Captivate: Change the autotext for captions

One small thing that’s annoyed me about Captivate ever since I started using it to create software demos is the default text. It starts off being a proper sentence, but doesn’t have closing punctuation (e.g. Select the [blah] menu). I’ve never bothered to investigate if I could change it — as I said, it’s a small annoyance.

However, I’ve found out how to change it, based on a tweet from R Jacquez at Adobe. And it’s really simple.

1. Go to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Captivate[version#] (or wherever your Captivate program files were installed).
2. Find the RDL file for your language (e.g. CaptureTextTemplates_English.rdl).
3. Make a copy of this file — just in case! Perhaps call it CaptureTextTemplates_English_original.rdl.
4. Open the RDL file (not the backup copy) in a text editor.
5. You can change the text inside the quote marks after Template= in any of the Event entries. However, do NOT touch the variables (e.g. %s).
6. Save your changes and close the file. The autotext for your captions will now use the text you modified.

Captivate RDL file -- before making changes

Captivate RDL file -- after adding periods

[Thanks to R Jacquez from Adobe for tweeting about this solution.]

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