Captivate 9 issues with text when importing from PowerPoint

[jamills1974]

Hey all,

Just got Captivate 9 and am trying to get the imported PowerPoint formatted correctly. I edit the PowerPoint from the Library and it looks fine in the PowerPoint environment within Captivate. However, when I got back to the "Filmstrip" or preview the presentation, the formatting is screwed up. Indents are not indented, bullets are off, etc.

Can anyone provide some guidance?  Thanks!

Jason

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

If you really want your Captivate to look identical to the PPT, you need to seriously consider abandoning the notion that you can import the PPT into Captivate. You might consider doing that for the sole purpose of having the PPT deck added to the Captivate library. That would keep the PPT deck handy for future editing.

The only way I'm aware of to totally achieve the exact look of your PPT is to present the PPT as if you were presenting to an audience, then use Captivate to record that presentation as you move through it. If you are using the slide by slide capture mode, you should have exactly what you see. Same goes if you are using Video Demo mode.

Any import process performs a conversion from one format to another and that's always a possibility for unwanted changes to manifest.

Cheers... Rick

[BDuckWorks]

Have you actually published the file?

Cp generates a warning when the resolution of Cp is different from the PPT slides, and informs you that the resolution may be poor in the authoring window, but will be restored upon publishing.

What they don't say is that the low-resolution import may cause alignment problems during authoring, causing you to add trial and error (change - publish - review - repeat) methods to your development workflow.

[Lilybiri]

@BDuckWorks Thanks for this information. You know already that I use Powerpoint for presentations but never import it in Captivate. It is never a good idea to import PPT slides with a different resolution as the original presentation. Captivate will calculate the resolution in pixels, because for a weird reason PPT has size in print units (in or cm). If you choose another resolution, this will always decrease the quality.

[jamills1974]

Hello. Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have published the file as a SCORM package and the indentations are off.

In addition, the indentation is off between the PowerPoint and the Captivate. It is correct in the PowerPoint, but not in the Captivate. I update the PowerPoint, click save, and then the Captivate file updates. However, the changes I made in the PPT are not updated in the Captivate file. 

[Jefferbob · Accepted solution]

One thing I've often seen with indentions missing (especially in bulleted lists) after the import is when there's a mix of indented/bulleted lines and non-indented/bulleted lines in the same text block - especially if the block starts with non-indented/bulleted lines. The only solution I've found is to break the block into multiple blocks before importing. It's a pain, but it works.

[jamills1974]

When I edited the PPT slide and changed the bullets and indents, it worked.

[anegron]

All seems like good advice, but for whatever reason, doesn't work for me. PowerPoint 2016, Captivate 9.0.2.437. I did not have this problem with Cap 8, but now with Cap 9, tech support says there is something wrong with PPT! This is the way I've always done it and it has worked, for the most part. Now, I can't get a bulleted list to display properly no matter what I do. I have tried the advice above, and other methods, while trying to avoid having to completely redo an entire course (with audio and cc) from scratch which was almost done before I upgraded to Cap 9. Talk about frustration! Thanks for posting because you gave me other things to try. I think this is a Captivate (Adobe) issue, but I know how far that will go.

[jamills1974]

It's absolutely an Adobe issue. My best advice is to modify the PPT using the Indent (not tab) feature to get your bullets to look right. Also, I had to ensure that all of the Master Slides (in PPT) had the same text, fonts, etc. It was a pain, but better than recreating it in Cap 9!

[anegron]

Thanks! The instruction on the email says to mark your answer "Correct" but there doesn't seem to be a way to do that.

Thanks for your help!

[Lilybiri]

Just FYI: you can only mark an answer to be 'correct' if you started the thread, was posting the first question. That was not the case here. Moreover there was already a correct answer, and only one answer can be marked correct.

I am a bit astonished by the second part of the last answer, concerning the recommended edit of the master slides in Captivate. TUsing indents in PPT instead of tabs, is good practice of course. I try to explain the reason for my astonishment:

The imported PPT-slides are like movie slides, and they are based on the Blank master slide, not on content slides. Why would there be a need to edit the object styles on the other master slides? The objects on an imported PPT-slide are not even objects, all is embedded in the movie, they don't have a separate style. If this would have been the case, the good practice would have been to edit the default Object styles (Object Style Manager) because the master slides do use those styles. That is the logic of the themes used in Captivate (PPT uses themes as well). More info here:

What's in a Theme - a Template? - Captivate blog