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sigur_rosser
Inspiring
August 11, 2022
Question

I have a need which I need a macro for, or some other automated task

  • August 11, 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 190 views

I need to do some (hopefully) automated edits.

I have let's say a course, it has a few dozen images in the library - however, the images are in bitmap format (BMP), and I want to shrink the size of the BMPs by converting them to jpg while retaining the same pixel height and widths..  Of course just saving them as jpgs will save me all the space I need and then some.

I've managed to create a folder for the course and put the offending BMPs into it.  Ideally, I'd like to run a macro (on either the Captivate Library folder, or my manually created folder, that does a "save as jpg" - doing so retains the same pixel height and widths on the whole image Library.  Getting the jpgs to automatically replace the BMPs in the Library and then of course Captivate screens would be a bonus.  I have done manipulations like this in the past with different authoring tools, yet can't remember what tools I used.  I can probably get what I need however.  Any suggestions to run the entire process as a macro or series of macros?    Thank you!!!

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    3 replies

    RodWard
    Community Expert
    RodWardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 12, 2022

    Other than trying to reduce the file size of your images in the Captivate library is there any other reason you are doing this?  The size of the Captivate CPTX file is of far less importance than the size of the final HTML5 published output.   

     

    Have you reduced the images already down to their smallest required size BEFORE placing them in the CPTX file?  

    That's what reall makes the biggest beneficial impact on the playing experience of the final output, because then the images require less bandwidth.  

     

    BMP formant is (usually) uncompressed which means it's regarded as "lossless" because it preserves all of the visual data.  By contrast, a JPG file uses "lossy" compression, so some data is lost. The JPG created from a BMP might only be 10% of its size, but the compression means you always lose some clarity.   

     

    In most cases, unless you are extremely short of hard drive space to store your CPTX files, it's usually best to keep the assets in lossless formats.  That's why Captivate tends to store images as either PNG or BMP by default, and uses WAV instead of MP3 in the library.

     

    At publish time, Captivate exports your images to JPG and your audio to MP3 to reduce the final output file size, and you can adjust the level of compression according to your needs.  So, I don't really see a huge benefit in moving from lossless to lossy formats in the Library, when the end result of that is that you will be compressing those assets for a second time when you publish. 

    Lilybiri
    Lilybiri
    Legend
    August 11, 2022

    You need at least a bitmap editor, Captivate cannot change a bitmap format.  Do you have Photoshop?

    S
    sigur_rosserAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 11, 2022

    Hi, and thank you for your prompt response.
    Yes, I do have Photoshop and Creative Cloud.
    I found what looks to be like a good software to convert BMP to jpg, though I've had minimal time to sort it out so far.
    I'm also still trying to figure out the most expeditious way to copy the group of files that are the largest and get each course's bigger BMPs into their own folders.

    Again, many thanks.

    Thank you,

    Eric 

     

    Moderator: please don't include personal data in a public forum. I took them out for you.

    S
    sigur_rosserAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 11, 2022

    Sorry, I forgot to mention I am running v2017 on Windows 10

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