Adding Flash Movies to Slides

If PowerPoint is the corporate presentation standard, Flash is the Web animation standard. It has become so ubiquitous on the Web that well over 90 percent of those who use the Web have the Flash 6 or Flash 7 plug-in installed on their computers. As well, many corporations and other users are also using Flash for such things as kiosks and handheld devices such as Pocket PCs.

Captivate enables you to import Flash content directly into a single slide of your movie. If you are a Flash developer or work with one, you can also import the entire FLA file (the file from which the Flash SWF is compiled) into a slide.

To add a Flash movie to a slide

1.	Open a Captivate movie and select Insert > Animation Slide.
2.	Navigate to the folder containing the FLA file to be used, select the file, and click the Open button. The SWF file is created, and a slide containing the FLA file is added to your movie (Figure 3.24). Figure 3.24. FLA files can be imported directly into Animation slides.

Tip

• The Flash file used in Figure 3.24 is a small streaming-video file done in Flash. It is there to demonstrate that you don't have to limit yourself to animated Flash content in Captivate. Streaming video, audio, and interactive Flash movies can be added if they are to your movie.

To edit a Flash slide in Captivate

1.	Select the Flash slide in the Edit View panel.
2.	Double-click the animation. The Animation dialog box appears, telling you that Captivate will remain open while you edit the Flash file (Figure 3.25). Figure 3.25. Double-clicking an imported FLA file will launch Flash.
3.	Click OK. Flash launches.
4.	Make your changes, save the file, and close it. The changes are incorporated into a new SWF file, which replaces the one in the Flash slide.