One of the new additions in Adobe Captivate 5 is the Master Slide concept. This has long been known and used in Microsoft PowerPoint, but now the same feature is available in Adobe Captivate 5. This is a welcome addition and will give you a range of different benefits in your development.
What are Master Slides?
Well a Master Slide is a slide where you can put your background / template and also common objects that are used throughout your project. These objects could be logos and headers, text captions containing variables, static images and widgets.
The benefit for the developer by using Master Slides are that it will be easier to work with since you just place the elements on one slide and thereby guarantee a uniform look throughout your project. In Adobe Captivate 4 you could set an object to “Display for rest of project” (you can still do that in Adobe Captivate 5) but I still like the Master Slide approach better.
How do Master Slides work?
Master Slides in Adobe Captivate 5 is a static slide where you can insert your common objects. There is no timeline on the Master Slide so you cannot define when an object should appear / disappear. You still have the option to set Transition Effects for your objects though.
Using multiple Master Slides in a project
One of the really great features is that you can create multiple Master Slides in your project. This means that you can create one template/Master Slide for your content and one Master Slide for your quiz slides.
Which objects can I use on a Master Slide?
These are the objects that you can use on a Master Slide in Adobe Captivate 5.
I’m not really sure why you can add a FLV/F4V file since you would have that video play on all your slides. Perhaps someone will find it useful but I can’t really see where I could use that ;o)
You can’t add buttons, which I think is a shame. It would have been nice to be able to drop your own Navigation Buttons on the Master Slide and then have them appear on all other slides. For example if you create a large course with a main menu you could have created a Main Menu button that performed a “Jump to Slide XX” action. This can still be achieved but now you just have to create the button as a widget instead and insert it on the Master Slide.
13 Comments
Hi Michael, you can insert variables p.e. on a Rollover Caption. I do use this feature on Question slides to insert the score for each Question slide. And something else I like: you can apply Master slides to a group.
Hi Michael,
Whilst it is true that you cannot add buttons to Master Slides, you can insert interactive objects into Project template slide and include Master Slides in your Project Template.
This gives you the best of both worlds. The project template includes all the placeholders and interactive objects and Master Slide the layout and design for your course.
You can also create new slides that are based off the Project template, by choosing Insert > New Slide (this is a new feature in Adobe Captivate 5) which then inserts a new slide that is based off your Project Template and the currently selected Master Slide.
@Lieve – good point about the variables and I also like the fact that you can apply Master Slides to a group ;o)
@Mark. Clever.. Didn’t even think about combining Master Slides and Project Templates. In my projects I always use a special widget (an advanced version of the perpetual button widget) so I just need to update this to AS3 / CP5 compatability and then I will be able to use it again. I will need to check out the Project Template approach though because I haven’t really used that alot.
When I click any slide link slide autometics go to next slide. How can I resolve this prob.
I have generated 7 different master slides by first creating them in MS Power Point then saving them as pictures (PNG) and finally inserting then into the master slides.
Now, in Preview mode all works well. The problem starts after I publish. Its looks like the master slides are fading in and out on every slide. How can I solve this issue?!
@Peter,
Any chance that you enabled the “Transition” option under the general tab?
/Michael
Hello Michael,
I am trying to create a Project using Captivate 5 (I have used Captivate 4 in the past)… the problem I am having is the LINKS to Websites. I want the users to click on the links provided that opens a new window and they can review it as a reference without getting interrupted.
I added the click option with an action command. But when I publish, it doesn’t do anything…
Can you help me! please.
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I have the “Allow User to Review Quiz” selected in Preferences/Quiz/Settings, but it only displays the results of the first question and will not allow me to move on to the next one. I’m viewing as a published .swf. There doesn’t seem to be any other options to set up the review. What am I failing to do?
Where is publishing a flv to each slide useful? How bout a 30 second countdown timer to show the user their question is timed? Thats what i use it for fyi.
@David – That’s actually a great idea.. I hadn’t thought of that one. Thanks for sharing.
/Michael
Considering the menu creation possibility in the template (or even when creating each page manually). Is it possible to have it skip to a slide that has a constant name rather than a changing Slide #? If I want a menu item to skip to slide “Customer_Service_Issues” but I don’t know what slide # that will be when the course is done, is there a way to do that, or do you have to update the template at the end, which will update all of the slide menus? Thanks.
I haven’t found a way to easily add images to a master slide. Don’t people want their logo on the master slide, or is there another way to get the image on each slide? Thanks!