Adobe Captivate's Friendly Localization Features - Part 1 of 2

Adobe Captivate features localization friendly options with convenient painless steps to churn out localized versions. With an ability to extend these to handle multiple languages and large volumes of work using custom built macros. Let’s look at what makes Captivate special friendly software from an e-Learning Localizers point of view.

Captivate e-Learning Localization Part I

1. Extract On Screen Text and Audio for Translation

2. Captivate Audio Translations

3. Foreign Voice Over Recordings 

4. Replace and Format Translated Text in Captivate  

E-Learning On Screen Text Extraction

1. Extract On Screen Text and Audio Script for Translation to a “translatable foreign language audio script format”. This part of the full proof pre-project localization quality assurance best practice steps and processes. Identifying problems prior to any localization work done is the second best step to envisioning localization during the process of original language authoring and side step common pitfalls ahead of time.

Right out of the gate Adobe Captivate 4 Software works seamlessly with PowerPoint the everyday common tool, often the first authoring tool in e-Learning. Microsoft PowerPoint has from the get go been  “translation friendly software”, which means translation software can use it directly, without any human transaction at all.

Ease of use continues, with audio translation closed captions and on screen captions inside Adobe Captivate 4 can be exported with a single click thanks to the brilliant “Export Captions and Closed Captions...”. Some Foreign Language DTP Formatting will need to be done to adjust the graphics element as the translated text is automatically put in place to account for translation expansion or contraction depending source language and target languages.

E-Learning Audio Translation

2. Audio Translation. Foreign language voice over translation from source language into multiple target languages. 

Foreign Voice Over Recording For Captivate

3. Foreign language voice-over recording for Adobe Captivate. Presentation will be time constrained, but it has flexibility built in for variations of small magnitude. So when preparing the translated foreign language voiceover script, the translator has to keep length within range of the original.

If the recorded audio files ends up being longer than the original, Captivate will give you an option to extend the time line. Since the screen activity will wait for the audio to finish before giving the user the option to go to the next screen, the overall pacing of the captivate slides won't be affected if the audio recorded is a little longer.

Publish Translated Text In Captivate

4. Replace and Format Translated Text in Captivate. Then perform foreign language DTP formatting. Importing is one of Captivates’ ‘localization friendly feature’ which allows you to simply import all translated text at once, with matching formatting. And an ability to bypass humans with macro programming. After importing its important to review each page and make DTP adjustments as needed, this can be minimal or on all pages depending on the course design and end language. Here practiced professionals can handle large volumes assuring high quality localization assurance system..

One quirky bug, if you open Adobe Captivate 4 and try the importation link, it’s grayed out. In order to make it accessible you’ll need to export from within the file, in this case exporting the captions will make the import button appear. We usually delete the exported file, it has served its purpose by making the import button available.

Continued Captivate e-Learning Localization Part II

eLearning Localization Services

JBI Studios helps eLearning Companies and Learning & Development professionals ensure that their eLearning multimedia content keeps its quality and consistency in any language.

• Voice-Over: narration and characters
• Videos: Dub, Subtitle, Re-shoot, or convert to still
• Screen Activity Captures (Captivate, Screencast and Camtasia Softwares)
• Flash and other XML based e-Learning Management Systems (LMS)
• Articulate, Adobe Presenter, Articulate studio, Lectora and other PPT augmentation software tools