We now have a fix for Adobe Captivate 5 content with Text Animations not playing in the latest Flash Player issue, which does *NOT* require a republish of the entire project!

We have an application ‘CaptivateFP10Fixer’ which when given an affected Adobe Captivate 5 SWF with Text Animation, will give an Adobe Captivate 5 SWF that plays fine in the latest Flash Player.

This application can be used only on windows, but you can fix Adobe Captivate 5 content created both on Windows and Mac. The steps to follow:

INSTALLATION

1. Download Setup.zip from here
2. Rename Setup.zip to Setup.exe
3. Run Setup.exe. Click Next on the first screen
4. Enter the location where to install, and click ‘Next’.
   Note 1: CaptivateFP10Fixer requires the AIR runtime 2.0. If AIR 2.0 is not already installed on the machine, you will need to be connected to the internet so that the installer can download AIR 2.0. If no internet connection is available, the installation will not complete succesfully.
5. On succesful installation you will see an installation completed message.

USAGE

1. Go to <installation_folder>/CaptivateFP10FixerSetup/CaptivateFP10Fixer.
2. Run CaptivateFP10Fixer.exe
3. The following dialog comes up

Having launched this dialog, there are 2 ways in which you can provide the Adobe Captivate 5 SWF files to be fixed.

Method 1:

‘Browse for SWF Files’ – You can select this button if you want to select SWF file(s) which are located in one location.

1. Clicking on ‘Browse for SWF files’ button, opens up a file chooser dialog.
2. Now select the Adobe Captivate 5 SWF files to be converted and click on ‘Open’.
3. As CaptivateFP10Fixer works, you will see messages in the log area of the dialog.
4. Once the ‘Finished Processing’ message comes up, your modified SWF files are ready.

So where are these files?

The modified SWF file is saved in the same location as your original SWF file, with the name changed by appending a ‘_m’ to it.

For example, if you choose the file ‘C:/Original.swf’ for input; you can see your modified, working Adobe Captivate 5 content at ‘C:/Original_m.swf’.

Now you can play this modified Adobe Captivate 5 SWF in the latest Flash player without any issues.

This method works fine when you have a single SWF or multiple SWF’s located in the same folder. But that might not always be the case. You can have multiple SWF’s scattered all over your machine, and having to select each of them separately is tough. In such cases you can opt for the second method.

Method 2:

‘Browse for Text Files’ – You can select this button if you want to select SWF files which are located in multiple locations. This method also allows you to specify the location and name where the modified Adobe Captivate 5 SWF file will be saved.

Let me first show you how to create the text file specifying the Adobe Captivate 5 SWF paths.

The text file should be formatted as shown here

<path_to_original_SWF1>*<path_to_save_modified_SWF1>

<path_to_original_SWF2>*<path_to_save_modified_SWF2>

Here the ‘*’ acts as a delimiter between the original file name and the new file name.

Multiple swf file paths can be specified in a single text file.

A sample text file would look like this:

C:My ProjectsProject1.swf*C:My ProjectsProject1_new.swf

C:My Captivate ProjectsProject2.swf*C:My ProjectsProject2_new.swf

D: Project3.swf*C:My ProjectsProject3.swf

There are some restrictions on specifying the file paths:

• The path to original SWF and the path to modified SWF cannot be the same.  Even though no error will be shown, the conversion will not happen.
• There is a limit on the number of files which can be processed at one shot. Depending on the length of your file paths, this limit will usually be between 17-25 SWF files in one text file.

Once the text file is created, how do things work :

1. Click on ‘Browse for Text files’ button, which opens up a file chooser dialog.
2. Now select the Text file you have created and click on ‘Open’.
3. As CaptivateFP10Fixer works, you will see messages in the log area of the dialog.
4. Once the ‘Finished Processing’ message comes up, your modified SWF files are ready.  These SWF files will be saved in the locations which you had specified in your text file.

Having got your new SWF files, how do you play them in the browser?

You do not need to do any changes to the html file, say ‘Original.html’ which was published by Adobe Captivate. Just rename your ‘Original.swf’ to ‘Original.swf.old’ and the modified ‘Original_m.swf’ to ‘Original.swf’. Now open ‘Original.html’ and you’ll see it works fine!

TROUBLESHOOT

You have followed all the steps but still can’t see the modified SWF at the location it is meant to be at, or get an error message. Check for the following possibilities:

• I can see a ‘Loading SWF’ message but nothing happens after that.

Check if you have given the path of a SWF located over the network. If yes, copy the SWF to your local machine and try again.If your SWF is not on the local machine, CaptivateFP10Fixer cannot load it due to Flash Player security issues.

• I get the error ‘Could not create temp file’

The folder in which your Adobe Captivate 5 SWF file is stored must have write permissions. Change the permissions to allow write and try again

• I get the error ‘NativeProcess is not supported’

Check if you have AIR 2.0. If not, reinstall CaptivateFP10Fixer, ensuring you are connected to the internet.

• I have specified a text file but get an error ‘Could not parse text File’

Check the format of the text file you have supplied. Check if it is same as specified previously.

UNINSTALLATION

When you are done with changing all your affected Adobe Captivate 5 SWF files, you can choose to uninstall CaptivateFP10Fixer. You can do this from the control panel.

1. Open Control Panel and choose ‘Add or Remove programs’
2. Select CaptivateFP10Fixer and click on ‘Remove’
3. The <installation_Folder>/CaptivateFP10FixerSetup/CaptivateFP10Fixer folder and its contents are completely removed. However the <installation_Folder>/CaptivateFP10FixerSetup folder is not removed and you can delete this folder if you want.

Here is a quick video showing the steps which need to be followed.