A few weeks ago I introduced you to Project Templates, which are perfect for ensuring consistency for all new projects. As a review, when you base a new project on a template, specific properties of the new project will be pre-determined (such as the recording size, skin used, number of default slides, etc.).
However, changes made to the template down the road will have no bearing on projects based on the template (there is no link between the template and its projects).
In contrast to Project Templates, Design Templates allow you to ensure consistency 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).
Create a Design Template
On the Captivate Welcome screen, click Design Template from the Create Template area.
An untitled template is created (named untitled.cpdt). The template contains seven slides. Save the Design template to a folder on your hard drive.
Move from slide to slide and notice that just about every object you can add to a Captivate slide is represented in the template.
Explore the menus in the Design template and you'll notice that the menu items are much more limited than in a typical Captivate project. In addition, you cannot insert any objects such as animations or text captions (there isn't even an Insert menu). And there isn't a Timeline or Library window. At first glance, there doesn't appear to be much you can do at all with this pesky template. Ah, but looks can be deceiving. The goal for working effectively with a Design template is to make objects in the template look the way you want. After that, it's a simple matter of applying the Design template to your existing projects.
Format the appearance of highlight boxes within the Design template
Go to Slide 5 of the template. There is a sample highlight box on the slide.
Right-click the highlight box and choose Properties. Change the Frame color, Frame width and Fill color as you see fit and then click OK.
Format the appearance of text captions within the Design template
Go to Slide 1 of the template. There is a sample text caption on the slide. It's transparent and using a specific font, size and color.
Right-click the Text Caption and choose Properties. Change the Caption type, Font and other attributes as you see fit and then click OK. Then save and close the template.
Apply a Design Template to a Project
Open an existing Captivate project or create a new one. Spend a few moments insert/formatting some Text Captions and Highlight boxes. Do your worst... try to make the objects look as "interesting" as possible.
When finished with your masterpiece, choose Window > Design Template.
The Design template panel appears at the right of your window. Click the Browse Template button (located at the bottom of the Design Template panel) and open the Design Template you created earlier. (Once opened, the template will appear in the Available Templates list.)
Click Apply All from the bottom of the panel. And Bam... the attributes of the objects in the template will be applied to the slide objects in your project.
Explore the project to confirm that changes have been made. Cool! But just as cool as the changes that you might have been expecting in the project, notice that the font used in other objects such as buttons and the failure captions throughout the project have all been updated to match the settings of the corresponding objects in the Design Template.
However, changes made to the template down the road will have no bearing on projects based on the template (there is no link between the template and its projects).
In contrast to Project Templates, Design Templates allow you to ensure consistency 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).
Create a Design Template
On the Captivate Welcome screen, click Design Template from the Create Template area.
An untitled template is created (named untitled.cpdt). The template contains seven slides. Save the Design template to a folder on your hard drive.
Move from slide to slide and notice that just about every object you can add to a Captivate slide is represented in the template.
Explore the menus in the Design template and you'll notice that the menu items are much more limited than in a typical Captivate project. In addition, you cannot insert any objects such as animations or text captions (there isn't even an Insert menu). And there isn't a Timeline or Library window. At first glance, there doesn't appear to be much you can do at all with this pesky template. Ah, but looks can be deceiving. The goal for working effectively with a Design template is to make objects in the template look the way you want. After that, it's a simple matter of applying the Design template to your existing projects.
Format the appearance of highlight boxes within the Design template
Go to Slide 5 of the template. There is a sample highlight box on the slide.
Right-click the highlight box and choose Properties. Change the Frame color, Frame width and Fill color as you see fit and then click OK.
Format the appearance of text captions within the Design template
Go to Slide 1 of the template. There is a sample text caption on the slide. It's transparent and using a specific font, size and color.
Right-click the Text Caption and choose Properties. Change the Caption type, Font and other attributes as you see fit and then click OK. Then save and close the template.
Apply a Design Template to a Project
Open an existing Captivate project or create a new one. Spend a few moments insert/formatting some Text Captions and Highlight boxes. Do your worst... try to make the objects look as "interesting" as possible.
When finished with your masterpiece, choose Window > Design Template.
The Design template panel appears at the right of your window. Click the Browse Template button (located at the bottom of the Design Template panel) and open the Design Template you created earlier. (Once opened, the template will appear in the Available Templates list.)
Click Apply All from the bottom of the panel. And Bam... the attributes of the objects in the template will be applied to the slide objects in your project.
Explore the project to confirm that changes have been made. Cool! But just as cool as the changes that you might have been expecting in the project, notice that the font used in other objects such as buttons and the failure captions throughout the project have all been updated to match the settings of the corresponding objects in the Design Template.
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Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/iconlogic.
Hello, good tutorial but this is the easy stuff... :-)
I am interested in learning how to apply a Project Template to older Captivate projects.
I have created a new template with a new resolution, a top graphical header, and some custom controls. I have about 50 older lessons (or projects) that do not have a template and I would like to apply this new template to them. Is there anyway to do this?
BTW, I have purchased "Adobe Captivate 4: Advanced Training". Does it come with a TypeKey or TypePad account?
Posted by: sc | August 31, 2009 at 06:45 PM
Hi,
we are planning to use the design templates to standardize the output of different people's work in Captivate.
Corporate colors etc are all easliy done. However, we need to use our own standard back & forward buttons as well. It seems they are sort of "embedded# in any design template and not editable.
Do you know how to edit the back & forward buttons in design templates?
Thank you!
Eda COSKUNER
Posted by: Eda Coskuner | September 08, 2009 at 10:50 AM