Adding branding to project - project size question

If at all possible, try to insist on a simplified branding scheme that works within the existing project. What you're describing will really limit the amount of space that you have available to work with.

If you still must use the branding scheme you described, you must determine a target size for your finished movie and then capture everything in Captivate at that size minus the amount of space needed for the branding and the playbar (assuming you're using a skin). For example, if you want the final movie to be 1000x900, you should capture at 1000x745. This allows for the 120 vertical pixels that your branding will take up, plus the 35 pixel height of the playbar (745+120+35=900 pixels).

NOTE: The example above assumes that your playbar is either at the top or bottom of the movie, which is by far the most common location. You can also make it display on the sides if space is an issue, but to my mind that just looks goofy. :)

When the project is content complete (you want it to be really, really, truly done), use the Resize Project option (Project menu | Resize Project) to make the project bigger to make room for the branding. When doing so, make sure not to change the contents of the movie:

- uncheck the Maintain aspect ratio check box
- select the Keep project the same size and fill background with color option button (and optionally select a background color that you might want to incorporate into the branding)

Since you need differing amounts of space above and below the content, you'll need to resize the project twice: once to put space above and once add space below. On the first pass, make the movie 80 pixels taller and use the Position project dropdown to anchor the content at the bottom. Then, resize again by another 40 pixels and anchor the content at the top. This will give you the 80 pixels at top and 40 pixels at bottom that you need.

Once the movie is resized, add your branding content to the first slide with the "Display for rest of project" option and you're all set.

The reason you want to wait until everything is finalized before resizing is that you'll need to use a separate Captivate file to add new content once the branding is in. Create a new project at the same size as your original project, capture everything there and then copy the content over. This ensures that the new content still leaves room for the branding.

Since vertical space is probably going to be an issue, consider using one of the BMP-based playbar skins; they don't take up as much vertical space and don't stretch to the width of the content. You might even be able to tweak the branding so that the playbar and the branding can coexist in the same area. This means you can take the height of the playbar out of the equation when determining your project dimensions.