Importing a PowerPoint file with audio into Captivate 9

[larrys39151473]

After importing a PowerPoint file with audio into Captivate 9, I see the speaker icon, but hear no audio. Please help.

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

‌I would strip out your audio files from the PowerPoint and import them Into your Captivate Library separately. Then you can place them on each slide as needed. I would also consider not using the PowerPoint import feature and recreate the content directly in Captivate for a more satisfying result but that's just me.

[larrys39151473]

I get the part about starting with Captivate, but when you have substantial content in powerpoint and are novice captivators, importing ppt files seems the best way to begin. All indications were that importing ppt shows with high fidelity would bring "everything" with the file. If so, I don't see the audio file on the timeline and don't know where else to look.

Thanks for your response. After reviewing dozens of tutorials and help screens, I kept hoping I was just overlooking something.  The technical challenge must be considerable or it would be done by now.

BTW, you are not the first person to suggest "stripping out" the audio files from ppt. Where might I see those audio files?

thnx

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

It's been awhile since I have done this but modern PowerPoint files are essentially ZIP files that contain all the contents of your presentation. Make sure your PowerPoint file is saved as a PPTX file, make a copy of this file (because you are going to destroy it), change the file extension from PPTX to ZIP. Once that is complete you can unzip this to a folder. Inside that folder, possibly within a subdirectory if I recall correctly, you will find all your audio, video, and image files that the PowerPoint contains.

Remember that the ability to import a PowerPoint file was a feature added very late in the Adobe Captivate product history and was never intended to be a robust solution. It's great for the novice eLearning designer to get started but don't rely on it for very long. Your expectation (and your customers) will very quickly exceed this feature's ability.

[larrys39151473]

Another helpful response - thankss

Renaming and unzipping revealed .m4a media files - which can be converted further to a more universal format such as .mp3

[RodWard]

I would suggest you convert the m4a files to WAV rather than MP3 as the latter is a compressed format and you are sacrificing audio data for no benefit.  Using WAV keeps much more of the audio clarity during the editing process and Captivate will output to MP3 at the publishing end according to your own settings for audio quality.