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A
Anonymous
December 17, 2009
Answered

Captivate vs. Presenter

  • December 17, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 8471 views

Can someone tell me why someone would choose Abobe Presenter over Adobe Captivate?  Is one better, cheaper, easier to use?  I have Captivate and I'm wondering if I'm missing out and if Presenter offers something that Captivate doesn't.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Lilybiri

    This a great information! I just want to know the difference between the two from a person who uses both, and not from a sales pitch.

    Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:28:29 -0700

    From: forums@adobe.com

    To: melinda_smith3@hotmail.com

    Subject: Captivate vs. Presenter

    Hello Melinda,

    Sorry for the confusion (typing to quick and English is not my native tongue): there are different kind of hyperlinks, I was talking about links (perhaps that is more exact word) that get you to another slide in the presentation. Those will not be preserved in CP, you'll have to create them manually, but they are in Presenter. Hyperlinks to external sites, etc are working in both.

    In the TOC only the titles (such as Notes, Search) will be translated, the slide labels will have to be translated. If you need localization, the possibility in CP to export all captions to a Word document, where you can translate them easily (having two column, one with the original text, second for the translation) and import them in the CP is very nice. This doesn't exist in Presenter.

    What do you want to realize? If you only want to convert existing Powerpoint presentations, there is no doubt: go with Adobe Presenter. But if you want to develop interactive trainings of all kind, choose Captivate. For Quizzing, both applications have possibilities, but with the introduction of Widgets in CP4 there surely will be more attractive quizzing solutions. Because you can have a lot more control, editing possibilities in CP you can also design your own question slides. And I did not talk about Advanced Actions, Variables, the easy roundtripping to Powerpoint, Photoshop, all of these are not really there in Presenter.

    Hoping that you had some more information (not too much) ?

    Lilybiri

    >


    Hi Melinda,

    For the sake of other readers, if your question is answered, could you please mark it as Answered?

    Lilybiri

    1 reply

    Captiv8r
    Captiv8r
    Legend
    December 17, 2009

    Hi there

    Presenter does a better job of moving content from PowerPoint to Flash. Captivate is good for the eLearning and Software Simulation and all that. I've seen many cases where Presenter is used to present many different Captivate demonstrations that are part of a larger course.

    Presenter allows you to record a WebCam. Captivate doesn't.

    Presenter allows you to more easily include assets to make available to your audience if you are planning on uploading to Connect Pro. Captivate and Connect Pro don't offer that as an easy option.

    Cheers... Rick

    Lilybiri
    Lilybiri
    Legend
    December 17, 2009

    Hello,

    Rick wouldn't mind if I add my 2 cents

    In Presenter all hyperlinks, assigned in PPT are preserved, which is not the case in CP.

    And for international users: some aspects of the TOC in Presenter are very interesting. The labels from the TOC are translated in the language of the installed Office version on the user's PC. I'll try to explain: having Dutch-speaking, English-speaking, French-speaking and Spanish-speaking students, I do not have to translate the labels in the TOC. In CP you'll have to translate them. Some extra's in the Presenter TOC: ability to attach files, nice panes for Search, Notes, Thumbnails. But: you do not have the famous eyedropper tool (is there in CP) for changing colours for the skin.

    It seems that I have been mentioning the advantages of Presenter only, although CP is by far my favourite: simulations, interactivity in training, branching scenarios etc are only possible in CP.

    The workflow,described by Rick, is also one I'm using a lot: having a presentation in Presenter, and inserting CP-movies and other assets in this presentation. But: some functionalities of CP4 will not work when inserting the movies in Presenter such as right-click.

    Nice feature of Presenter is also its capability to print to a multimedia pdf, for those who do want to have a Flash-file.

    IMHO, Presenter, Captivate (and Acrobat) are no concurrents, they work very nice together and I'm very glad to have all three of them.

    Lilybiri

      A
      Anonymous
      December 17, 2009

      What is IMHO?

      Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:13:21 -0700

      From: forums@adobe.com

      To: melinda_smith3@hotmail.com

      Subject: Captivate vs. Presenter

      Hello,

      Rick wouldn't mind if I add my 2 cents

      In Presenter all hyperlinks, assigned in PPT are preserved, which is not the case in CP.

      And for international users: some aspects of the TOC in Presenter are very interesting. The labels from the TOC are translated in the language of the installed Office version on the user's PC. I'll try to explain: having Dutch-speaking, English-speaking, French-speaking and Spanish-speaking students, I do not have to translate the labels in the TOC. In CP you'll have to translate them. Some extra's in the Presenter TOC: ability to attach files, nice panes for Search, Notes, Thumbnails. But: you do not have the famous eyedropper tool (is there in CP) for changing colours for the skin.

      It seems that I have been mentioning the advantages of Presenter only, although CP is by far my favourite: simulations, interactivity in training, branching scenarios etc are only possible in CP.

      The workflow,described by Rick, is also one I'm using a lot: having a presentation in Presenter, and inserting CP-movies and other assets in this presentation. But: some functionalities of CP4 will not work when inserting the movies in Presenter such as right-click.

      Nice feature of Presenter is also its capability to print to a multimedia pdf, for those who do want to have a Flash-file.

      IMHO, Presenter, Captivate (and Acrobat) are no concurrents, they work very nice together and I'm very glad to have all three of them.

      Lilybiri

      >

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