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Work with the timeline in Adobe Captivate

Last updated on Sep 21, 2023

Captivate User Guide
Introduction to Captivate
1. What's New in Adobe Captivate
2. Adobe Captivate System Requirements
3. Adobe Captivate Updates
4. Download Adobe Captivate
5. Frequently Asked Questions
Add a slide
1. Slide navigator in Adobe Captivate
2. Add a conversation slide
3. Add characters to your Adobe Captivate project
4. Edit the background image on a slide
5. Add padding to content blocks and components
6. Create a long scroll project
Add text blocks
1. Add text to a project
Add media blocks
1. Add images to a project
2. Add videos to a project
3. Add quotes
4. Add SVGs to a project
Interactive components
1. Add a button
2. Add an input field
3. Add a radio button group
4. Add a dropdown
5. Add a checkbox
Widgets
1. Add a Card
2. Add Tabs
3. Add a Certificate
4. Add a Carousel
5. Add a Hotspot
6. Add Drag-and-Drop
7. Add a Timeline
8. Add Click to Reveal
Create quizzes
1. Add a Multiple-choice question
2. Add a True or false question
3. Add a Match the column question
4. Add a Short answer question
5. Add a Sequence question
6. Add question pools and random question slides
7. Import questions as CSV
Add audio to a project
1. Add audio
Interactions
1. Add interactions to a project
2. Create interactive video with overlay
3. Create a slide-level interaction
4. Create an object-level interaction
Animations
1. Add animations to a project
Accessibility
1. Make a project accessible
Customize the timeline
1. Timeline panel in Adobe Captivate
Customize TOC and Playbar
1. Table of Contents in Adobe Captivate
Edit project properties
1. Variables in Adobe Captivate
2. Preferences
3. Project dimensions
4. Themes
Create a simulation project
1. Simulation
Preview a project
1. Preview
Share a project for review
1. Share for review
Publish a project
1. Publish your project
Upgrade projects in Adobe Captivate
1. Upgrade projects to the latest version

The timeline lets you control when objects appear on a slide, and how long they appear for.

What is a timeline?

The timeline panel in the all-new Adobe Captivate is a visual representation of objects on each slide of your project. It allows you to manage and control the timing of various objects in your project, such as images, text, or audio.

Launch the timeline panel

Click the timeline panel at the bottom of a slide. Click the panel again (the highlighted area in the image) to collapse the timeline panel.

Get familiar with the timeline panel

The timeline has the following components:

Marker	Element	Description
A	Time ruler	Use the time ruler to adjust the duration of the display of any object on the slide. For example, use the time ruler to define how long the objects Text_1 and Text_2 would display on the slide.
B	Playhead	The playhead is the blue vertical line that moves along the timeline when you preview the slide. It displays a frame at any given position on the timeline.
C	Timeline zoom	Use this slider by dragging it to the left and right to zoom out or in and view more of the entire timeline.
D	Timeline bars	These individual time bars display the duration for every object on the slide. Move the horizontal time bars up or down to set the display position of an object among other objects on a slide. For example, move a Text object set for 5 seconds after Image_1 set for 2.4s to display the text after the display of the image.
E	Bookmark bar	Use a bookmark to mark a specific location in your project slide. For example, bookmark the start of a topic in a slide containing audio.

SET TIME FRAME FOR SLIDES AND OBJECTS USING A TIMELINE

If you've two or more objects appearing simultaneously on a slide, you can vary the display time to delay the sequence of appearance. The units are measured in seconds. To set the time frame of any object, click the extreme left or right edge of a time bar to view the resize cursor. Drag the resize cursor accordingly to set the time for an object.

For example, consider text objects Text_1001 and Text_1002 set to three and six seconds each. To delay the sequence of Text_1002 and make it appear after the display of Text_1001, select the extreme left edge of Text_1002, and drag its handle to start at three seconds.

You can also set the display time for an entire slide by dragging the horizontal bar against the slide name.

Delete a content block from the timeline

Adobe Captivate lets you delete a content block from the timeline. When you delete a content block, all components in the block are also deleted on the slide.

Right-click a content block on the timeline and select Delete.

Drag and position objects on the timeline

Objects on the timeline appear in the sequence added on the slide, with the most recently added object appearing on top of the list. If you've two or more overlapping objects on a slide, you can change its stacking order by reordering them on the timeline.

To reorder the sequence of objects, select and drag the object upward or downward and drop it at your preferred location.

Edit audio on the timeline

You can add audio files to a slide to transform your projects with a rich multimedia experience.

Right-click the audio object on the timeline to launch the audio options.

The options available to you are:

Play: Select to play the audio clip.
Stop: Select to stop the audio clip.
Export: Select to export the audio clip to any location on your computer.
Edit: Select to edit the audio clip. For more information on editing an audio clip, see Audio in Adobe Captivate.
Delete: Select to delete the audio clip.
Start audio from playhead position: Select to play the clip from the position where you've dragged the playhead.

Extend duration of an animation on the timeline

When applying an animation to an object, you can decide the duration of the animation. The Settings section of the Animation panel lets you modify the duration.

Adobe Captivate also lets you increase or decrease the duration on the timeline panel. Drag the animation bar forward or backward, and the duration of the animation changes with each drag.

See Animations in Adobe Captivate to learn more about creating animations.

Copy and paste appearance and interactions

Use the shortcuts in the context menu and copy and paste the appearance or interaction of an object to another object on the timeline.

Right-click an object on the timeline to display its context menu.

The options available to you are:

Copy appearance: Select to copy the object's appearance, for example, text or background color, or any other styling property.
Copy interactions: Select to copy the interaction applied to the object.
Apply appearance: Select to apply the appearance of an object to another object. Right-click on a second object and select Apply appearance.
Paste interactions: Select to apply the interaction to another object. Right-click on a second object and select Paste interactions.
Sync with playhead: When you sync an object to the playhead, the object moves to the location of the playhead on the timeline.
Show for rest of the slide: Select the option to extend the playing time of an object to the end of a slide.

Add a bookmark on the timeline

Add a new dimension of interactivity to recorded or streaming videos, or any slide, with overlay slides in Adobe Captivate. Mark any slide as an overlay slide and insert it anywhere on your timeline, allowing you to add more interactive layers for improved learner engagement.

Bookmarks

A bookmark is a point in the timeline that you want to visit later. Bookmarks allow you to divide your course into smaller modules and make navigation across modules easy. You can bookmark important points in the video, which learners can seek based on their interaction with the course.

Overlays

Overlays allow you to add more interactive content on top of your main eLearning project. Overlays provide a way to enhance the learner's experience by including elements such as pop-up messages, videos, images, or other content.

In this example, you'll add a bookmark to a video. When the learner reaches the point in the video, a quiz appears as an overlay, which the learner can take.

Select Add media blocks > Slide Video in the left toolbar. For more information, view Videos in Adobe Captivate.
Open the timeline panel.
Drag the playhead to the position to add the bookmark.
Hover on the playhead and click the + icon.
Add the bookmark.
Now that you've created a bookmark, you'll create a quiz slide that will be the overlay when the learner reaches the bookmark.
Select + (New slide) > Multiple choice in the left toolbar. For more information, view Add a Multiple choice question slide.
Add the answers. For more information, view Add a Multiple choice question slide.
Select the bookmark on the timeline for the slide video.
Select Interactions > Add an interaction in the right toolbar.
Select Bookmark in the Timeline trigger section.
In the Action panel, select More > Add Overlay.
Select the quiz slide to be used as an overlay.
Click Done.

Using similar steps, you can create more bookmarks at different places on your timeline and use other interactive components to provide additional information, links to external resources, or trigger actions within the video.

Note:

Runtime navigation of overlay slides

The overlay slide pauses at the end of the slide duration. You must click the Play button on the playbar to return to the parent slide or configure the Resume timeline action on the overlay slide.

If you've multiple overlay slides on a single parent slide:

From the parent slide, click Next on the playbar to go to the next slide.
From the overlay slide, click Next or Previous to go to the next or previous overlay slides.

Duplicate an overlay slide

If you duplicate an overlay slide, it becomes a normal slide.

Duplicate a parent slide

If you duplicate a parent slide, another parent slide gets created along with its overlay slides.

Frequently asked questions

You can use any content slide or Knowledge Check slides as overlays. If a parent slide contains an overlay, you can't use the parent slide as an overlay.