Tony Vinckx - Adobe Captivate Blog

Welcome to my Captivate blog!

Last updated: see Projects released in 2024

My name is Tony Vinckx, and I am a Director of Business Services (HR) based in Victoria, Australia and love using Adobe Captivate to develop interactive and engaging digital learning projects and related eLearning content in the workplace. I am passionate about developing new modules that teach learners new knowledge and skills or aim to increase their awareness about a given topic, which they didn’t understand before entering into that interactive digital experience!

I am not an eLearning developer, rather a senior HR specialist who uses this authoring tool to design, build and deploy digital learning products in the workplace, which are SCORM compliant and generally deployed on an enterprise LMS but I also use this tool to create interactive documents such as employee handbook and develop compliance training modules.

Over the past couple of years, I developed an array of projects to better understand Captivates features, so I have decided to release my projects for free to the public with the hope that it may just help just one person new to learning the essentials of Adobe Captivate, because when I taught myself, I found it challenging with the lack of examples to help me better understand the product. So this is my gift to any of you just starting out for the first time. Please read the disclaimer at the bottom of the blog regarding terms of use.

When you click on the links below, you will be redirected to OneDrive where you can freely download the files using a modern browser.

Note: The 2019/2020 CPTX files were developed using Adobe Captivate v9.0 but they can be opened with any of the newer releases, and the 2021 project files were created using AC 11.5. Courses published as PDF documents are opened with Adobe Reader version 9 or newer, else if you open them in a different PDF viewer that doesn't support flash content - it will show nothing on page one, and lastly zip files are fully published Captivate projects, which contain links to documents and resources.

In chronological order this is the list of my Adobe Captivate projects you can freely download:

Projects Released in 2019:

Projects Released in 2020:

Projects Released in 2021:

All these CPTX projects were created using "Adobe Captivate 11.5.1.499."

All projects have been published to HTML and autoplay button disabled via the cpm.js file - so they are ready to be extracted and viewed in a browser. The zip files (except the eLearning resources) contain 1) the published HTML project files and 2) the original CPTX file in the root folder.

I wish to thanks the Merlot community who make up the majority of my visitors, so I dedicate these 2021 project files to you - I hope you find them useful! As requested by Jenny & Brendan - I have included examples of microlearning modules and simple game based interactions (Hint: See the end of the list).

Note: many of the examples listed below demonstrate Captivate skills at the intermediate level, namely advanced actions and variables

Projects Released in 2022:

Find below my list of 2022 Adobe Captivate projects, followed by eLearning design resources and materials I collated in several PowerPoint files. For all the AC projects, the CPTX files are contained in the root folder in each zip file and each have been published in HTML, with their *.CPM files modified to remove the play button from loading, so you will automatically see the splash/start/welcome screen displayed in your choice of browser.

Projects

Resources

Projects Released in 2023:

Find below my list of 2023 Adobe Captivate projects. These are mostly responsive projects.

Projects Released in 2024:

Here’s a list of free interactive learning modules created with PowerPoint and do not use macros, VBA or add-on tools. I have aimed to create mostly new & unique click & reveal interactions in each of these learning modules that were not included in the first file containing 100 examples.

For all the examples of PowerPoint Interactive micro learning lessons listed below, click HERE to download them all as a single zip file from Onedrive.

Example of a PowerPoint Interaction - Word Search Puzzle
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Diagram - Learn Kitchen Vocabulary
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Diagram - Spot the Office Hazards
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Infographic - 12 Fun Facts About House Cats
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Infographic - Anatomy of the Heart
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Infographic - Types of Expresso Drinks
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Micro Learning Lesson for Mobile Phones - Fundamentals of Password Management
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Micro Learning Lesson for Mobile Phones - Guidelines for Managers on Absence Management
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Micro Learning Lesson for Mobile Phones - How to Manage a Difficult Employee
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Micro Learning Lesson for Mobile Phones - Introduction to Construction Safety
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Micro Learning Lesson for Mobile Phones - Introduction to Horizon Planning
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Micro Learning Lesson for Mobile Phones - Managing Psychological Hazards in the Workplace
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Micro Learning Lesson for Mobile Phones - Types of Personal Protective Equipment in Construction
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Micro Learning Lesson for Mobile Phones - Understanding OHS Laws in Australia
Example of a PowerPoint Interactive Workplace Policy for Mobile Phones - Personal Mobile Device Policy
Example of Interactive Flip Cards for Mobile Phones - 20 Paleontology Discoveries

Workaround / Solution – How to Remove the Play Button after publishing HTML Projects with Adobe Captivate 2019

This solution applies to Adobe Captivate 2019 release 11.5.1.499 and the 30 day trial version.

So, you have enabled the auto play option via File Menu > Publish Settings in Adobe Captivate 2019, but when you open the HTML published file in the browser, you (or user) then must click a play button on a starting blank screen to play the project. As seen below:

Here’s the steps to enable HTML auto play in Adobe Captivate 2019 and remove the play button, so when you open a published project in the browser - the welcome or splash screen will directly show.

Here’s the steps:

1. Extract my zip file called “How to Brush Your Teeth - Click and Reveal Interaction” to a folder. This file contains both the HTML published project and a CPM.js file you need for step 6, or feel free to publish any of your Adobe captivate projects to a folder – but do NOT publish to a zip file,

2. The published project for “How to Brush Your Teeth - Click and Reveal Interaction” contains a few folders. Navigate to the assets folder and then to the js folder,

3. Right click on the file called CPM.js script and select edit. The file will open in notepad,

4. From the edit menu, click Find and then copy and paste these words:

a.fireModuleReadyEvent(a.currentWindow)

into the find field and then click Find Next.

6. Notepad will highlight the start of this line. The entire line will read as follows:

a.fireModuleReadyEvent(a.currentWindow),a.autoPlayNeedsUserClick()||a.D.project_main.autoplay&&(a.currentWindow.cpAPIInterface&&a.currentWindow.cpAPIInterface.canPlay())&&a.movie.play())

7. Close the Find search box.

The next step involves replacing this entire line (see above) by copying and pasting the script line from another CPM.js script that was formerly published with Adobe Captivate version 9 into the above CPM.js file.

8. The published project for “How to Brush Your Teeth - Click and Reveal Interaction” contains a folder called x_CPMv9. Navigate to this folder and then right click on the file called CPM_ACv9.0.js to edit the script,

9. From the edit menu, select Find and copy the same line we did in step 4, namely:

a.fireModuleReadyEvent(a.currentWindow)

The entire line we need to copy reads as follows:

a.fireModuleReadyEvent(a.currentWindow),a.device==a.DESKTOP&&a.D.project_main.autoplay&&(a.currentWindow.cpAPIInterface&&a.currentWindow.cpAPIInterface.canPlay())&&a.movie.play())

10. Next, copy and paste the entire line from CPM_ACv9.0.js into the original CPM.js - you simply need to toggle between the two opened notepad files!

11. Now save the file original CPM.js script

12. Navigate to the root folder in the published project and open index.htm

If you have done this correctly, and didn’t leave out a bracket etc, the project will open in the browser to the welcome screen without a play button.

Unfortunately, to enable HTML auto play, this procedure must be done after publishing each project, which means more development time! At this point, you can then archive the folder and create a zip file by right clicking on the entire project folder > select Send To > compressed zip file, which you can upload on a LMS of your choice.

Before applying this fix, make sure the Auto Play option is enabled (ticked) in the project settings before publishing to a folder.

In the root folder, I have also included the cptx file for the project called “How to Brush Your Teeth - Click and Reveal Interaction,” which uses variables – after all images are clicked, the exit button is revealed.

I have tried to copy and paste the script line from a word document, but had no success, but when I used notepad, I always had success. With practice, you get faster doing the above steps. For me, I found it easier to have a notepad file called script.txt containing just that one line of script I need, so after I publish a project, do step 4, then toggle to the script.txt, click CTRL+C, toggle back, highlight the line you need to replace and then do CTRL+V to replace and paste the new line, click save and then check that index.html works. All done within 30 seconds!

Workaround/solution for "Project has expired" error message in Adobe Captivate 9

After publishing a CPTX project to HTML, the project will expire after a set time when using the trial version of AC. You can change the setting of a javascript file to undo the project from expiring, thus you know longer will get the project has expired error message. Follow these steps:

1) Publish the project to HTML and then open the published folders.
2) Look for the folder called assets
3) Click on the js folder
4) Right click on cpm.js and select edit
5) In the edit menu - select find
6) Type in the word " expired "
7) Look for the statement below that reads peon:true (see example below)

pprtd:false,peon:true, pems:'This project has expired.',pey:2019

8) Now, replace "true" with "false" (see example below)

pprtd:false,peon:false,pems:'This project has expired.'

9) Lastly, save the cpm.js file and then open index.html in the browser - you should get no error stating the project has expired. Note: This has worked for 90% of projects that were published to HTML.

For anyone interested in wanting to try the above steps, here's an old project file you can download, which was published using AC v.9:
A Basic Guide to Deli Platters - project has expired.

Disclaimer / Terms of Use

These cptx files can be used for personal and educational use only. You can use them to develop your own projects, apply your own themes, use them as an educational resource, improve the content, expand on the examples, reuse images or adapt the projects for your own personal use. You are not permitted to use the file for commercial, personal gain or profit and you can not publish this project to take ownership and make it a work of your eLearning portfolio. When sharing or referencing my files, it would be greatly appreciated if you credit my blog address.

Comments, feedback, issues with links etc - feel free to email me at: tonyvinckx@gmail.com

Feel free to check out my other blog: http://tonyvinckx.wordpress.com