HTML5 contains pdf and swf

Report · Feb 03, 2021

We are republishing some of our older Captivate training (SWF) as HTML5. A few of the modules published with a pdf and some swf files. This message shows up as they are publishing.

They of coure won't run in our LMS as it wont connect to Adobe. I can't figure out where this is comming from and how to stop it. 3 of 7 modules did it today and we have a lot more to republish. We have been able to copy and paste into a new file for two of them to fix the issue so far but the third may need to be rebuilt. Any insight would be appreciated.

Report · Feb 03, 2021

Multimedia PDFs relied on having an embedded Flash Player. But, as everyone in the e-learning industry should already be aware, Flash is now no longer supported and from now on Adobe will not be providing any more updates. Any content you currently have that uses Flash or SWF will need to be republished for HTML5. PDF is not going to be an option.

Report · Feb 04, 2021

It’s a responsive project using publish to devices. I can’t see any option to publish with swf. Course is text and images. There are some mp4s. Maybe that is the issue. Although one module with video published fine. I have also not seen that message for a long time. We have been using HTML5 for a few years but hadn’t updated all older content. When I open the published zip folder there are swf and PDF files but I see no option in preference or publish window to turn that on (or off!). We aren’t trying to include flash items.

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Report · Feb 04, 2021

Are you sure you are publishing ONLY to HTML5? I'm asking this because it looks like there is also publishing to or including interactive pdf, which has died already years before the Flash player. There may be more incompatible items in your old files which are not compatible with HTML5 output. I have never seen the dialog box you mention since years, but I didn't publish to interactive pdf nor SWF since about 4 years.

Report · Feb 04, 2021

It’s a responsive project using publish to devices. I can’t see any option to publish with swf. Course is text and images. There are some mp4s. Maybe that is the issue. Although one module with video published fine. I have also not seen that message for a long time. We have been using HTML5 for a few years but hadn’t updated all older content. When I open the published zip folder there are swf and PDF files but I see no option in preference or publish window to turn that on (or off!).

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Report · Feb 04, 2021

Now I am totally confused. You talk about an older project published to SWF? But a responsive project never had the possibility to be published to SWF.

Report · Feb 04, 2021

This is an older project published as swf which we then copied the slides into a new responsive project and then attempted to publish. This new responsive version is publishing with swf and PDF elements.

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Report · Feb 04, 2021

The original developer may have used SWF file components in the course for things like animated arrows or highlights. These components ship with Captivate and are found in the Gallery folders. The developer may also have created custom SWF animations in Adobe Flash/Animate to illustrate content on certain slides.

The PDFs you see in the HTML output may simply be documents that were linked to the content, which would then have been automatically added to the output when it was published.

So even though SWF is not compatible with mobile device browsers and even desktop browsers will now no longer play it, unless you remove all of the incompatible components from your project they may still be published out with the rest of it.

Time to do some house-cleaning. At least remove all SWFs as they are not going to serve any purpose now.

Report · Feb 05, 2021

Copy slides from a non-responsive to a responsive project? Fluid boxes or Breakpoints? Just copy/paste cannot create a real responsive project. It may work for one breakpoint in the Breakpoints workflow, but you still have to set up everything with Position Properties and create new styles for text, and edit the lower breakpoints. In a Fluid Boxes project you need to start from scratch, even if you used the convert to Responsive project. The suggested fluid boxes will rarely be fitting, and you need to apply them. Moreover such a project has a lot more limitations than a non-responsive project because objects like Highlight boxes, rollovers, Click boxes are not allowed in normal fluid boxes.

PDFs normally should be in the callees folder. All SWFs need to be taken out (except for the Learning interactions which will be wrapped in a HTML player on publishing, and the FMR slides which will be converted to mp4 if you are lucky).

Report · Feb 11, 2021

We used breakpoints so I understand that it isn't truly responsive. Just made the transfer easier. That being said, there wasn't a SWF option when publishing. We managed to copy and paste again and get rid of the issue. Tried removing the SWF elements from the published folder but didn't work for us. Was more wondering why that happened in the first place.

Report · Feb 11, 2021

Responsive projects (Breakpoints lead to a responsive projects) never had publish to SWF since the Flash player was banned from mobile browsers since a long time. Some items may appear as SWF but will play well in HTML5.