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A
Abu_Luke
Participant
June 25, 2009
Question

What is the largest "manageable" size for a captivate project? (I think I've passed it)

  • June 25, 2009
  • 3 replies
  • 2448 views

Problem:

It used to take perhaps 5 minutes for the Captivate software to open and the project to actually load. Now, Captivate loads (menu screen) but the project does not open - it just sits there. When I close the software it asks if I want to save changes to my project, as if it had opened.

Background:

The captivate project that is roughly 260MB. This is after having copied and pasted all the slides to a new project to reduce the file size (several times) -- because of unexplainable ballooning of the file size. I am using a computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.35 GHZ processor with 4GB or RAM.

Questions:

  • What is the largest manageable file size for a project?
  • Is there a limit to the number of slides a project can contain (i.e., 200)?
  • What can I do to get my project to actually open?

Thanks!

Dan

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

L
L-3-tech
Known Participant
July 16, 2009

We're experiencing the same problem.  Most of our e-learning projects consist of about 200 screens, and that's not counting the Assessments.  Transitions move slow, zoomed text just pops in, rollovers sputter, audio files cut off in the beginning, imported flash and video files are very sluggish, etc.  It's very frustrating.  Considering the fact that Adobe no longer supports Authorware, we're being forced to transition over to Captivate, however, if this application is not going to be able to handle large projects, it creates a great dilemma for developers.  If anyone has any suggestions other then reducing the number of slides, please feel free to contribute to this discussion.

A
Anonymous
July 23, 2009

I had a project that was started in Captivate2 and completed in Captivate4. Upon import into V4 everything broke. After much time spent trying everthing and reading about possible limits with Captivate, I decided to break it into chapters and use Aggregator. Worked Beautifully! Gives the learners a lot more control. It does, however, have an issue with our vendor hosted LMS but we are hoping that this will be resolved soon.

Hope this helps!

L
L-3-tech
Known Participant
July 27, 2009

Thanks Kim,

I've been breaking the project into modules in an attempt to compile the project with Aggregator. However, I have run into a couple of issues. First and foremost is that we were hoping to use a menu button to take the user back to the main menu from the 5 modules in the project, and this does not seem to work effectively when compiled using Aggregator. Second, the TOC can not be minimized once compiled into aggregator. Any suggestions?

J
jazzhead
Participating Frequently
June 26, 2009

After a significant number of edits, additions, and deletions of slide backgrounds, images and audio narration, our Captivate projects definitely bloat as well.

Have you tried deleting unused Libarary Items? In the Library, right click on any item, and choose the "Select unused Items" option from the menu. With all unused items selected, right click on one of the selected items, and then click "Delete". Resave and then close the project, and you should see that the file size reduces significantly (we often see a reduction in size of 50%).

A
Abu_LukeAuthor
Participant
June 25, 2009

After browsing a number of posts on projects failing to open, I've come to the conclusion that the file simply corrupted for no apparent reason. I was able to open a new project and import the slides, which of course breaks all the non-linear navigation. However not all slides (only 198 of 206) would import, and I had to not import the quiz slides.

Captivate seems to have a lot of issues that make working with it very trying at times; and this is just another one.

Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
June 25, 2009

Hi there

Normally we advise that a Captivate project should fall into somewhere between 50-65 slides as a general upper limit. Occasionally reaching as high as 100 to *MAYBE* 120 slides. Depending on a number of factors.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links

L
laser2crew
Participant
June 30, 2009

Is there a frame limit for Captivate?  I've heard 16,000 frames?

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