# Basic steps for using Macromedia Captivate

Creating projects with Captivate is easy and fast. Following are the basic steps involved in creating movies:

- Plan your movie using storyboards, scripts, or whatever organizational materials are appropriate.

- Set initial recording options and movie preferences.

- Record your movie. Capture onscreen action of all sorts. You can create a new movie from scratch or use a template. You can even import other file types into Captivate movies.

- Add captions, images, sound, animated text, and countless other options to your movie. Customize what you add for your own particular needs.

- If necessary, change movie and object timing using the Timeline.

- Preview the movie.

- Publish the movie in any of a variety of formats.