network drive, Word will automatically prevent two people from working on it at the same time. If you try to open a document that is already being used by someone, you receive a message that the file is in use. You then have the choice of working on it anyway and having Word Merge the changes when the document becomes available or looking at a read-only copy. It is also possible to open a read-only copy and resave the file with a different name in order to make changes, but if you did that, you would be deliberately causing version control problems. So of course you wouldn't do that.

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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. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

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Join Jennie in our online classes (she'll be teaching two upcoming classes for IconLogic): Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts and Editing with Microsoft Word 2007.

Adobe PhotoShop CS4: Fixing Blemishes

by Barbara Binder 

Graffiti. I expect to find it in the big cities, and even occasionally in small towns. But here we are outside the very small town of Moab, Utah and it's everywhere. Even in the National Parks.

Okay, so most of the "graffiti" we found was rock art by the Anasazi and the Fremont tribes, like this ancient Indian bear petroglyph on Potash Road. But check out the signatures in the lower right corner. Do you really think the artists were Seth and Vicky?

I love this bear, but am not so thrilled to see the recently-added signatures. Luckily for me, it's an easy fix in Photoshop CS4. Photoshop offers a number of flaw-correction tools for removing blemishes. Let's try the Healing Brush on Seth and Vicky's names.

1. Open up an image with a blemish you would like to remove
   
   
   
2. Select the Healing Brush
   
   
   
3. Alt-click on a similar, unflawed area to set a sampling point. (I chose the relatively unblemished area above the letters "SE".)
   
   
   
4. Using short paint strokes, press and drag your mouse to paint over the flaw.

The result is nothing short of magical:

 
The Healing brush samples the texture, color and luminosity of an area, and then blends the sampled pixels into the area you are painting? Intrigued? Come learn a little bit more about retouching in Photoshop CS4 by attending my FREE online seminar. You can learn about the seminar in the article block below.

 

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Want to take a 2-day, live, online Adobe PhotoShop with Barb? Click here.

 

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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 in the world.

Adobe Captivate 4: User-Defined Variables

by Kevin A. Siegel  

Last week I covered System Variables, which grab data from your project or computer and allow you to manipulate it. System Variables come with every new Captivate project. This week, I'm going to address User-defined Variables.

User-defined Variables are typically created to store data (created on the fly by the Captivate developer) that will be used throughout the project. For example, you could create a variable that gathers a user's first name. Once the data has been collected by the variable, the name can be displayed over and over again in the project.

During the steps that follow I'll teach you how to create a User-Defined Variable that will personalize your eLearning lesson for every user. When user's open your lesson, they'll be prompted to type in their first name. From that point on, the name they type will appear throughout the project. Cool!

1. Go to a slide near the beginning of your project and insert a text caption that encourages users to type their first name into a box on the slide
   
   
   
   
   
2. Create a User-defined variable by choosing Project > Actions
   
   
3. On the Variables tab, select User from the Type drop-down menu
   
   
4. Click the Add New button at the right of the dialog box
   
   
5. In the Name field, type a name (in the image below, the variable has been called v_Name)
   
   
   
   
   
6. Click the Save button
   
   
7. Click the Close button
   
   You can now attach the variable to a text entry box. If users type in the text entry box, the data can be used later in the project.
   
   
8. On the same slide containing the text caption from step 1 above, insert a text entry box by choosing Insert > Standard Objects > Text Entry Box
   
   
9. From the Options area, deselect Validate user input
   
   
   
   If you were interested in checking what a user typed in the text entry box and ensuring they typed something specific, you would certainly leave this option selected. However, you might want every user to type their first name... since every user will be unique, there would not be anything to validate.
   
   
   
10. On the Advanced tab, select your variable from the Variable Associated drop-down menu
    
    
    
    
    
11. The last step will be to go to a slide later in the project and insert the variable directly within a text caption (use the Insert Variable button) as shown in the picture below
    
    
    
    
    
    
12. Preview the project. When you get to the slide containing the text entry box, type your first name as instructed. And when you get to the slide containing the variable you'll see that the name you typed has been collected and stored by Captivate and appears in the text caption automatically.

 

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Need to learn Adobe Captivate 4 fast? Attend a live, 2-day online training class. Click here for more information.

 

Note: Our new Advanced Captivate 4 class is now posted on our Web site. Click here for more information.

Trivia Question of the Week

Last Week's Question:

 

Which country boasts the highest number of training days per employee per year?

 

The correct answer was South Africa at 16 days (source: ASTD's T&D Magazine, April 2009). Congratulations to Jennifer Tackitt who was the first person to send us the correct answer. Well done Jennifer!

 

This week:

 

Globalization is a reality. Many technology companies in the United States are teaming with countries all over the world to develop software and eLearning. India is a main source of labor for those companies.

 

The United States has just over 300 million citizens. According to a report published by "USA Today," approximately 87 million Americans have college degrees (29 percent). Approximately how many English-speaking college graduates does India have?

 

 

The first person to get the answer right will get credit here when we reveal the answer. Got the answer? Email us.

Questions of the Week

eLearning Question: Should The Audio Match the Text?

 

I'm creating interactive simulations in Captivate. I'm going to include narration. In your opinion, should the narration that the user will hear exactly match the text captions they will see?

 

Answer

 

Best practice where audio is concerned is to ensure it does not match the text captions 100% or else your users will get lulled to sleep. Typical audio is more flushed out than the text captions, which follow the same general rule as bulleted text.

 

I would suggest keeping the audio clips short and importing them onto slides along with no more than one text caption and an interactive object.

 

If the audio needs to go on and on, I would suggest splitting the audio into smaller chunks and making more slides. This will result in faster production times on your end, a snappier final product for your learners and one that will stream better over the Web.

 

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Adobe Captivate Question: Any Idea Why My Preview Doesn't Work?

 

I've created a course with 20 questions using Captivate 3.  The SWF file functions fine, but when I open it with the corresponding .htm file, it freezes up a few questions in.  To make it more strange, it appears to only do this on my PC.  When I place the course on the Intranet with a link to the htm, it appears to function fine on several other PCs, except mine. Have you ever encountered this?

 

Answer:

 

It sounds like you've got a Flash Security issue. Click here to see an article on my BLOG that should help.

 

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Adobe Captivate Question: Templates in Captivate... What's the Difference?

 

While a Captivate Project Template allows one to define a standard structure and layout, does it also define visual properties for the included objects (i.e. captions, highlight boxes, etc.) or does that require a Design Template be created and then applied to the Project Template?

 

Answer:

 

The two templates are often confused.

 

Project Templates are used as you create new projects. They allow you to start with consitent objects in your project and pre-determine the size of the recording area before you record. Typical project templates contain splash screens, placeholder text areas and animations.

 

Design Templates allow you to ensure consitency of objects in existing projects. For instance, you can set up the appearance of highlight boxes in a Design Template and apply those attributes to existing Captivate projects (just in case a rogue developer has decided to use their own colors in their highlight boxes).

 

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Adobe RoboHelp Question: Is There A Best Practice for Importing Word Images?

 

I've imported several Word documents into RoboHelp that contain screen shots with text boxes and arrows.

 

After I imported the Word documents and generated the topic in RoboHelp, the text boxes and arrows are not positioned where they should be. It appears the users placed the images in Word, screen shot one image, text box second image, arrow third image.

 

I tried to recreate the page in RoboHelp by just retaining the screen shot, then creating a positioned text box and inserting an arrow image in the box with the text in RoboHelp. Alas, when I generate the topic the text box does not remain anchored where it should.

 

What am I doing wrong? Short of having to do a screen capture that contains all three images in Word (without layering), can I get this to work in RoboHelp?

 

Answer:

 

Word objects do not import correctly into RoboHelp (when I say object, I mean screen captures teamed with Word's drawing objects such as arrows and callouts). In the past, I have selected the objects, grouped them, cut them to the clipboard and repasted into the Word documents as a single object (via Paste Special). If memory serves, that took care of the problem once the document was imported into RoboHelp. In addition, your images need to be inline with the text and paragraphs, not floating like you would for a layout.

 

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Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.