Importing Movies from Other Screen Recording Software | Macromedia Captivate for Windows. Visual QuickStart Guide

Captivate is an amazing product, though it is not the only screen recording software on the market. There are a number of very good ones out there, such as Camtasia Studio 2 from TechSmith and Snapz Pro X (Macintosh) from Ambrosia Software.

If you have projects created in either of these applications, or if you need a Macintosh capture, your work is not lost. You may also have been given these files with instructions to include them in your project. Here is how to add files created in these applications to your movie.

To import a Camtasia Studio 2 movie

1.	In the Storyboard View panel's Task Launch areaselect either Insert > Animation to add the video to the slide or Insert > Animation Slide to create a slide used solely to play the video. The Open dialog box opens.
2.	Click the Browse button and navigate to the folder containing the Camtasia Studio AVI file to convert it to an SWF on import.

Tips

Camtasia Studio works with a number of formats ranging from FLV and QuickTime to AVI and SWF.
You can no longer import AVI files in this way. Instead you must import it as an animation as described previously in the AVI section.

Importing a SnapzPro X movie

Though Captivate is a PC-only product, you can show Macintosh demos that are captured using SnapzPro X on the Macintosh. SnapzPro captures are output only to the QuickTime format, which uses the .mov extension. The great thing about the MOV format, though it is the QuickTime native format, is that it works equally well on both platforms.

Before importing a MOV file into Captivate, you should decide which format you need: FLV or AVI. If the file is to be converted to an AVI format, you will need to do this either using QuickTime Pro or a video editing software.

The file can then be imported into a Captivate Animation slide by selecting Insert > Animation slide or adding it directly to a Captivate slide by selecting Insert > Animation. In both cases the AVI movie will be converted to a Flash .SWF before placement into Captivate.