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shawnvw
Known Participant
December 11, 2014
Question

Scaling Captivate videos in RoboHelp Multiscreen

  • December 11, 2014
  • 1 reply
  • 939 views

 

RoboHelp HTML 11, Captivate 7

 

I'm including Captivate videos into my Robohelp HTML project. I need to be able to shrink the video "object" to fit in our window. 

 

Rick, you've answered this question several times over the years, such as here: Re: How do you scale captivate file in Robo 9 to fit the screen?  In my case, the output has to run in Internet Explorer without Shockwave Flash enabled.  (Also, the user won't have RoboHelp or Captivate installed, if that matters).  I'm told that our Captivate demos were published in "Scalable HTML" format. I was using Multiscreen as the output, but I'm open to one of the other HTML outputs.

 

I tried it two different ways:

 

  1. I imported the Demos using File --> Import --> Adobe Captivate Demo --> HTML5 Output, then selected the appropriate index.htm file. The videos run, but resizing the text box or demo "object" only crops the video.  We even tried saving them in a smaller size in Captivate, but they seem to be the same size in RoboHelp.
  2. I imported the project (*.cptx) using File --> Import --> Adobe Captivate Project. Doing this, I can resize the video (and watch it using that "viewer" that appears after I click "Generate"). However, when I run the index.htm file in Internet Explorer (as I assume the users will do), the video is blank unless I enable Flash. (This is despite the fact that I checked "Use Adobe Captivate HTML5 Output" in the Multiscreen layout!)

   

What's the best way to approach this?  (I hope you're not going to tell me that I have to put everything into Baggage, because as you've pointed out in the past, that would be a very big job.)


Thanks.



-- Shawn

 

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    Captiv8r
    Captiv8r
    Legend
    December 11, 2014

    Hi Shawn

    Unless you want to host the Captivate output separately from RoboHelp and just link to it where needed, you are going to find yourself a bit "stuck" with the baggage trick.

    If the content needs to scale, you have a couple of ways to deal with it.

    1. You can simply link from a TOC page to the html page for the Captivate output. Using this method should cause the Captivate output to scale to the topic frame.

    2. You can insert an InlineFrame and point its content to the Captivate html page in Baggage. You would then need to configure the frame to be 100% wide. You would take this approach if you have other content that needs to come before and/or after the video.

    I would heartily encourage you to report the pain points of being forced to add Baggage folders and files as a bug to Adobe using the link below.

    Click here to view

    Cheers... Rick

    S
    shawnvwAuthor
    Known Participant
    December 11, 2014

    After some experimenting, there does seem to be another option.

    In Captivate, I made a copy of the project, then Rescaled it smaller. (Rescaling can't be undone; that's why I made the copy). I published the output as HTML5 but only after unchecking "Scalable HTML content". (That must not do what I thought it does; when checked, the output was full size but noticeably lower in resolution. )

    I then used Insert to bring it into RoboHelp. I still can't resize it, but it's closer to a size that's useful.

    Thanks!

    -- Shawn

    Captiv8r
    Captiv8r
    Legend
    January 13, 2015

    All of these comments have been really helpful and inserting a video went smoothly. I was able to resize with no problem. Thanks.

    Just one issue I need to resolve. As soon as I go to the help file (htm) that I inserted the video into, the video begins playing. I was assuming it would only start playing when I/the user clicked it.

    How can I get the video to not start playing until the user clicks it or tells it to play? And can the user click back on it to make it pause or stop?

    Thanks very much. I really appreciate the feedback a lot.


    HI there

    That's done on the Captivate side. There are a couple of different ways to achieve it.

    You can try clicking Edit > Preferences > Project > Start and End and ensure Auto play is not selected for the start option.

    Or

    You could insert a Button, Click Box or Smart Shape configured as a Button on the first slide. That should keep the slide paused until the user clicks.

    Cheers... Rick

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