Adobe Captivate software has emerged as the market-leading rapid authoring tool for creating professional eLearning content with advanced interactivity, software and scenario simulations, and robust quizzes — all without programming knowledge or multimedia skills. The software has garnered raves from customers and industry publications alike, and its awards include a CODiE Award for Best Corporate Learning Solution, a Business Software Satisfaction Award, and a Technology & Learning Award of Excellence.

In developing version 4, the Adobe Captivate team has continued to push the product beyond screen capture by focusing on three key customer needs: to work quickly, intuitively, and collaboratively; to use powerful tools; and to create engaging content.

Work quickly, intuitively, and collaboratively

SWF file commenting

Review cycles can eat up valuable development time. Now you can speed up content creation by facilitating real-time reviews with subject-matter experts and other team members. The new Adobe Captivate Reviewer is an Adobe AIR application that allows reviewers to add comments to your SWF files while playing them. Reviewers do not need to have Adobe Captivate installed, and their comments will be imported to the appropriate slides in your project.

Professional project templates

The Adobe Captivate team has overhauled the software's project templates, making it easier than ever for subject-matter experts to contribute content without compromising the structure of your project.

Roundtrip PowerPoint workflow

If you're accustomed to working with PowerPoint slides, you'll be happy to know that you can now leverage Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 (PPTX format) slides in your projects. Import slides with audio and interactivity, easily update the content, and keep your PowerPoint and Adobe Captivate files in sync with the new, dynamically linked import option. Just start editing a PowerPoint file in Adobe Captivate, and the changes will be imported back into the Adobe Captivate project automatically.

Table of Contents and Aggregator

A new, multilevel Table of Contents lets learners navigate through your content and track their progress with ease. And the new Aggregator makes it a snap for you to combine multiple content modules into one complete eLearning course.

Use powerful tools

Variables and Advanced Actions

Customization is now a whole lot easier. New Variables enable you to personalize the learning experience by using learner-provided data throughout a scenario. Advanced Actions let you further configure and modify the learning experience by enabling conditional actions, or more than one action in an interaction.

Adobe Photoshop layer support

Now you can make images work harder in your Adobe Captivate projects. Adobe Captivate 4 lets you preserve layers in imported Adobe Photoshop (PSD) files so you can edit or animate individual layers for just the right effect.

AVI output and PDF publishing

You've told us how important it is for you to be able to reach learners wherever they are. So with Adobe Captivate 4, you can output AVI files that can be streamed on the web, published to sites like YouTube, viewed on AVI-capable devices, burned to DVDs, and more. And you can bring text-based instructional content to life by embedding Adobe Captivate movies in Adobe PDF files.

Create engaging content

Customizable widgets

You're always on the lookout for new ways to engage learners. Adobe Captivate 4 supports customizable widgets, such as games and question types, that can be created in Adobe Flash Professional software and shared via the Adobe Exchange.

Support for panning

If you're delivering learning content for use on mobile devices, you'll be happy about new support for panning. Using the panning motion while recording not only helps you draw attention to specific areas in an application, but also enables you to optimize your content for playback on small mobile device screens.

Support for right-clicking in simulations

Adobe Captivate 4 helps you maintain realism in your software training content by simulating right-clicking.

The big picture

Because Adobe Captivate is usually at the core of a professional's authoring toolkit, we're always working to enhance integration with other applications and technologies. With the new version, you can continue to publish to the Adobe Acrobat Connect server to instantly generate URLs or track learners without having to invest in a large Learning Management System. Plus, you can also:

• Import Adobe Captivate 4 projects directly into Flash CS3 or CS4 Professional for additional enhancement, ActionScript coding, or integration into a larger Flash project.
• Take advantage of ActionScript 3.0 publishing to bring Adobe Flex content into your Adobe Captivate projects, and to embed Adobe Captivate movies in your Flex content.
• Edit AVI files of your Adobe Captivate content in Adobe Premiere Pro software.
• Create PDF Portfolios that bring together files of varying formats in a single PDF document, complete with navigation and a customized look and feel, for easy viewing via free Adobe Reader software.
• Send Adobe Captivate audio files to Adobe Soundbooth CS4 software for additional editing and enhancement, and then bring them back into Adobe Captivate.

new — a Complete elearning toolbox

This year, we're excited to introduce Adobe eLearning Suite software, the complete content-authoring solution for learning professionals. It combines best-of-breed tools for rapid eLearning, courseware authoring, simulation, and media editing, enabling you to easily create, collaborate on, and deliver rich interactive learning experiences.

eLearning Suite components include Adobe Captivate 4, Adobe Flash CS4 Professional with Learning Interactions, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 with CourseBuilder Extension, Adobe Presenter 7, Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended, Adobe Soundbooth CS4, Adobe Device Central CS4, Adobe Bridge CS4, and a SCORM packager. Learn more about Adobe eLearning Suite.

Getting started WITH ADOBE CAPTIVATE today

Download the trial and find out what you can do with Adobe Captivate 4.

To learn more about how to use Adobe Captivate, visit the Adobe Captivate training page.

We would love to see what you do with Adobe Captivate. Please submit your examples.

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