Skip to main content
Inspiring
December 6, 2007
Frage

Can I set a solid fill color on caption boxes?

  • December 6, 2007
  • 5 Antworten
  • 1378 Ansichten
I would like to customize the look of my caption boxes using a solid color. I don't like Captivate's color effects because they force the box to be bigger than I want. But I don't see any way to have a solid color or any way to set it.
    Dieses Thema wurde für Antworten geschlossen.

    5 Antworten

    KCWebPlaza-5meuTi
    Inspiring
    December 10, 2007
    I've skimmed this thread, but don't forget to adjust the text file(s) - .fcm extension - for your custom captions. You can adjust the margins in the text file(s).
    Inspiring
    December 6, 2007
    This worked for the rectangular caption-- thanks. Your diagram helped a lot. But I couldn't make the "arrow" shape work just trying from scratch. I used various sizes but they all had functional problems. So I took a quick and dirty approach-- I recolored one of Captivate's built-in ones, and it worked. Is there some magic geometry they use?
    Participating Frequently
    December 7, 2007
    You have to remember that Captivate splits the caption graphic into four equal quadrants... any space you add for an arrow on one side must also be added to the other side or you risk Captivate chopping the graphic in a place you don't want it to.

    Use your "transparency" color outside the border on the non-arrow side to balance the size and ensure the caption splits right down the middle of the "text caption" part of the image. The image itself will be bigger but due to the extra space being added as transparency, the perceived size of the text caption itself won't change. When adding the arrow and transparency, don't forget to increase the margins in the .fcm file to account for the increased size.

    For example, if your arrow adds 7 pixels to the left side of your graphic, your minimum width would be:

    7 pixel arrow + 1 pixel border + 2 pixel fillcolor + 1 pixel border + 7 pixel transparency color

    In the .fcm file, change the left and right margin to 9 to center the text in the text caption area (or more, if you don't want your text right up against the border, although adding extra padding also increases the minimum caption width).

    Unfortunately, you must think in two dimensions at all times... in the scenario above, your minimum caption height is: (height of the arrow x 2) + 2 pixels. Captivate also splits the caption horizontally, so the arrow must be completely above or below the split line (hence arrow height x 2) plus two pixels more that straddle the split line and can be replicated to "fill in the gaps" when the caption is resized larger.

    If all this is too much to grasp, you can think outside the box and use a pointerless caption that works in concert with an inserted arrow graphic. Give the arrow the same fillcolor as the caption and an outline with the same width & color as the caption border, but DON'T add an outline on the flat edge where the arrow would normally be attached to the caption.

    Manually align the arrow graphic so that it sits above the caption and overlaps the border by one pixel and it will look like it's "attached". The keyboard arrow keys are going to be your best friend when lining things up.

    It's more work on each slide, but if you don't get too fancy, the effect is pretty convincing. It also lets you create all kinds of fancy directional arrows without futzing around with caption sizing and padding.
    Participating Frequently
    December 6, 2007
    The Caption source files are in your Captivate install directory in the Gallery\Captions subdirectory. You are free to edit the default ones or create your own. In both cases, the changes will not be reflected until you restart Captivate.

    This Knowledge Base article describes the general concept behind captions and is a worthwhile read (RoboDemo is the precursor to Captivate so the concepts are the same):

    http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=rb_r2

    The main things to remember are:

    1) Once you bring a caption into Captivate, it cannot be changed so use temporary projects to preview your changes until you're happy. The only way to change a caption once it's in Captivate is to rename the caption source files and apply them again with the new name.

    2) The top-left corner pixel of the caption graphic determines the "transparency" color of the area around the caption border.

    3) If you only want one caption style, you can use the <Custom> option at the bottom of the Caption type dropdown (on the Text Caption dialog) to select it from any folder. If you want to create a caption "family" with multiple (2-5) variations, the captions must reside in your Gallery\Captions folder.

    4) If you create 5 separate variations of a caption, the caption2 and caption5 styles are reversed from what you would think... the caption5 graphic is the 2nd one in the list on the Text Caption toolbar and the caption2 graphic displays last.

    5) Contrary to what the article says, you don't need to create exactly 5 caption styles... Captivate will happily show as many as you have UP to 5.
    Inspiring
    December 6, 2007
    Thanks for the replies. My problem with the images that I've looked at, even though I like them, is that they have minimum sizes that are too big for what I'm doing. The basic choices for caption types, such as Adobe Red, have flexible size but no way that I see to alter the fill color from white. What I'm hoping for would behave like a shape in a draw program-- just a border and fill with no other detailing. Any way to do it?
    Captiv8r
    Legend
    December 6, 2007
    Hey there again

    Keep in mind what jbradley88 suggested too. The color of the pixel in the 0,0 (upper left coordinate) determines the transparent color. So when you edit, make sure that particular pixel isn't black if you want the black border.

    Cheers... Rick
    Inspiring
    December 6, 2007
    This is not a duplicate post. I posted two distinct questions. The link you have goes to another question.
    Captiv8r
    Legend
    December 6, 2007
    Oops, sorry about that! My bad. Guess my coffee hadn't yet kicked in!

    Basically you may use any image you wish. So try creating a custom caption bitmap image using something like Microsoft Paint. Then you could change to a custom caption type and point at your solid box.

    Cheers... Rick
    Inspiring
    December 6, 2007
    Rick-- I kind of hurried over your idea, but then tried it. I made a yellow rectangle with a black border, saved it as BMP. When I used it, the black border was missing, and the text is messed up-- it looks like a sign that has been out in the weather for too many years. It seems that an object-type image would make more sense than BMP. Maybe I'm stuck with "Adobe Blue", etc.
    Captiv8r
    Legend
    December 6, 2007
    Duplicated post. Click here to see original.