Captivate 11.5 - Can't copy image to external image editor

[rickgary]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help me with an issue I ran into after upgrading to 11.5

Much of my Captivate work involves updating existing screen images on bullet slides to match small UI changes to software apps. For example, the version number may change on a window title bar, but the rest of the window remains unchanged. So instead of staging and recording a new screen I just edit the existing image to replace the version number.

Normally my workflow for these updates works like this:

1. In Captivate, double-click the image to open the properties pane.
2. Click Reset Image to Original Size.
3. Right-click on the image and select Copy (not Copy Background as the image is not merged)
4. Open up Snagit Editor.
5. Click Paste.
6. Make image changes, then right-click on image in Snagit and click Copy.
7. Bring up Captivate, delete old image, paste updated image onto slide, re-position and time, etc.

This workflow has worked for many versions. But since the 11.5 upgrade, after I copy the image in Captivate, I can no longer paste it into Snagit, PowerPoint, Word, or another other app. No error message, just the paste option remains inactive, as if the copy function in Captivate is not handing it off to the Windows Clipboard.

Weird thing is, I can select Copy Background on a slide and the background will stay in the Clipboard to let me paste in Snagit, etc. I can also copy from Snagit and paste into Captivate fine.

I have an identical setup on another computer that still has the pre 11.5 version on it, and it stil lets me copy from Captivate and paste into other apps.

I've reset my preferences, deleted the Layouts folder, ran both programs as admin, and tried it with a fresh 11.5 projects. Still no dice.

Anyone else have this problem?

[Lilybiri]

I do use Snagit as well, but not for image editing (prefer Photoshop or Illustrator for SVG's).

Is it not possible to use roundtripping with Snagit as editor? Find the image in the Library, use the right-click menu and Edit with, where you indicate the exe file? That is the original image, no need to reset it to the original size.

Personally I avoid copy/paste whenever possible, never trust the Windows clipboard, maybe because I have seen a lot of issues in my long career, especially with graphics handling by MS (not my favourite).

[rickgary]

Thanks. For what I need to do, Snagit is simple to work with. I did try roundtripping to Snagit but for some reason the trip back never made it. Roundtripping works in Irfanview, but Irfanview doesn't have the feature I use. I'll try again, as I may be missing a step.

Captivate always had issues with the clipboard breaking when moving slides and backgrounds between projects, to the point I have to restart the program. But I've been using it since v4 and copying images out to another program has never been an issue until now. It works in 11.0, so I guess I'll just hope the devs out there fix it, or at least announce it as forever broke so I can forget about it . I wonder if it has to do with the addition of the Copy Appearance feature, which is pretty cool...

Thanks for the feedback!

[Lilybiri]

Copy/paste Appearance has nothing to do with that, it is based on object styles. You may have a look at my review of that feature:

Using Copy/Päste Appearance in 11.5.0 - Captivate blog

I think it could cause some harm as well, if not used wisely. It works pretty well with,shapes as text containers, but there is a bug when using it with Text Captions. Bug was confirmed by the team, hope it will be fixed soon.

What exactly do you use from Snagit that is so important?

[rickgary]

So for example, a software I train has been updated, but on some app windows, only the name displayed in the title bar on some windows has changed (e.g. "Software App v2019 - Main Window" to "Software App v2020 - Main Window"). Snagit makes it easy for me to copy the image in, lasso the "20" in v2019 and paste it over the "19", making it "v2020". Then I just copy the updated image into the clipboard and paste it back into Captivate. Pretty simple. Also use this technique to update date fields on slide backgrounds to keep the sample data current. Since I sometimes have to update hundreds of videos this way, I need this to be as efficient as possible.

I understand. I was just thinking that they may have changed the normal copy code to accommodate the Copy Appearance function.

But I figured out what I was doing wrong with rountripping with Sangit (Snagit wasn't saving in the session temp folder). I'll try to get use to it.

Thanks for your link. I'll check it out!