How to Vertically Center Align Your Captivate Project

Report · Mar 25, 2016

Hi everyone!

Below is a link to some instructions I made that show you how to vertically align your blank (non-responsive) and non-scalable Captivate 8/9 project in the browser window. I always despised the look of the forced top alignment for Captivate projects. It looks horrid in larger resolution settings - and makes the window look very imbalanced - drawing attention to the unused space beneath. I also don't like the look of scaling - since this degrades imagery and text quality in many cases - so this was a problem. I did address this in answer to an older forum question - but for the life of me I cannot find that string anymore. Otherwise I would have posted it there. Never-the-less - maybe a fresh post is best.

NOTE:

This works for me in nearly all my projects. I have encountered rare instances where the alignment does not work properly however - and no amount of investigating the WHY of it ever helped me figure it out. I believe it was on projects that I had upgraded from CP8 to CP9 though - causing some sort of strange bug (not surprisingly - there were many bugs ). If you DO encounter issues with this fix - please let me know - or send me your own method that worked more consistently. Hope this is helpful to those of you out there - creating non-responsive projects that are of a set size - who want it to position smack-dab in the wonderful center of their clients' browser. That Adobe has never given us this option in a simple check box on the publish page - is absurd. Perhaps aesthetics is not the Captivate team's strong point.

Enjoy!

Jason

LINK TO INSTRUCTIONS: Shared Files - Acrobat.com

Report · Oct 05, 2016

I don't seem to have that in the heading of my html file. Is there another way you can add it? This is the extent of my head

<head>

</head>

Report · Oct 05, 2016

Ok, I got it to center vertically, but now it's not centered horizontally. Any tips?

Report · Sep 14, 2022

UPDATE SIX YEARS LATER

You read that right. I left my freelance elearning career 6 years ago (after 15 years, I had serious burnout). I am just returning to it so I can work from my home office, and from anywhere. I downloaded CAPTIVATE 2019 and was getting all reaquainted when I recognized they STILL have not addressed this issue in the publish settings (amazeballs). I also realized that my old solution here is pretty cloogie in modern browsers etc. I also want to apologize for leaving poor "cwestern" hanging - I was long gone. Sorry bud!

THE NEW FIX

So... here's a new fix that works flawlessly for me in Chrome, Edge, Brave, and Firefox Developer (all the browsers I run). It's also easier to do imo. It works in all versions - because yes - Adobe has changed nothing whatsoever in the output.lol

Open the exported index.html file (whichever launches your project) in your code editor of choice
Scroll down to the function shown in the attached image and paste the code into the the yellow regions
Replace the height (yours is located in the red square) and background-color values to match your own project
Save the file

Code to Copy/Paste:

<!-- Code bit one (the good stuff) -->
<div style='height:99vh; display:flex; align-items:center; position:absolute'><div style='height:780px; position:absolute'>

<!-- Code bit two (closing your wrapper divs) -->
</div></div>

<!-- Code bit three (make this match your project - it hides more clooge) -->
style="background-color:#324756;"

Report · Sep 14, 2022

NOTE: I use a value of 99vh so it doesn't throw any ugly scrollbars.

Report · Sep 14, 2022

Here's a screenshot of a module centered - so people know what this is for, and why you'd prefer sharp/crisp images and text over stretching to fit. You can also blend background color into your shell design etc. Good for targeting defined field laptops or desktops - if that's an option.

Report · Sep 14, 2022

ONE LAST IMPORTANT THING...

This solution does not currently work with the pop-up dialogue for "self-paced learning," which is the dialogue asking you if you want to resume where you left off. It gets squished on the left unfortunately. Maybe you can debug that - but I've read on the forums that this feature does not work when your project is uploaded to an LMS anyway - which is kinda insane. In that event, the LMS controls the bookmarking apparently. SO... that said, I recommend you disable "Self-Paced Learning" when using this. This checkbox can be deselected from the following location within your project:

Project > Table of Contents > Settings

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How to Vertically Center Align Your Captivate Project