#1 2012-10-01 12:48:38

**_Niall_**

Captivate 6 - Synchronise Narration with PPT Slide Animations

Hello all

I am creating a series of tutorials based on PowerPoint 10 Presentations.  I import these to Captivate and then add narration to each slide.  This works fine when the PowerPoint slides contain no animation.  This week I have sides that have animated bullet points.  I would like to be able to synchronise my narration with the bullet points, and not require the viewer to click to move the bullet animations on.  I use a click box at the end of each slide.

All that I currently can achieve is having all the bullet points animate in one after another with no control.

Please note that I do not want to split the audio over more than one slide, rather I want to add, for example, 2 minutes of audio to a slide with 5 bullet points, and have each bullet point come up every 25 seconds or so depending on how long I want to talk to each bullet.

In the future I would also like to be able to add narration to animated smart art - but until i can get the bullet points sorted I think I will hang fire.

I trust that there is a simple solution to this, but I am unable to locate this.  I hope the answer is not that I need to add the narration in PowerPoint...

Thanks for all comments and advice.

Niall

Last edited by **_Niall_** (2012-10-01 12:50:11)

**_Jorma_at_RealEyes_**

Re: Captivate 6 - Synchronise Narration with PPT Slide Animations

The simplest solution in Captivate (the solution we use here when building content in Cp from PPT) is to just use a background of the blank content slide and put in transparent text captions that mirror the text from the slide, then you can assign when those captions appear and disappear (if desired) by their placement on the timeline. You should be able to animate their entrances with fade ins or fly ins or whatever so it looks like the PPT deck. This way you will have full control over the objects on the slide.

Alternatively, you could look at using Adobe Presenter, which is a plug in for PPT, and then you retain all the control over the slide contents. If you are only trying to record audio to a PPT deck and sync the audio to the animations on the slide and then publish it out as Flash, I'd recommend you look at Presenter. That way your PPT content isn't converted to something you can't easily modify.

**_Niall_**

Re: Captivate 6 - Synchronise Narration with PPT Slide Animations

Thanks Jorma

An easy solution for this particular issue (i.e. make use of Presenter); and a great tip for more complex interactions that I know I will be using in future.  It is a bit frustrating not to be able to take the PowerPoint files I already have and build further detail into that along with narration - but at least I won't be spending more time trying to chase a solution when it is better to start it from scratch.

There is a question in here somewhere about importing SmartArt from PowerPoint and adding narration to that in more complex files, but as I am not there yet I will hold that query for now!

Much appreciated.

Niall