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Timing objects in Adobe Captivate


Lately, I have been working in Adobe Captivate to create / modify eLearning courses for different clients and even though I started my journey with this software, I stopped using due to the high demand of eLearning modules produced in Articulate Storyline. I won’t get into any comparisons right now, since I have done it in previous posts, and I want to focus my effort for this blog post on a very important (in my opinion) feature in Adobe Captivate: Timing.

When you create a shape or a button, or pretty much when you place an object on a slide, you will have available the timing feature which consists of:

  • Display for:

  • Appear After:

  • Pause After:

In the “Display for:” section, you select for how long do you want to show that element on the slide, here are the options you are given:

  • Specific Time: You tell Storyline that you want that element to disappear from the slide after ‘x’ number of seconds, at which points it will just disappear or will play the exit animation you have selected. This can be used, for example, when you want to highlight things on the screen in sync with the audio, but then you want those highlights to disappear to give room to other elements.

  • Rest of Slide: As it is stated in the name, it will make an object remain on screen until the slide reaches the end of the time line, and even then, the element will only disappear once the slide has been changed. A good example is text on screen that you want to keep there until the learner decides to advance the slide, like the learning objectives of your eLearning module.

  • Rest of Project: In my opinion, this is a very useful option, as it will allow you to keep elements throughout the whole eLearning module (like buttons on a menu) and you only need to edit them / program them once to make them work everywhere in the module. Just be careful, as you will need to be creative on the way you use this option as to not cause any conflicts with other elements on screen.


In the “Appear after:” option, you specify when in the slide the element appears (or plays the enter animation, if any) which is equivalent to dragging the left end of the element on the timeline, to position it at the place where you want it to enter the screen, although with this option on the Timing tab, you can be a bit more accurate.

Finally, the “Pause after:” section is very useful for interactions that you want the learners to go through, or for when you want to pause the eLearning module and stop it from automatically advancing. It basically makes Captivate wait for user input in order to continue (or execute your desired action).

If you want to learn more about Captivate, please keep an eye on our blog posts, as we will continue to write about features or tips that will make your life easier when programming an eLearning module using this software.

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