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canesrocks
canesrocks
Participant
August 28, 2014
Question

InDesign files to Captivate 8 for LMS????

  • August 28, 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 2225 views

Our training manuals are currently published in InDesign. We are implementing an LMS and using Captivate as the authoring tool. What is the best way to get these files into Captivate? Should I copy/paste into PPT and then convert to InDesign????? Anyone have any ideas?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

D
disquev57389673
Participant
February 14, 2016

Hi it's been a long while since you've asked that question and I am going to answer it from a different perspective. I come from an art & design background and I just HATE how corporate, dated and plain ugly captivate looks. Even if I update the master slides to add more contemporary (i.e. cooler and more elegant) fonts, it still looks like 1997 on there.

SO I use Indesign as I normally do, then export the indesign file as a PDF. THEN, you go into Photoshop, open the PDF file and from PDF you can save it as multiple jpegs for each page.

Now you go back into Captivate, choose, File>New Project>Image Slide Show and choose ALL of the jpeg files you will be using for the project and captivate will insert one image per slide.

Now the reason I am using captivate is that I love the interactions. I use the "click box" function to create a hotspot that will take me to another page or the next page (i.e. yes/no question quiz. That way I can create beautiful and contemporary layouts without compromising the interactive function. No more UGLY buttons with horrible colors!!! Just gorgeous vintage-like horizontal posters with illustrations and everything that DO NOT look like some HR presentation from 1997.

    Lilybiri
    Lilybiri
    Legend
    August 28, 2014

    Please, explain what you really want to do? You can insert video in InDesign, you can insert a Captivate SWF into it. What has PPT to do with that? I don't understand why a presentation tool could play a role?

    canesrocks
    canesrocksAuthor
    Participant
    August 28, 2014

    Obviously I have NO idea what I'm doing! I need to know the best way to get the content into Captivate so it will work on the LMS. I threw PPT out there because many people create their files in PPT and then integrate them into Captivate.

    Lilybiri
    Lilybiri
    Legend
    August 28, 2014

    Indeed, sorry to sound maybe too honest. What do you want of have to do? Maybe 'many people create their files in PPT' but that doesn't mean it is a good practice (it is not IMO). Captivate is an eLearning tool, not a PPT-converter, although it can import PPT-slides. If you want the last, you'd better look for another solution.

    But first ask what you want? I did use InDesign for my courses when in college (sometimes Framemaker) and published them as PDF that could be uploaded to the LMS. What has to change to the manuals, because a manual can be a simple, non-interactive PDF? What is the reason to look at Captivate: do you need assessments, software simulations, soft skills trainings....? Do you want to get away from a static manual to make an interactive course? That is the basic question that has to be answered in the first place.

    You'll not find all the design functionality of InDesign in Captivate, but it has a lot of features that you'll not find in InDesign.

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