Captivate 4 is awesome. It still has its warts, but considering all the new functionality I’m just amazed at this product and highly recommend it. I’ve now decided that it is going to be my primary elearning development tool. Of course I’ll still use Flash a lot for actual content, I think the packaging/TOC/aggregator features are worthwhile (though they have some serious shortcomings too) and just make the process so much simpler when working with Adobe Connect (or any other LMS I suppose).

Anyways…I plan on posting my opinions on a lot of the new features as I have time. First up: the new text-to-speech feature.

This feature is based on a 3rd-party product and it’s quite easy to use. You simply type in your slide notes (I *believe* that this new ‘text/notes’ area is new to Captivate 4 but I’m not sure) and then click a little button/checkmark next to the text, under the ‘Text to Speech’ column. Really simple. View a screenshot to see:

Captivate 4 Text-to-Speech Feature

It then converts your text to an audio file and adds it to the slide’s timeline, the same as if you recorded your voice into a microphone. No different, except much easier and better sound quality in terms of no noise, good volume level, etc.

There are two voices to choose from: one male voice, “Paul”, and one female, “Kate”.

So….the million-dollar question: do the voices sound like robots?

The male voice does. The female voice, while I haven’t used it much yet, sounds much better. But don’t take my word for it. Listen for yourself:

As you can hear, this guy doesn’t really work too well.

But “Kate” sounds much better:

So, after I’ve bashed “Paul” to smithereens, you probably think I don’t think much of this feature. But in fact I do like it. During development, I usually have to take the time to do a rough, quick voiceover recording for all my slides so I can confirm that my design is ‘flowing’ and my voiceover script is good. I can only tell if I hear it, in synch with the onscreen visuals. So this is a great time-saver in that regard. Hopefully it will prove more useful in future projects.

What do you think? Will you be using this feature? Am I being too picky?