Macromedia Captivate for Windows (Paperback)

~ Tom Green (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

If you've ever used traditional screen recording software to create product demonstrations or created custom simulations on your own, you know what an enormous task it can become. Not so with Macromedia's recently renamed and enhanced software, Macromedia Captivate (formerly RoboDemo). By capturing your actions as you use a program, Captivate eliminates the need to create custom graphics for each step--which in turns means no massive video files at the end of the project. Macromedia Captivate automatically records all onscreen actions and instantly creates an interactive Flash simulation. Point and click to add text captions, narration, and e-learning interactions without any programming knowledge. Veteran author Tom Green understands that this is big news for anyone creating online training, product demos, e-learning applications or user support systems--which is why in these pages he provides a super-quick start for a super-quick tool! After introducing you to the Captivate work environment, Tom uses simple task-based instructions and loads of visual aids to help you progress through chapters on creating and modifying Captivate simulations; using frames; adding objects, captions, audio, interactivity, and rich media; using PowerPoint with Captivate; integrating Captivate with Macromedia Breeze; Captivate and Flash; and more.

About the Author

Tom Green is a professor of interactive media at Humber College in Canada and the co-author of Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX.

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; illustrated edition edition (January 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321294173
• ISBN-13: 978-0321294173
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #647,765 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The low down on Captivate for Windows, February 7, 2006

By	Patrick - See all my reviews

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!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Publication, November 14, 2005

By	Russell Youngblood (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Frustrating ommissions, July 9, 2007

By	I Buy Wise "LW" (Folsom, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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.