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Captivate 2017 - Almost ready from prime time
October 25, 2017

Captivate 2017 - Almost ready from prime time

Phillip Carroll | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Captivate

I use Adobe Captivate 2017 to create content for both internal and external learners. All content is created within the learning and development department and ranges from simple instruction in the use of a piece of office equipment (i.e. a new printer) to a multi-module course used to teach and certify subcontractors on our company's policies and procedures.
  • Allows the easy integration and use of Adobe Typekit fonts. This allows me to craft content to meet specific branding requirements, as well as making the content stand out from other material.
  • Provides a good preview of how responsive content will look on different screen sizes.
  • Easily packages content for upload to SCORM compliant LMSs.
  • The overall interface needs an upgrade. As a user of other Adobe products, I feed that Adobe Captivate lags well behind other applications from Adobe in its interface.
  • Working with responsive boxes is far from intuitive. Having to remember which direction you need to enter a box to make certain changes is frustrating.
  • Support for multiple monitors, including a live preview window, would greatly enhance the usability of the application.
  • Captivate delivers at the subscription price. We pay $29.99 per month and that's about the product's value.
  • The learning curve for Adobe Captivate 2017 is VERY steep. A new user can expect to spend many hours trying to find solutions to how the program does things.
  • I'm still considering attending a paid course to better learn how to use the software. The biggest challenge in that regard is that hardly anyone is offering training on the current version of Captivate.
I initially purchased Articulate Storyline/360 after looking at the 1980's interface present in Adobe Captivate 8.0. Adobe announced Captivate 2017 within the time window for getting a refund from Articulate and I jumped at the opportunity to lower my company's annual cost from $999 to $359.88. I'm now second-guessing that decision.
Captivate works well for simple projects that are linear in nature. While some functions like duplicating slides seem easy, even those require more manual intervention than should be required. For instance, when a slide is duplicated the program copies the slide exactly as it is. This results in having multiple instances of specifically named items in your project. Something as simple as appending a number, or text and a number, to each copy would prevent linking issues.