This blog provides a comprehensive list of the audio, video, and image formats to be imported into e-learning courses when working with the rapid authoring tools Adobe Captivate 9, Articulate Storyline 2 & Lectora 16.
When developing an eLearning course using rapid authoring tools, you should know which format is supported by the tool to import audio files, videos, and images.
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If the tool does not support the image, video, or audio format you want to import, you will have to waste time converting them into the required format.
So to get a clear picture, let’s see the various formats supported by Adobe Captivate 9, Articulate Storyline, and Lectora 16.
The formats prescribed in the blog are followed when the courses are published to PCs, mobiles and iPads, but when publishing your courses to CDs and PCs (offline), you have the liberty to use the format of your choice.
1. Adobe Captivate 9
In Captivate 9, we can import only these image (Shift+Ctrl+M) formats: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, ICO, EMF, WMF, POT, POTX, and PICT
JPEG: (Joint Photographic Experts Group) Possible to reduce the size and quality of the original image. This format is useful when the images are to be compressed.
GIF: (Graphic Interchange Format) Supports animations and limited colors
PNG: (Portable Network Graphics) It is better than JPEG and supports binary transparency and alpha channel transparency.
BMP: (bitmap image) Raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images and export huge files.
ICO: A format for icons of multiple sizes and color depths
EMF: (Enhanced Metafile) used for printing
WMF: (Windows Metafile) It is a 16-bit metafile format; supports vector graphics and is also the regular format for scalable graphics in Microsoft Office and many other Windows applications.
POT: Portable Object Template (Translation template)
POTX: An extension file of Microsoft PowerPoint Template file
PICT: Classic Macintosh QuickDraw file
Audio (F6) formats include MP3 and WAV
MP3: (MPEG AUDIO) We use this format for web-related objects such as web videos and web pages; in fact for anything on the Internet. This format compresses the audio file but quality is lost.
WAV: (WAVE AUDIO) Normally used for Radio, TV, DVD, or other media-related objects; does not compress audio and maintains good quality.
Video (Ctrl+Alt+V) formats include SWF, FLV, F4V, AVI, MP4, MOV, and 3GP
SWF: (Shockwave Flash) It contains vector designs, animations, audio, and videos for web browsers using Flash player)
FLV: (FLASH LIVE VIDEO) FLV was once the preferred format for video streaming in mobiles, but now with the rise of HTML 5, the MP4 video format is being preferred.
F4V: It is a Flash extension file based on the ISO media file format, and is related to MP4 format. F4V is a standard format widely used to distribute media across the Internet. (F4V supports H.264.)
AVI: (Audio Video Interleaved) It supports both audio and video output with high-quality and a heavy file size, and can play in any player such as VLC and Windows Media KM player.
MP4: (Advanced Video Coding) Is usually used for multimedia tracks; it was developed by MPEG (Motion Pictures Experts Group), it can hold both audio and video files of small size without a major loss in quality.
MOV: (QuickTime Movie) MOV is a popular video format file, originally developed by Apple Inc.
3GP: Supports playback of audio/video files over high speed on wireless networks, especially on mobile devices.
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2. Articulate Storyline 2
We can import only these image (Ctrl+J) formats: EMF, WMF, JEPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, and TIFF
TIFF: (Tagged Image File Format) It is a standard format for printing, photographers, publishing industries and also supports transparency.
Audio (ALT+N+O Individually) formats include MP3, WMA, WAV, M4A, AAC, AIFF, and OGG.
WMA: (Windows Media Audio) It is frequently used for many music downloadable services; developed by Microsoft.
M4A: File extension created by Apple, used only for audio files.
AAC: (Advanced Audio Coding) A lossy audio compression format but quality is better.
AIFF: Uncompressed formats, which means they are exact copies of the original source audio.
OGG: Open-source format, also known as Vorbis.
Video (ALT+N+V Individually) formats include SWF, FLV, AVI, WMV, MOV, MPEG, DV, and 3GP.
WMV: (Windows Media Video) Video compression format established by Microsoft, smaller in size than mp4 but quality remains the same.
MPEG: (Moving Picture Experts Group) Video compression format used for video CDs, DVDs.
DV: (Digital Video) DV records in standard definition, i.e., 720x480 pixels.
3. Lectora 16
We can import only these image formats: BMP, GIF, JEPG, PNG, TIFF, WMF, and EMF
Audio formats include AIFF, AU, M4A, MIDI, MP3, WAVE, WMA, ASF, and FLV.
AU: Extension of a sound file format belonging to Sun Microsystems; supports many audio encoding formats and used in UNIX.
MIDI: File format used to store MIDI song data on disks and a popular source of music on the web.
ASF: (Advance Streaming Format) Supports scalable media types such as audio and video, most commonly used for streaming media purposes
Video formats include AVI, MOV, MPEG, WMV, ASF, and FLV
These are the formats you need to be aware of when working with Adobe Captivate 9, Articulate Storyline 2, and Lectora 16. Ensure your images, videos, and audio files are in the desired formats and cut down the unnecessary rework and delays.
