Hello!
We are trying to create an Articulate training program which includes: PowerPoint slides, animation from Windows Media Movie, and narration. There is a huge problem with the presentation which includes; choppy narration and the movie not showing up during the presentation at all.
What recommendations do you have? Is Windows Media Player compatible with Articulate?
Thanks

Hi Lori- You might want to look into converting your Windows Media movies to Flash using a product like Sorenson Squeeze.

Hi,
I am facing a problem with flash insertion. After inserting the .swf file in the slide and publishing, the published version doesnt show swf’s actual size. It includes all the items these were not the part of the Stage when the swf was originally created using Adobe Flash MX. The player doesnt crop the swf to its actual size.

Hi Arun-

SWFs inserted into Presenter will play at their native/original size. Presenter doesn’t change the size at all. What happens when you play your SWF on its own in a Web browser?

If you’re still having this issue, please submit a case and we can help you out.

I am creating interactions with Engage and then publishing them to presenter, then publishing the Presenter piece to the Web.

I am importing a Camtasia flash movie into the Engage interaction. All is well, except when I first click on the link to the flash movie, it comes up as a black screen. If I close it and reopen it, it plays just fine. Is there anything I can do to make it play on the first click.

Hi!,
I am trying to insert a Camtasia Flash-movie into a dias in PowerPoint 2007 and building it with Articulate Presenter. I use the method descriped in this link.
I publish to a Web-package and when I try to view the Articulate presentation and come to a dias with a flash movie, I can only get the speak but the video-frame is black. When I click in the menu on the dias, the flash movie works great.
Can I do anything to make it start playing video automatically, when the presentation reach the dias with the movie?
The version of my Articulate Presenter is 5.3.151 Pro.

Hi Egon,
It sounds like you may be publishing to the new ExpressShow format in Camtasia 5. This does cause the video to stick in Articulate Presenter the first time you play it. Try encoding your video to the Legacy Template format in Camtasia instead and see if that works better for you.

First, let me say that this site is immensely helpful!

Here’s my dilemma, I am using CamStudio or My Screen Recorder Pro to capture “video” of a software simulation. I can convert that video to Flash using those products. The flash output looks great in my browser and in either of those two tools, but when I put it into a slide in Articulate, it is full of strange marks and cursor stops. I’ve checked and rechecked the frames per second and they seem to match just fine. Is there some problem with the resolution of the screen that I am capturing?

I’ve got the same question as Christopher. I’m getting the extra artifacts floating around in my Cam Studio capture, but only when I insert it into Articulate Presenter. Any thoughts?

Hi Christopher & Dave-

In Camtasia there should be an option not to scale the movie so that it is locked at its original size. This should prevent trailing cursor artifacts, which is a known issue with Camtasia screen recordings. You could also take a look at this forum thread, which outlines how we use Camtasia internally for use in Articulate Presenter.

I’ve successfully incorporated two Raptivity interactions into my articulate program. I’ve set them to open in a new window. They play perfectly on my machine, but when I copy them to CD and hand them off to open on other’s computers, they don’t open?

Is there a trick I don’t know about?

I also have problem trying to import SWF files from Camtasia, the audio is stoped in some part of the play. Anybody had solve this problem?

I need to use an old video of Richard Nixon (I am not a crook) in Presenter. It’s a short clip (less than 30 seconds). I capture it from YouTube as an FLV file and can play it in one of my players just fine. After I convert it to SWF to use in Presenter, though, it does something weird. The timer will show that the clip is not 30 seconds, but 10 miutes. When it plays, the cursor on the player moves very slowly and then when it gets to the end of the clip (about 30 seconds in), it jumps back to the beginning on the timer bar and restarts. The clips loops continuously. I’ve converted using several different pieces of software and the same thing happens each time. Can someone give me a clue on why I can’t get a clean FLV to SWF copy?

Hi there. I’m trying to get an Engage interaction to be reduced by 80% on the PowerPoint slide in order to see the master header and footer in my slides. If I use the default way of getting Engage into a slide show, it comes in as a full sized slide. Is there a way to place an Engage SWF file into a slide, then reduce it by 80%? I’ve tried this and all I get is a square with a spinning wheel like the Flash is trying to load or something. Suggestions?

[...] SWF Import [...]

Hi,

is it possible to import an swf and preserve its interactions (e.g. clicking, dragging objectcs, etc. – not a simple video).

thanks.

I’m having problems with Double Audio. I have rebuilt an older presentation with a combination of new slides and importing old (swf) slides from the Flash lessons that are still relavent. The proble is that I have gone through and edited all of the old audio out (I deleted the audio clips entirely out of the old Flash files and then resaved them) so there audio is not there. Only, when I publish and play the Presentation the voice overs we did last week are there, but if you click forward or try to click back on the presentation, the OLD Audio is there, resulting in double audio??? UGH! Is this a glitch and a shortcoming with the Presenter system that is won’t edit out old audio? Has anyone else had problems with this?

Hi Matt- What version of Presenter are you using? Here’s a solution that may help you out: If you publish your presentation and notice that some audio is overlapping or is duplicated on slides that it should not be playing on, please review this article for known issues and solutions to this issue.

I have created a presentation CD-ROM in Flash. This presentation has sound, video and animation, and its got navigation to take you to several swf but the files are taking time to load from cd.

Hello,

Tell me the best conversion tool for Articulate published SWFs to FLAs to add some interactivity in flash.

immediate assistance in this regard would be great.

Hi Ragu- What, specifically, are you looking to do? If you’re looking to add more interactivity to your course, I’d suggest building that in PowerPoint – perhaps more animations or creating branching via hyperlinks – then publishing via Articulate Presenter.

You can also look into a tool like Engage to create Flash-based interactions.

Thanks Gabe, for your valid suggesion. But, I would like to know whether is there any chance of converting Articulate generated SWFs to FLAs. I have already tried using SOF Decompiler but, it is not working fine. Is there any chance of converting Articulate generated SWFs to FLAs?

Hi Ragu- No, that is not possible, sorry.

Once again, thanks gabe

I have successfully added my .swf movie into the presenter panel of my slide – but it keeps re-playing over and over until the slide animations are finished. Can I set it to only play once through?

Hi Kim- It sounds like the program you used to create the .SWF movie was set to loop. You’d need to go back to that program and set it not to loop, then reinsert into Presenter.

I’m trying to embed a 5 slides swf Articulate Presenter file into an engage interaction. It just let me embedd a 1 slide movie. Is there any way to embed the full movie ?

Hi Marco- Engage is designed to be used standalone or in Presenter, not the other way around. Engage will allow you to import a single SWF or FLV file per step/item in your interaction, so what you’re trying to do is not supported.

I am trying to create slides in presenter 9. The slide has an engage interaction (labeled graphic), as well as a SWF file playing in the presenter panel.
In preview, this functions great. The SWF plays and the engage starts at the same time. However, when I publish, the SWF no longer automatically plays. It will play if you click on the play button on the articulate player bar. However, I really need the swf to start automatically (as it provides the instructions for the learner to complete the interaction).
Is there a way around this?
Thanks, Bronwen

Hi Bronwen- You might want to submit a case so that we can help you in more detail.

Hi Gabe, I have submitted a case but have received no resolution yet. Working on a deadline and just trying every avenue that I can.

Hi Bronwen- Dave B. responded to your Case #00128531 earlier today; he was not able to reproduce your issue, and has requested that you upload your project for us to review.

Please continue to work with Dave in your support case.

I want to add a swf we created, but I would like that the user cannot advance in presenter ‘09 until the task I created is completed in the swf. Is there some where that has documentation on this?

Hi Peter- You could probably set it up like this:

1. In Slide Properties, lock the slide.
2. Add a “hidden” object – e.g., a “Next Slide” button you can create in PPT – that is synchronized with your audio or silence to appear on the slide after X seconds, so that it’s not visible until after you expect your users to complete the activity.
3. Make the “Next Slide” button link to the next slide.

It would be trickier to figure out a solution for this if the activity is not time-based.

Hi Peter,

Another way might be to add some Actionscript 2 to the last frame of the SWF you created. The Articulate SDK has Actionscript code that allows you to a do number of things including moving onto the next slide. In this scenario, the activity does not need to be time-based.

Hi there-

Is there a way to embed a single .swf file into a labled graphic interaction?

Thanks!
Liz

Hi Liz- Are you referring to the background image in a labeled graphic? If so, that can only be an image, not a SWF. But any of your labels can contain an SWF or FLV.

I hope this helps!

I have inserted an flv movie into a question slide in QuizMaker ‘09. The placeholder shows up, but the movie won’t load or play. Any ideas?

Hi Jeni- I’d suggest submitting a support case with as much detail as possible so that our support team can help you figure out what’s going on.

Hi Jeni, I would check the codecs on your system. These articles might help http://www.articulate.com/support/video-encoder09/kb/?p=72 and http://www.articulate.com/support/video-encoder09/kb/?cat=6.

Hi Gabe,

E-mailed you directly earlier in the day, I am trying to load a video into a engage interaction. As soon as I get to the video folder engage shuts down by date data execution prevention. I have tried the repair option of the install with no luck. Any suggestions?

Hi Paul- could you please submit details of the issue you’re experiencing to our support team for review?

Is there any way to import more than one .flv per slide?

Hi Tari- Yes, you can either use Quizmaker ‘09 as described in this blog post (see the section “Add multiple videos to a single slide”), or by doing something as outlined in this demo.

Hello. I am just simply trying to add a swf that is one frame that says “Hello” on it to a ppt and publishing for LMS.

The window pops up when published, but the content of the flash movie which is “Hello” does not show up in the popup. I have tried other Flash movies as well, to no avail. I set the frame rate the same and removed the loop checkbox.

Ideas? Thanks.

Hi Jeff- did you insert the SWF file via Articulate? That’s what you’ll want to do. It sounds like you may have just embedded the SWF file directly in PowerPoint, in which case it would not show up when published via Articulate Presenter.

Yes I used PowerPoint, “Articulate/Insert Flash Movie…” option to insert the .swf. Is there a better way? Thanks.

Hi Jeff- thanks for confirming. Yes, that’s the correct method. I submitted a support case on your behalf, though you may want to confirm with our support team the version of PowerPoint and Presenter that you’re using (you can reply to the confirmation email with case number you should receive).

I am trying to insert a SWF file created in Adobe Captivate into an Articulate presentation. I’ve tried to use all options and combinations (display in browser, in slide, in presenter screen, with/without controls, etc) but when the presentation is published, the SWF movie does not play – I only see a blank slide. However, before publishing, if I record narration for the slide where the movie is insterted, I do get a preview of the SWF file while I’m recording.

Hi Candace,

When you publish the Captivate file inside of the Captivate software, make sure that you are publishing it with ActionScript 2 instead of ActionScript 3 as Articulate Presenter doesn’t support AS3.

Then, when you insert the SWF file into your presentation, be sure to select to “sync independently of the slide.” This should resolve your issues.

However, if you do continue to have problems, please upload your Captivate file here:

http://upload.articulate.com

In the case subject, put Attention Brian Batt and I’ll be happy to look at the file.

Hi Gabe,

I was trying to follow what you had written here:

1.In rare cases, Flash movies with their own navigation controls (play, stop, fast-forward, rewind) may interfere with the Articulate Player, so if your SWF file isn’t playing after publishing, remove the controls and see if that makes a difference.

I have just created a presentation using 11 SWF files. They all show up fine in Preview. However, when I Publish, only 2 of the 11 SWF pop up. I am using the same process for all of these files. Not understanding why it would work for only 2 files and not the others. I have tested a scenario where I removed the playback controls. This did not work.

Hi Archie- you might want to submit a support case with additional details.

Hi, glad to see that this string is still being monitored! I am having the same issue that Arun reported back in 2007 –

“I am facing a problem with flash insertion. After inserting the .swf file in the slide and publishing, the published version doesnt show swf’s actual size. It includes all the items these were not the part of the Stage when the swf was originally created using Adobe Flash MX. The player doesnt crop the swf to its actual size.”

I play the .swf outside of Articulate and only items on the stage display. When I use the Articulate function to place the .swf in Presenter, and preview or publish, everything that is off the stage displays. Otherwise, it seems to work fine, but I want the view to be restricted to what is on the stage.

I wonder if Arun submitted a case and whether there was any other resolution than simply confining my Flash elements to the stage… would be nicer if the .swf played in Articulate the way it plays outside of Articulate.

Hi SUSANOC,

If you look at the Flash movie best practices link below, you will see that ““Off-stage” elements contained in a Flash movie will appear in Presenter ’09.”

http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/kb/?p=76

We recommend that you design your SWF in such a way that does not include off-stage elements.