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I am fairly new to Captivate. I am unable to figure out how to create and identify H1, H2, H3; bulleted, unordered lists; and align the lists' multiple lines with precision. I create e-learning modules for construction workers with low literacy, so I want to use time-tested web- and e-learning styles and Plain Language standards (plainlanguage.gov) to achieve maximum readability and accessibility. I've looked around Adobe's forum and asked some colleagues, but no one seems to have a simple answer. I'm not a programmer, but a technical writer who knows HTML. Do I need to learn a programming language?

Thank you.

Sue
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What version of Captivate are you using? It seems that versions 3 and 4 have more accessibility options, which include adding descriptions of each section, than previous ones.

However, it does use Flash as the basis for this accessibility, and in my experience Flash doesn't interact correctly with screenreaders and is quite picky about it's keyboard navigation. This site gives a good assessment of the true accessibility options in Captivate.

Another option might be to use plain HTML for the main content so you can use proper headings and markup for it, then embed or link to Captivate files just for the interactive parts? It's possible there's also a pre-made Javascript library you can use to create quizzes based on HTML forms, which would be more accessible than Flash.

stringy
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Have you read http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/captivate/ yet?

I never used Captivate so I won't be of any help, but accessibility of various Adobe products is listed here: http://www.adobe.com/accessibility (there's a select). It's far more complete for Acrobat and Flash I believe.

FelipeAls
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I use Adobe Captivate for a lot of my work. Adobe Captivate not really geared to semantic layout of data in the way you're describing. It lets you create screencasts and output them in SWF (i.e. Flash) format. Starting with version 5.5, there is support for MP4 output (http://www.adobe.com/support/captivate/beyondbasics/publish_mp4.html). And there is experimental support for HTML5 output, via the "HTML5 Converter for Adobe Captivate 5.5" (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/captivate_html5/), which is available from Adobe Labs.

Adobe Captivate does provide good text-to-speech and closed captioning options, which provide for accessibility. But it is, primarily a video format. You can create rich/interactive media and simulations with it, but HTML doesn't come into play here except in the embedding of the SWF itself.

If text is primarily what you want to convey, then use a text-friendly format. Adobe Captivate is for visual demonstrations and simulations. You might consider creating separate Captivate screencasts and embedding those at various points in your HTML to demonstrate procedures. PDF is actually one of the native output formats. So combining your text and video via PDF might be a good option for you.

jamesnotjim
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