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J
Jihn5CBB
Participating Frequently
August 17, 2021
Question

SVG Text elements in Captivate 2019

  • August 17, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 493 views

Hi, for slides with lots of text elements using the Captivate Text Caption elemet, my Captivate 2019/OSX was getting quite bogged down. Some slide may have a dozen or more separate text elements. I need to keep the text elements as text so they can be translated to another language later on down the line for other customers. I was going to use Adobe Illustrator to create all the unique text items, import the SVG files into the Captivate library, then place them on the slide. Then later on, another Captivate person would open that Captivate file, click on the desired text piece, check Edit with Adobe Illustrator, and Edit SVG to edit it to read whatever they wanted.  There are a few ways to get an SVG file from an Illustrator file. There is Save As, Export for Screens, Export As, and Save for Web (Legacy), and all have some user selectable settings in addition to the default that pops up. Is there a guide out there so I can make an informend choice as to how to make my SVG files?

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    1 reply

    Lilybiri
    Lilybiri
    Legend
    August 18, 2021

    Personally I always use the Assets export functionality, often to save both as SVG and PNG. Of course I am talking about Illustrator files from which I select parts to save as individual images.  It isi n reality similar to Export for Screens. 

     

    I don't understand why you use Illustrator, especially for translation but that is off topic.

    J
    Jihn5CBBAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    August 18, 2021

    Some slides need to  have 12 or more individual text elements placed on them. If I make all that text for my slide using Captivate Text Caption elements, that many Captivate text elements brings Captivate to its knees. Making the text in Illustrator, and bringing it in as SVG files was a way to make my life easier rather than waiting for extended periods of time watching the beachball spin while Captivate processes. Sometimes it's anywhere from 10 minutes to a half an hour. Our systems guy has verified our Macs have adequate processing power, so it's a Captivate/OSX  issue.

     

    Being able to keep all these separate editable text is necxessary for later translation. How else could I do this?

    Lilybiri
    Lilybiri
    Legend
    August 18, 2021

    OK, seems to be a Mac problem, I am a Windows user. 

    I never use captions, always shapes as text containers, and never had a similar experience. On the contrary, if you have a lot of SVGs on a slide, which need to be evaluated On Enter for the slide, it can take time. Moreover a simple Replay slide is not possible when you use SVGs, you need to re-enter the slide to have them re-evaluuated.

    Translation is much easier when dome with the Word or XML workflow. Having to do this with Illustratot is rather a cumbersome workaround. How did you set up the Illustrator project? Have the text elements on different layers, artboards or combined?

    Beware: I love to use SVGs, but know their limitations. In my workshop about Advanced/Shared action on AEW21 I will use a file with lot of SVGs, images and image used as buttons (which allows more than other button types). I even explained in a blog how to convert Characters from the Illustrated category to SVGs :

    http://blog.lilybiri.com/characters-in-svg-format

     

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