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Capturing an iPad app via Adobe Captivate

December 5, 2014

I’m hoping this blog post finds an audience to help me solve a problem I’m facing in capturing an iPad app with Adobe Captivate. Here’s some background on the project, since you might be wondering why I’m trying to create eLearning for an app because aren’t all apps supposed to be intuitive and easy to use?

The app works in conjunction with a desktop/laptop application. The desktop application pushes data to the iPad app, basically. Therefore, the eLearning needs to not only show how to use the app, but also how to use the desktop application to push data to it.

The chief problem I’m having is capturing the actions in the iPad via Captivate. I’m using Captivate 8 on a Mac laptop, and I have an AirPlay application installed to mirror the iPad to the Mac screen. When I go to record in Captivate, it seems I have two options:

  1. Set it to record in video mode, which allows for all of the beautiful animation of the app to be recorded. Unfortunately, I can add only highlight boxes to this; I can’t include a mouse cursor or other objects or interactions to this. I can pan & zoom, but that’s it, right?
  2. Set it to record a software simulation, and manually click on the capture area on the laptop to mimic what is happening on the iPad. This allows for highlight boxes, etc., but leaves out some of the animation within the app.

Is there another option I’m missing? Any help is appreciated.

From → Adobe Captivate

5 Comments
  1. Mike permalink

    I would love to hear if you solved this issue – looking to do something very similar.

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  2. Mike permalink

    I’m looking to something very similar – have you found a solution to this yet?

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  3. I’m struggling with lots of Captivate issues, but only because I’ve never used a program like it before. I find that using an outside app to take the video helps a lot. I use Screenflow, and so far it’s worked at capturing the mirrored app. I haven’t yet added my commentary, or labels or etc., but don’t anticipate any problems.

    Then I upload to Youtube and use the widget to embed it.

    I don’t know if I even addressed your problem accurately, because I’m not very good at Captivate yet!

    Great meeting you on #lrnchat.

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  4. dowbright2 permalink

    I’m struggling with lots of Captivate issues, but only because I’ve never used a program like it before. I find that using an outside app to take the video helps me in a huge way. I use Screenflow, and so far it’s worked at capturing the mirrored app. I haven’t yet added my commentary, or labels or etc., but don’t anticipate any problems.

    Then I upload to Youtube and use the widget to embed it.

    I don’t know if I even addressed your problem accurately, because I’m not very good at Captivate yet!

    Great meeting you on #lrnchat.

    Like

  5. Thanks for the comment, Paula! For learning Captivate, I recommend reading Kevin Siegel’s workbooks from IconLogic, and following @lilybiri on Twitter.

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