Adobe Captivate vs. Snagit

Adobe Captivate is well suited for software training. Even though we do not use the software simulation recording feature, we simulate the environment with screenshots and then roundtrip into Photoshop to make edits to a screenshot For example, they added 3 new fields and it affects 25 different slides in the course. I dummy up the 3 new fields in Photoshop, copy the layers with the new fields, flatten and save the screenshot and it's instantly updated in Abode Captivate. I then locate the next slide that needs the same new fields added and round trip into Photoshop and then I just select Paste in Place and flatten and save. The alignment is perfect and the screenshots never leave Adobe Captivate. I had a course that I had to do this to with about 25 slides and it was easy peasy.

Incentivized

Let's say you are on a webinar or online meeting and want to take several screen shots of what is on the screen and save all of them. Rather than opening Windows snipping tool (or other free products) and needing to save each one as fast as you can, SnagIt saves all of them and you can go back and delete the ones you don't want. Capture the entire screen quickly or do a region for only a portion of the screen. Very handy. SnagIt also provides easy ways to add your edits to the screen shot in a professional way. Rather than trying to "hand draw" a circle around the item you want to bring attention to, you can use professional tools for circles and rectangles to highlight a specific area for someone to see right away when looking at this screen shot

Incentivized

• Easy learning curve. Captivate makes it easy for a new user to pick it up and understand where to begin. Adobe, in general, does this very well and Captivate is no exception. When you begin using Captivate, many of the tasks to create a video come naturally as things are laid out in a way that makes sense.
• Embedding with LMS (Learning Management Systems). Adobe has made it very easy to deploy your produced video to any of the popular LMS's available. Captivate also gives you a very easy way of including a SCORM score for any quizzes that must be passed at the end of the video in order to proceed to the next video.
• Capturing Audio has never been easier. With Captivate you can easily add voice-over audio that you can record directly inside of Captivate, or import a pre-recorded audio clip. You can import sounds from other sources for effects in the video and Captivate already includes all of the commonly used sounds for mouse-clicks, error sounds, etc.

Incentivized

• Video capture - the countdown feature is great so you can set the scene. And you can convert to a gif and easily copy and paste to an email or messenger app.
• Markup - easily blur areas, crop, cut out (in the middle of images), add text, add arrows or boxes around areas and much more.
• Scrolling capture - allows me to grab images that span several scrolls to get everything in one image.

Incentivized

• Templates. There seem to be "themes," but Adobe Captivate has a terrible time saving any sort of object preferences which makes it really difficult when a set of courses need to follow branding guidelines. I have to create a basic course and set up all my colors and whatnot and start every course using that.
• Ease of use. It is like pulling teeth sometimes to get Adobe Captivate to do things. You may be able to get it to do it, but it'll be like a dozen or more steps which make creating courses incredibly tedious.
• A bigger focus on software simulation. Adobe Captivate isn't designed for simulation, I get that, and I am happy it does as much as it does. However, it could be better to capture actions and things within a program. For instance, click and drag options and hot-key combinations.

Incentivized

• Sometimes the app won't catch that I'm pressing print screen and it won't register
• Make the editing function a little more user friendly. Some options can be tricky to find.
• Making it so you can automatically drag the image into a drop box without needing to save as PDF

Incentivized

We have hundreds of courses that were created in Adobe Captivate. It will take us a while to convert to Articulate. We'll need a license for another year and/or until Adobe comes out with a true update to the software.

Incentivized

I think that the tool is excellent for what it is being used for. I particuarly like the ability to capture content from the screen whilst using the scroll wheel on my mouse. It is very annoying when your try to capture something with grab and you can't scroll which leads to multiple images

Incentivized

Adobe Captivate does take some getting used to. There are features that are much more convoluted than they need to be, but overall it is a great product with a some excellent features. Being in a pretty small market, Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline dominate the space. They are not the same software, but allow for eLearning authoring. Each has their benefit and their downside, but, for me, Adobe Captivate edges out Storyline.

Incentivized

As I said earlier, I use it numerous times throughout the day. It's easy to execute and easy to work with. I am continually learning new features and incorporating them into my tasks throughout the day. Before we had Snagit, things we do routinely now were time-consuming and laborious, so often they just weren't done.

Incentivized

It is difficult to get in touch with Adobe Captivate support. With a seemingly limited number of resources, mostly outsourced, getting in contact with someone to help troubleshoot an issue is challenging. Typically wait times are long, and the desired path to resolution is to use an existing knowledge base or a self-help guide. It is certainly not a user-friendly experience.

Incentivized

I've actually never had to contact support as the tool is easy to use. One aspect is that they upgrade and send email notifications of the upgrades. They don't charge extra for upgrades and their enhancements fall in line with the way we use the tool. We haven't had to submit any upgrade requests as the tool already does what we need it to do.

Incentivized

I'm only aware of the problems Adobe Captivate had with SumTotal LMS and Upside LMS, requiring extensive contact with both internal and external support staff to fix the problems. We had no problems at all with Articulate.

Incentivized

It's a simple next next finish install. The SnagIt Library in the user profile should probably be backed up to make sure they have access to their old screen captures. We frequently will go back to previous captures and add context bubbles etc. when software changes to show the "old" vs "new". Also, go to SnagIt's website and download the additional Stamp Sets for the user. These are terrific. I wish there was one download to get them all, but you have to download and install them one set at a time. It's worth it - especially for training how-to's.

Incentivized

While Captivate has some awesome niche features for some circumstances, currently it cannot beat the ease of use with Storyline. Whether it's content, variables, quizes, etc. things are just "easier" in Storyline. Even something as simple as triggering an event when the timeline reaches a certain point. We continue to keep Captivate and Storyline because we're hoping it Captivate will continue building its integration with other Adobe apps and become our and the industry standard.

Incentivized

Snagit takes an entirely different approach to saving, editing, and manipulating screenshots. Adobe is fine for .pdf documents, but it's challenging to use, and if it has the features Snagit has, I can't find them. GIMP is suitable for working with certain images, but it doesn't address all the problems Snagit easily solves.

Incentivized

• Adobe Captivate has allowed our instructors to engage students in ways we never have before.
• Instructors who have used Adobe Captivate in our organization have reported higher levels of engagement with their courses and their students, theoretically leading to improved assessment of student performance.

Incentivized

• There is no doubt that Snagit has saved us a huge amount of time. Our time is valuable so the ROI there is very high.
• I think the most positive impact is with the clients. They love the explainers and the training videos. It makes their life easier as they can watch on their time as opposed to setting up an online meeting and then never really covering what we need to. A very big convenience factor that my clients have thanked me for more than once.
• The only negative is that it's not free! But it's not expensive either, it's a great tool and I can't really say anything bad.

Incentivized