Adobe Captivate 13.2 release notes

What's new and changed in this release

Captivate 13.2

Release date: 26 August 2026

Adobe Captivate 13.2 allows avatar settings to flow globally across all slides with easy per-slide overrides, fixes thumbnail and PPT import issues, and ensures smooth upgrades from older versions. It also delivers major accessibility improvements, such as better screen reader support, keyboard navigation, color contrast, and focus handling across published content.

Visit the Captivate downloads page and try out the latest release.

Avatar enhancements

Adobe Captivate 13.2 improves how Avatar (AI Narrator) settings are configured and maintained across a project. A single Global Avatar configuration, character, voice, display option, shape, background fill, border, and inner shadow- now automatically flows to every slide in the project, and stays in sync as you keep editing.

View How avatar settings apply to slides for more information

Global avatar navigation

Any change you make to the project's global Avatar, appearance, or voice is automatically applied to every slide that hasn't been individually customized. Previously, this only applied to slides created after the change; existing slides had to be updated manually, one by one.

Avatar customization (slide-level override)

You can now customize the Avatar on an individual slide. This override replaces the global Avatar's configuration for that slide only, appearance, voice, or both.

• Once a slide is customized, it is marked as overridden, and a Restore Link control appears on that slide.
  Note: Edits you make to the global Avatar do not apply to a slide whose Avatar has been overridden, because that slide's Avatar properties now take precedence over the global Avatar's properties.
• Select Restore Link at any time to reconnect an overridden slide back to the global Avatar; the slide will immediately pick up current global settings and continue following future global changes.

View Customize an AI avatar for more information.

Slide navigator thumbnail refresh

When you change the global Avatar, or the Avatar on a selected slide, Captivate automatically refreshes the Slide Navigator thumbnails to reflect the change. You can then Preview or Publish to see the updated thumbnails reflected consistently. (This resolves a prior issue where thumbnails could show a stale or incorrect Avatar image, or fail to refresh at all.)

PPT Import

• You can select specific slides to import as a Captivate project. Once the slides have been imported, you can enable an Avatar — along with its associated transcripts — for those slides. Avatar enablement isn't available during the import process itself. It's a separate step performed after the import completes.
• When you import additional slides from the PPT afterward, Captivate applies the project's currently configured global Avatar properties to those newly imported slides, keeping avatar state consistent across staggered/selective imports.

Smooth upgrade of Captivate versions

When you upgrade a project to Adobe Captivate 13.2 — including projects originally created in 12.x, 13.0, or 13.1 — Captivate automatically applies your project's Avatar properties to slides where the narrator's properties haven't been manually changed by the author. Slides with author-customized narrator settings retain those customizations and aren't overridden. This upgrade behavior is independent of the project's original version.

Accessibility enhancements and fixes

Adobe Captivate 13.2 addresses a broad set of screen reader and keyboard accessibility barriers across published Captivate content, covering heading structure, color contrast, focus visibility, accessible names/labels, ARIA usage, control roles, grouped controls, reading order, status announcements, auto-playing content, keyboard/pointer operability, text reflow, decorative images, and touch target sizing.

This release includes an updated Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). View the ACR for Captivate 13.2.

Heading structure

• Heading controls (new): Authors can now explicitly turn a text object's heading role on or off and set its heading level, instead of the level being auto-inferred from visual styling alone.
• Tabs: The heading now follows a correct, sequential heading level instead of skipping levels.

Color contrast

• Drag and drop: The focus indicator on combo box options now meets the required 3:1 contrast ratio against its background.

Focus indicator visibility

• Tabs: Tab elements now show a visible focus indicator when navigated to by keyboard.
• Video: The video player now shows a visible focus indicator when focused.
• Project-wide: The main page container now shows a visible focus indicator instead of none at all.

Focus obscured by other content

• Hotspot: Buttons are no longer hidden behind other content when they receive keyboard focus.
• Matching: The second and third comboboxes are no longer hidden behind an expanded combobox above them when focused.

Accessible names and labels

• Input field: The text input field now has an accessible name that assistive technology can read.

ARIA usage

• Simulation: The mouse pointer now has a role and label exposed to assistive technology.

Button role and name

• Simulation: The highlight box is now correctly available as a shape with configurable accessibility text.

Selected/active state exposure

• Table of Contents: Slide title buttons now announce their selected state to assistive technology.
• Flip Card: Screen readers can now identify the active state of the card.
• Buttons: Screen readers can now identify the selected and visited states of buttons.

Grouped controls and labeling

• Sequencing: The group of form controls on the question page is now associated with a group label.
• Form: The checkboxes are now associated with a group label.

Nested interactive controls

• Simulation: The "Highlight Box" is no longer nested inside another interactive element, which previously confused assistive technology navigation.
• Simulation: The "Click Box" control is no longer nested inside another interactive control.

Status message announcements

• Simulation: The success message is now automatically announced to screen reader users instead of requiring manual discovery.
• Video: The loading indicator status is now automatically announced to screen reader users.

Timing 

• Simulation: The success message, and separately the hint text, display time is increased for you to read and take an action.

Keyboard and pointer operability

• Avatar: You can now position the interactive avatar using the keyboard alone.
• Player controls: The player controls region can now be operated by keyboard alone, without relying on drag-and-drop; a non-dragging alternative is now available for its drag-and-drop functionality.
• Sequencing: A non-dragging alternative is now available for the drag-and-drop interaction.

Reflow and text resize

• Submit All: The "You have answered all questions" prompt and its functionality now remain available at a 320px-equivalent width.
• Text: The text can now be resized up to 200% without loss of content or functionality.

Bugs fixed in the update

Collaboration and AI-assisted features

• Fixed an issue where generating a review link or text-to-speech audio could fail with a generic error message in certain restricted network environments.

Authoring

• Fixed an issue where a custom drop shadow defined in a design option preset was not applied correctly to a component.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the focus indicator around cards used a solid black outline that was difficult to see against the card's drop shadow; the indicator now uses the active theme's accent color for better visibility.

Publishing and LMS playback

• Fixed an issue where clicking the exit action closed the entire browser tab instead of just the course player when a course was opened in a new tab in a headless LMS environment.
• Fixed an issue where a quiz could intermittently freeze and become unresponsive when a learner resumed a course from saved progress in an LMS.

System requirements

Check the System Requirements for Adobe Captivate 13.2.

Update to the latest version

After clicking Help > Check for Updates, the error message, Error 184, may display.

Follow the steps below to resolve the issue:

1. In any version of Captivate 12 or Captivate 13, select Help > Check for Updates.
2. Once the update is visible, close the Adobe Captivate app.
3. Select Update now.