I picked up Captivate for the first time this morning. I’ve had it installed (the demo anyway) for a while having first heard about it a couple of years ago but haven’t done anything with it. So I had a little time today to explore it and decided to get started.

So this is my journey.

I was a bit daunted when I first took a look at Captivate. I mean the manual is over 700 pages!!!! So there’s a lot in it. However, just diving in seems to have been a good call for me. I love it. So far it has proven to be powerful, but incredibly easy to get to grips with. Now, I realise that I’m a complete newbie when it comes to Captivate but I’m already creating real usable content with only an hour or two of watching a few videos online and playing around with it. It helps of course that you already have an idea of what course materials you need and have some premade content to use. I know you can use online examples but, hey, I wanted to do something that would actually be usable at the end of this. So armed with my course outline and illustrator files in I dove.

Anyone familiar with any kind of presentation software such as PowerPoint or similar, will have no problems whatsoever understanding the basics of Captivates design. The templates are great and easy to modify, or, if you are like me and like doing things the hard way, there is the option of building it all from scratch. As you can guess, that’s the way I decided to go.

Building an application from scratch in Captivate is, to be honest, initially daunting but actually really easy.  You build on your existing knowledge of how to create a presentation and just adapt it for Captivate. Exporting is simply a matter of deciding what format you want (Lets be honest, these days it’s going to be HTML5!) and letting it get on with it.

Once you have your slides designed, you can play with the transition timings and effects, add  buttons, etc. Again, all of this is straight forward and easy. Especially with the excellent training materials online.

Now, have I created the full application I was hoping for? Not yet. I still have to learn about quizzes, and so so much more. But, do I have a usable product at the end of this? Absolutely I do. I have my first training course that I am confident enough with to actually use for its intended purpose. Which, to be honest, in a couple of hours is absolutely fantastic.

I’m looking forward to my next taste as I delve even further into this fantastic product. I guess you can say I’m Captivated!  (Sorry. I’ll turn the light off on my way out!).