Powerpoint screen capture

[Brock22]

I've created tons of presentations already by recording a microphone and screen capturing someone's Powerpoint presentation so that the audio and presentation are automatically syncronized with one another. There are no animations on the Powerpoint slides and I don't have to record using full motion. It has been working fine. I'm using the exact same settings. Now all of the sudden, Captivate only records the first slide in the presentation. Although while I was capturing the whole screen and changing slides every so often, the slide transitions are never captured. The audio is fine. But Slide 1 is all I ever see. What's going on with that?

[Captiv8r]

Hi Brock22

So I understand this...

You say you are trying to record PowerPoint using Captivate? You manage to hear all the audio from the PowerPoint, but only get the first slide? And you have actually recorded other PowerPoint presentations with no issue?

It occurs to me that maybe in other PowerPoint presentations, you actually had to click the mouse to advance from screen to screen. However, if you are trying to record a presentation that is set to simply self advance after a period of time, Captivate may not "see" any event so it can grab a screen shot when the slide changes.

As for "transitions", I'm thinking that these are (or would end up being) full motion slides in Captivate. To ensure you capture them, press F9 when you know one is imminent and F10 after it completes. (F9 and F10 are the shortcut keys used to manually turn full-motion capture on and off)

Hopefully this helps... Rick

[Brock22]

I've always done the self advance. I'm doing the self advance on this project...in other words, I'm doing a full screen capture....I'm in full screen mode....first slide is displayed...I'm recording live....talking about that slide....I hit the space bar....do the same thing....hit the space bar to go to the next slide, etc......when I end the recording, all I have is slide 1. It doesn't record any of the other slides. It always has in the past. wierd. If I have to do full motion recording (F9 and F10) to capture the entire presentation, which hasn't been necessary in the past, it's going to make my file size way too big.

[Captiv8r]

Hi Brock22

What if you tried pressing the Print Screen key to force a snapshot just before advancing?

Also, it occurs to me that maybe you managed to turn off the auto record function. Click Options > Recording Options... > Recording Options tab and see if the check mark is absent from the "Enable auto recording" check box.

Cheers... Rick

[Brock22]

Auto record function is on which is why I can't figure out why it isn't auto recording. It's worked fine in the past. The print screen option isn't really good for me because I'm recording the audio and setting up the Captivate recording while someone else is talking/teaching and advancing the slides. I don't necessarily know exactly when it needs to change. Even though auto recording is on and I'm recording the full screen and changing slides every once in a while, when I end the recording, all I have is slide #1. Very frustrating.

[Brock22]

Tired of fooling with it. I'm buying Camtasia. Works much better.

[Captiv8r]

Hi Brock22 (if you are still there

Good luck with Camtasia Studio. Maybe it's just me and being to ingrained in working the Captivate way. But I find that there is simply no "real" comparison between the two tools. Captivate is simply far far easier to use. I found myself lost in Camtasia. Perhaps that will change once I get over the learning curve of it.

At any rate, I truly hope you end up happy with whatever tool you choose! (even if it's not Captivate) Hey, if it doesn't do what you need, then you need a different tool, no?

Cheers... Rick