Button text Captivate 6

[Guest]

I'm brand new to Captivate and, I must say, I'm underwhelmed. How does one go about simply adding text to a button? When I add a caption, all the existing buttons disappear leaving only one on my menu page (a template from a co-worker) and, the caption (I assumed this would be the Button Text but....no....) doesn't appear.  The action is "Jump to Slide". It's Captivate 6.

Help!

[Lilybiri]

Normal buttons: label on the button has to be changed in the Properties panel, I think it is indicated as 'Caption'. Only for shape buttons it is possible to double-click on the shape and type the text in place. I'm sorry, cannot offer you a screenshot because CP6 is no longer on my system.

As for what happens with buttons disappearing, I have no idea. Maybe you could try to post some screenshots?

[Guest]

Thanks for indulging me, much appreciated.

[Lilybiri]

Those are Text buttons. The label on the text button has to be put in 'Caption' as I told. But I see that the used character is an Arabic font. Is your system set up to be able to show that type of fonts? I am not sure CP6 already supported not-western fonts. Could you just for a moment try out another font?

I have no idea why the buttons are disappearing. There is an action On Enter for the slide, which Apply Effect to a button. The slide quality is set to Low and there is a dedicated master slide. Do you see all those buttons on the Timeline?

[Guest]

Ah, more font issues. I had to delete all my fonts before this POS would even load. Thanks for your help, I'm sure that's the issue. Time to start looking for a real product that actually works with common fonts and doesn't crash every 10 minutes.  

Again, thanks a million, you saved me a ton of beating my head against the Adobe wall.

[Lilybiri]

I forgot to ask which version of 6 you use? First release was pretty buggy, sorry to say so. It is already 'old' as well, the present version is 9. Captivate can do a lot, but you need some time to learn.

[Guest]

It's 6.1. The fact that it doesn't work or, even load with some fonts present is not a learning curve issue, it's a crappy software issue. I realize it's old but, it's the tool I've been given to try to produce actual training. If I can't use common fonts (Times New Roman Italics doesn't work although I'd never use it in real life.), I'm not sure what I'll do. I would be willing to bet Adobe didn't develop the original versions and they just ruined it like they did Flash, Dreamweaver, etc.

Sorry to rant, it's just been a frustrating experience trying to accomplish simple tasks so I can move on to the more complex ones.

Thanks again for your help, I'm on the "right" track now, until I discover more "idiosyncrasies".

[Lilybiri]

I am just a user, trying to help. Captivate was originally from Macromedia like Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks.

Did you really have to use Arabic fonts? Captivate added RTL support recently and seems to be the only eLearning authoring tool to do so (not StoryLine, nor Lectora offer that type of support). Moreover, that template may be corrupted as well, since you didn't design it.

[Guest]

I know and, I truly appreciate it. Believe me, without you, I'd still be fighting with it. I have to use all sorts of fonts, I work in Localization. I am noticing the buttons could be causing some of the issues. I thought it was a Macromedia product. That explains a lot.

I really do appreciate your help. I'm just finding this software very limited and limiting since, well, I need to use all sorts of fonts and character sets. I expect software that costs as much as Captivate to be pretty compatible with standard fonts, etc. but, I can't count on that. Strange too since Adobe was THE font supplier when they were born.

Have a great rest of your day. I appreciate all the hep you've given me, I owe you.

[Lilybiri]

Personally I never had an issue with fonts on any of my systems. Strange, I am using both Win7 and Win10 on desktop/laptop/Surface Pro.

Captivate is certainly not limited, on the contrary, it has too many features and the UI is not always intuitive nor consistent. The UI that you have is similar to the UI of most Adobe applications. In CP8 they switched again to another UI (which I still do not like). You need to spend some time to learn and explore. I could point to my blog, but most of it is bit more advanced. Maybe have a look at this (old) article about the core of Captivate, which is the Timeline:

Tiny Timeline Tidbits - Captivate blog

A lot of blog posts were written for CP6.

[Allen_Partridge]

Things appearing to disappear is usually the result of timeline positioning. Open the panel for the timeline and check to see if you have perhaps moved forward in the timeline - past the original location of your missing button sprites.  Here's a quick overview of timelines in Captivate in case that was the trouble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLqAqzFU3v4

[Lilybiri]

Allen, both screenshots were during editing, not when previewing. Staggering on the timeline cannot cause the disappearance of all buttons when one button is labeled during editing or do I miss something? I asked to check the Timeline to see if the buttons were present on it.

[Allen_Partridge]

RAM shortage? Not like any issue(s) I've seen. Corrupt install perhaps?

[Lilybiri]

No,  it seems linked with the fonts. In the screenshot you'll see that an Arabic language font was used, not sure that CP6 supported those fonts. Moreover OP was using a template created by someone else, could also be an upgrade issue. Version 5 or 5.5 to 6 could have that type of problems.

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

If I'm not mistaken, RTL support was not added until version 7. If you could get your hands on version 7, 8, or 9, you likely won't have these problems.

Here is a video that shows Viswanath explaining RTL support and how to enable it in version 7. I know it doesn't help you in version 6.1 but at least you will know how to enable it if you get a newer version. Incidentally when you see the option to turn this on in version 7, 8 or 9 (I checked 8 and 9) you see the following note in brackets. It suggests to me that you will not be able to user your existing file even if you do upgrade as the RTL support is only for newly created projects.