So, let's take a look at some of Captivate's labor saving features as we discuss the three steps to creating a training video; Input, Edit and Output. You will begin the first step with the Start Page which contains several Getting Started tutorials. These are video training tutorials made with Captivate. They will not only get you up and running quickly but also give you an idea of the finished project. Also on the Start Page, you have several choices for beginning your project. If you choose the Record New Project option, Captivate will get ready to record your mouse and keyboard activity. You can also start a project from the built-in templates that we talked about. When you choose this option, a sample project will open into the workspace. You can then change and customize each frame or slide of the project to meet your needs. You can also choose to begin a MenuBuilder project or start a project by importing PowerPoint files.

Whether you begin by recording screen activity or another option, your next step is to edit and enhance your project with titles, closed-captioning, multimedia objects, e learning components and more. Within the Captivate workspace, you will have three views; Storyboard, Edit and Branching. Each view allows you to work on your project in different ways.

The Storyboard View will display each individual slide of your project in a linear progression. You can perform several tasks from the Slide Tasks Panel such as adding, copy/paste and deleting slides. You can also drag and drop slides to rearrange their order or apply the same customization to several slides at one time.

The Edit View is where you will add most of the enhancement to your project. As you can see, there are several panels in this workspace. The individual slides are still there to the left in the Slides Panel and the slide that you are working on is displayed in the center. At the top of the workspace is the Timeline which is the control center for your project. It is quite similar to, but not as complicated as, the Timeline in Flash^R. Each slide in your project has its own Timeline and each component associated with a slide is represented in the Timeline. You will use the Timeline's drag and drop feature to control the order, timing and duration for each element on the slide. The Timeline is especially helpful when you are synchronizing audio with visual playback. Also in the Edit View, you have the Library Panel which you will use to organize the media components for your project such as images, audio and animations. You can add an object from the Library to one or more slides simply by dragging it from the Library Panel onto your slide. If you need to edit an image or audio file before adding it to your project, you can access external applications such as Photoshop^R from the Library Panel. You can also save a library from one project and use it in another project.

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