Set slide properties in Adobe Captivate

Last updated on Apr 27, 2021

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You can view and set the properties for a slide by clicking the Properties button in the toolbar or click Window > Properties.

You can hide the Properties panel by clicking the Properties button.

Set the properties for a blank or non-responsive slide

The Properties tab contains the following tabs:

Style
Actions
Options

Style options

Label	Description
1	The name of the slide. The slide label appears under the slide in the Filmstrip. It is a good practice to name slides. When multiple users are working on the same project, naming slides helps to identify them easily.
2	Select the master slide that must be linked to the slide.
3	Sync your changes made to the master slide with the project slide. To update the slide, click the Reset Master Slide button.
4	Select the Allow Gesture Navigation check-box to enable gestures to the slide when you view the slide on a mobile device. To enable Gesture Navigation for the project, choose Window > Mobile Palette, and enable the Gesture Configuration check-box . For more information on gestures, see Gesture and geolocation.
5	Change the color of the slide.
6	Choose a fill pattern for the color of the slide - Solid, Gradient, or Image.
7	Choose a background for the slide. Select to change the background image on the slide by selecting an image from the project’s Library or any location in your computer. This option is available when Master Slide Background option is not selected.
8	Select the quality level for the slide: Low (8-bit), Optimized, JPEG, and High (24-bit). For more information, see the Community article on slide quality. Low (8-bit): If you choose to publish your slides with Low as an option, the slides your published project has the smallest possible size compared to the other options. The quality of images are lower compared to the other options. This option works well for most images and for all the screen recorded content, but can fail if the image contains too many colors or many colors with different transparencies. Optimized: If you choose this option, all the images in the project are published as bitmaps (.bmp images). This option may increase the size of your published project. JPEG: If you choose this option, all the images in the project are published as jpg images. High (24-bit): If you choose this option, all images in the project are published as 24-bit bitmaps. If you want images with high quality, choose this option. Note: Selecting the Optimized, JPEG, or High-Quality format may increase the file size and the time to download your project. Use a format other than Low (8-bit) when appropriate.
9	Select the check-box Master Slide Objects On Top if you want to place objects in the slide on top or bottom of an object inserted while creating a master slide. For example, Master Slide Objects On Top (Disabled) Master Slide Objects On Top (Enabled) For more information on creating master slides, see Using master slides.
10	Click to open the Slide Accessibility dialog box, which lets you add or type in text that can be read to users with disabilities who use screen readers. You can import slide notes to enable accessibility for them. For more information, see Add accessibility text to slides.

Action options

You can define the navigation options every time the user views a slide or moves away from the slide. The On Enter menu displays the actions that you can set for the slide when it is displayed. The On Exit menu displays actions that you can set when the user exits the slide. The following list describes actions available in both the menus:

Note:

The options Go To Previous Slide, Go To Next Slide, Go To Last Visited Slide, Jump To Slide, and No Action are available only in the On Exit menu.

When you copy an object, actions associated with the object, such as Play Audio, Enable, and Disable are also copied.

Action	Description
Continue	The movie moves to the next defined action.
Open URL Or File	A web browser opens with the specified web page if the user has Internet connectivity. Alternatively, you could open a specified file for the user.
Open Another Project	Opens the specified Adobe Captivate project.
Send E-mail To	Specify the e-mail address in the To field.
Execute JavaScript	Adobe Captivate runs the specified JavaScript.
Execute Advanced Actions	Adobe Captivate runs the specified Standard or Conditional action created using the Advanced Actions dialog.
Execute Shared Action	Lets you associate the object with a shared advanced action. If you choose this option, select a shared action from the drop-down list and click {P} to edit the parameters.
Play Audio	Adobe Captivate plays the specified audio when the slide is played. The duration for which the audio is played is equal to the duration of the slide or the selected audio file, whichever is shorter. If users perform any action on the slide, for example, pause the slide, the audio stops and does not play again. Note: If you use multiple Play Audio actions in Advanced Actions, only the audio corresponding to the first Play Audio action is played.
Show	Make an object visible.
Hide	Make an object invisible.
Enable	The specified object in the project is enabled. This option is available only for interactive objects.
Disable	The specified object in the project gets disabled. This option is available only for interactive objects.
Assign	Assign a new value to a variable.
Increment	The value of the specified variable is incremented accordingly.
Decrement	The value of the specified variable is decremented accordingly.
Exit	The movie exits.
Pause	The movie pauses.
Show TOC	The Table of Contents (TOC) for the projects gets displayed.
Show Playbar	The playbar gets displayed.
Hide TOC	The TOC gets hidden.
Hide Playbar	The playbar gets hidden.
Lock TOC	The TOC gets locked. Clicking a topic in the TOC does not navigate users to the topic.
Unlock TOC	The TOC gets unlocked.
Change State of	The object gets assigned a specific state defined in Object State view.
Go to Next State	Navigate between object states.
Go to Previous State	Navigate between object states.
Apply Effect	When you perform the required action, the effect associated with the specified object is applied.
Go To The Previous Slide	The movie moves to the previous slide.
Go To The Next Slide	The movie moves to the next slide.
Go To The Slide Last Visited	The movie moves to the previously viewed slide.
Return To Quiz	Takes users back to: The last attempted question slide if users answered it incorrectly or skipped the question. The question after the last attempted question slide if users answered the question correctly.
Jump To Slide	The movie moves to the specified slide.
No Action	Nothing happens when the user exits the slide.

Options

In this section, you can add audio to your slide. When you click Add Audio, you can see the following dialog:

For more information, see Inserting audio into a Captivate project.

To distribute your audio file across several slides, click Audio > Import to > Slide. The following dialog appears:

After adding the audio to the slide, you can modify the following properties:

Option	Description
Fade In [#] Seconds	Specifies the time for audio to fade into full volume.
Fade Out [#] Seconds	Specifies the time for audio to fade out to silence.
Loop Audio	Plays the audio file continuously until the slide exits.
Stop Background Audio	Stops playing any background audio associated with the slide.

Slide Timing options

Slide Duration: Use to change the duration for which the slide plays. The maximum value is one hour (3600 seconds).

To assign a transition effect to the slide, choose any option from the drop-down list.

For more information, see Adding slide transitions.

Add pause between slides

You can pause slides in a Captivate project in one of the following ways:

Using a click box to pause slides
Using a button to pause slides

Using a click box to pause slides

In a slide, click Interactions > Click Box to insert a click box.
Disable the captions (Success, Failure, and Hint) and disable the option Hand Cursor, and enable the option Pause project until user clicks.

Click Box properties
Resize the click box and place it in an area of your slide where your user does not normally click. When you insert the click box, the pause action gets reflected in the slide Timeline.

Pause in Timeline

Using a button to pause slides

Insert a smart shape (Shapes > Any smart shape) or a button (Interactions > Button) in your slide.

If you have inserted a smart shape, convert it into a button by clicking Use as Button.
Place the shape in the slide and make the shape invisible by setting the Opacity to 0% and the color of the stroke to match the background color of the slide.

Button properties
After you insert the shape, the Timeline also reflects the pause action.

Button pause in Timeline

You can also change the pause time for your slide by selecting the object and in the Timing panel, modify the Pause After property.

Pause after

Advance slides automatically

If you are importing a PowerPoint presentation in a project, you can choose the slides of the project to move automatically instead of a mouse click.

Set the properties for a responsive slide

The properties for a responsive slide are almost the same as a non-responsive slide, with some exceptions.

If you want to change the height for a single slide to allow scrollable content on the slide, click Unlink from Device height to increase the slide height.

For more information, see Responsive project design in Captivate.

Unlink from Device	Link to Device

Uniform text scaling

In a responsive slide, insert a smart shape, and add some text in the shape. Set the font size of the text equal to the value specified in the Minimum Font Size field.

Equal font size

When you preview the project, you can see that the text scales accordingly on various devices. When the text is unable to fit in a device, you can see a Scale button.

When you click the button, the entire text gets revealed.

Text scaling on devices
Change the font size of the text as shown below. Also, set the Object Size Height to Auto in the Position Properties panel of the object.

Different fonts used in object

When you preview the project, you can see that the fonts have realigned themselves to size 14, which you had specified as the minimum font size.

Minimum font size preview
Add more objects with text in the slide and set the Object Size Height to Auto for all objects.

Objects with text added