Customer Reviews

Macromedia Captivate for Windows

5 star:		(5)
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3 star:		(3)
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I have been experimenting with Captivate for 3 months (not continuously) to create training programs for our software products. Lets face it, Captivate it isn't all that complicated. If you are competent enough to put together a Power Point presentation then you are competent enough to use Captivate. It is really a fantastic program to create demonstrations or training programs. The problem that I ran into, like many Macromedia programs, is that there are usually little tricks and features that are hidden in the program. This book really outlines not only the basics of Captivate but digs down a little more and explains these hidden features. I looked at several books for this program and some were just too basic, in fact most were just Crayola basic. If you are looking for a book to show you the all the different features of Captivate including creating and editing movies, exporting, creating basic or in-depth presentations then this is completely the book for you. Heck, the book even gets into exporting presentations to work on a PDA....what else do you need? Enjoy!

As Director of Training for a Macromedia Authorized Training Provider, it is my responsibility to review technical publications that relate to the software that we teach. Captivate has so many features that are not easily found by the new user. This book covers a lot of ground quickly to help you begin publishing with Captivate quickly and move on to the advanced features of the software. Job well done!

I've used several other QuickStart Guide titles in the past, so I trusted this one without seeing it in person. I was very frustrated in trying to use it as a reference, since MANY times it didn't include the pieces of info I needed. Instead of explaining what many options mean (like in the publishing dialog for example), it just lists them - just like the software does. I got the sense that the author didn't know what some things were or was rushing to get this done and wasn't as thorough as I'd expect. While it's a good basic overview of a lot of things, it's not great for looking up specifics.

Although Captivate is a simple program to pick up this book is great if you need the odd tip. I tried the other Captivate books and returned them.

I recommend this book.

I had never worked with this program before and this book was a good reference to jumpstart into Captivate.

This didn't cover the topics I wanted it to, but it may still work for you if you are learning to use Captivate. It is definitely easy to read and use, if that is your priority, but it didn't tell me much I didn't already know. I purchased this because I was running into some brick walls while using Captivate and the book was touted as containing some tricks and tips. Honestly, I think the software itself is restrictive, and it isn't the author's fault that they couldn't remedy Captivate's shortcomings.

I was a little disappointed in the amount of technical jargon in the book. The blurb on the cover offers a "quickstart guide which uses pictures rather than lengthy explanations" which I did not find to be the case. I found the explanations a little wordy and in a couple of cases found myself lost where certain steps or a degree of knowledge were assumed.

The books reached me in excellent condition and on time.
I ordered for the books to be delivered to my daughter's address in Portland, Oregon and she sent it by post-parcel to me to India. It will be very helpful if Alazon explored shipping to India directly.

Thank you,
Hema Sarathy