So you want to jazz up your e-learning course or presentation. Literally. You like jazz music and you want it in the background of some or all slides of your content. Once upon a time, it required a Flash developer to hack your Articulate Presenter content to achieve this goal. No more.
With the launch of Articulate Presenter 5, you can include one or more playlists — jazz, hip hop, rock, classical, polka — that span any number of slides, and even support looping should your slide duration surpass that of your playlists.
Here’s how to groove to the beat of your own drum:
- Go to Articulate -> Library and Options -> Playlists.
- Click New to create a new playlist.
- Name your playlist and click OK to save it.
- Add one or many songs to your playlist.
- Repeat for each playlist you’d like to add to your library.
Tip: Your playlists can be used in any e-learning course or presentation you create and are not tied only to this file. Additionally, if you want to share your project files with a colleague, your playlists will be included whenever you select Articulate -> Publish -> Project Files.
OK, so you have your new tunes. How do you determine which slides should be associated with your new playlist?
- Go to Articulate -> Slide Properties Manager.
- Use the drop-down lists in the Audio Playlist column to select your playlist for any slide where you would like the background music to play.
- Click Save.
That’s it! When you publish, you’ll hear your new playlist music span across any slide where you’ve selected it to play.
Note: You cannot use the Timeline Audio Editor to edit playlists; this tool can only be used for imported audio or audio recorded via the Record Narration feature.
Lastly, remember that the more audio your content has, the larger the file will be and the more bandwidth it will require. Given that, I’d suggest only using this feature if the majority of your users are on broadband connections. Just as your dial-up users probably don’t listen to streaming audio from Radio Paradise (my favorite online radio station), they probably don’t have the luxury of listening to background music in their online training.
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My wav file for my playlist hits a dead spot at the end of every cycle. My wav vendor (Shockwave) says that I need to compress the audio in Flash and it will disappear. How do I make it disappear in Presenter 5.2.131? (I am currrently on demo). Thanks, Bob.
Bob Reszler | Posted at 12:55 pm on July 26th, 2007 | #