Captivate 2017 - How to reduce file size and decrease load times

[wdolphin]

I have a module I created in Captivate 2017.  It is 36,525 KB and the load time is too long.   I divided the module up into three files and wrote an advanced actiion on the last slide to open another project which links to the next section I broke up.  The now three file sizes are as follows File #1  - 25,575 KB   File #2  24,892 KB,  File #3  22,507KB.  How can this be when the original file zize was 36KB and now these are still so large.  

I manually calculated the image and audio KB and it comes out to be  3,952.41   KB   - Where is the other KB coming from.  The library is clean and all unused items are gone.  

Any help in knowing how to reduce these file sizes would be appreciated.  

Thank you 

[RodWard]

Dividing a module up won't necessarily drop the file size evenly because a certain percentage of the published output is related to all the files and code required for the interface and default functionality.

If you open up a new CPTX with only one slide and no content whatsoever, publish that to HTML5, the output will be around 3 megabytes. 

If your content is using Master Slides that have graphics and backgrounds reused across slides then these will be present in all modules as well.  If you inserted hi-res images into the project and just resized them down by dragging in the corners, you've only changed the display size for that image, not the final filesize

Are these SCORM modules that are going to be uploaded to an LMS?

[RodWard]

Forgot to mention:

If you suspect that your files have become unnecessarily bloated, there's an easy way to try and get rid of it.  Just open a new CPTX file at the same height and width as your current one, and then paste in all files from one of your separated modules into that blank project file.  Only objects, variables and Advanced Actions that are actually USED on the slides will come across.

Then test publish to see whether you end up with a significantly reduced file size.  If you do, then clean up that new project file and continue with that one (but keep the old one just in case something hasn't come across in the copy and paste).

[wdolphin]

Ron, thank you I will try this and let you know how it works out.  Just a FYI these are not on a LMS or published as SCROM they are direct links off our server.   

[RodWard]

OK.  That's good.  I was asking about SCORM because many e-learning developers think they can just create direct links between separate SCORM modules when in fact you need to leave it to the LMS to call each successive module.

[Lilybiri]

Just one small tip to add to all the excellent tips by Rod. Whenever possible I will test if a bitmap image (png/jpeg) can be replaced by a SVG which often has a much smaller file size. Audio adds a lot to the file size, lower the settings as much as is acceptable for the quality.

[wdolphin]

When capturing images what do you recommend that will save as a SVG without happening to open everything in Photoshop and re-saving the images.  

[JudyWiessner]

By chance, in testing, this is what I did, trying to find out why files blew up  to 19+.  They came down to 5+ or 6+.

Does anyone know why this would be happening?  It's not the end of the world to do it for one set of files, but I'd like to know if this has anything to do with the recently updated template.

Thanks...

[DonnaBGr8]

THANK YOU ROBWARD!

Copy and paste worked perfectly.

[eLearning_Pundits]

You may want to delete unused items from Library to reduce the project size.

[Lilybiri]

Deleting Unused items in the Library only reduces the file size of the cptx-file. It will have no effect whatsoever on the file size of the published project.  The question in this trhead is about published projects, since the title talks about 'loading time'.

[RodWard]

@Marion,

You mentioned something about a 'template'.  Are these CPTX projects spawned from an initial CPTL template in any way?

If so, that might be part of your problem.  Please confirm.

[mary1492]

How do you call one Captivate file from another one? Will that speed up play time?

Anne

[Lilybiri]

What do you mean?

[mary1492]

I meant in runtime, how do you start another Captivate file from another one, but I realized that is not going to work.

[RodWard]

If these projects are separate SCORMs loaded into your LMS then they will not be able to launch each other directly.

Are these modules on an LMS or just on a web server?