Quick Tip: Adobe Captivate Project [Compatible Mode] – What is it?

I’m sure that you have seen it yourself and perhaps even wondered about what the [Compatible Mode] after some of your Adobe Captivate files mean.

Take a look at the screenshot here:

As you can see I have two projects showing [Compatible Mode] in the type.

I created a blank project file in Adobe Captivate 2, Adobe Captivate 3, Adobe Captivate 4, Adobe Captivate 5 and Adobe Captivate 5.5 and saved them to my computer. The files from version 2-4 all show “Adobe Captivate 5.5 Project”, while the files from version 5 and 5.5 shows “Adobe Captivate Project [Compatible Mode]”.

It seems like files saved from earlier versions than Adobe Captivate 5 shows up as Adobe Captivate 5.5 Projects but files saved in Adobe Captivate 5 and 5.5 shows up as the [Compatible View]. It seems a bit backwards actually ;o)

So what is the meaning of this? No clue – I’m not really sure what the reasoning behind this is and it doesn’t make a difference. Even though your new projects state that they are in [Compatible Mode] you can rest assure that they are not compatible with anything but their specific version of Captivate (or a newer version). An Adobe Captivate 5.5 Project with the [Compatible Mode] type will still only open in Adobe Captivate 5.5 since Adobe Captivate has never been backwards compatible.

The only useful thing that you can use this [Compatible Mode] type suffix for is to identify which of your old projects have not yet been updated to the newer versions of Adobe Captivate.