User Guide Cancel

Themes in Captivate

  1. Captivate User Guide
  2. Introduction to Captivate
    1. What's New in Adobe Captivate
    2. Adobe Captivate System Requirements
    3. Adobe Captivate Updates
      1. Adobe Captivate (12.4 update) release notes
      2. Adobe Captivate (12.3 update) release notes
      3. Adobe Captivate (12.2 update) release notes
      4. Adobe Captivate (12.1 update) release notes
    4. Download Adobe Captivate
    5. Frequently Asked Questions
  3. 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
  4. Add text blocks
    1. Add text to a project
  5. Add media blocks
    1. Add images to a project
    2. Add videos to a project
    3. Add quotes
    4. Add SVGs to a project
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. Add audio to a project
    1. Add audio
  10. 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
  11. Animations
    1. Add animations to a project
  12. Accessibility
    1. Make a project accessible
  13. Customize the timeline
    1. Timeline panel in Adobe Captivate
  14. Customize TOC and Playbar
    1. Table of Contents in Adobe Captivate
  15. Edit project properties
    1. Variables in Adobe Captivate
    2. Preferences
    3. Project dimensions
    4. Themes
  16. Create a simulation project
    1. Simulation
  17. Preview a project
    1. Preview
  18. Share a project for review
    1. Share for review   
  19. Publish a project
    1. Publish your project
  20. Upgrade projects in Adobe Captivate
    1. Upgrade projects to the latest version 

Overview

Themes help your project view better with coordinated colors, fonts, slide backgrounds, and appearance for UI components. When you create a project, a default theme is applied.

Launch the Theme property panel

Select Project Properties in the right toolbar to launch the Theme panel.

Theme property panel
Theme property panel

In the panel, you can:

  • View the preview of the theme: Mouse over the preview area to view the theme's preview.
  • Change the theme: Select Change Theme to select a theme from the list of themes available. Captivate picks the themes from Assets. The imported themes are first cached in Assets and then launched.
  • Edit a theme: Select Edit Theme to launch the Theme editor. More about it in the next section.
  • Import a theme: Select the + icon to import a theme. Select a theme on your computer and import it.
  • View a color palette: View the color of the current theme. The palette contains nine colors in the band.
Note:

Once you have made the theme selections, all changes cascade to all the slides and objects. Any object that you insert on a slide inherits the properties of the theme that you have applied. 

Edit a theme

Select Edit Theme in the Theme Property panel. In the Theme Editor that follows, you can use the following workflows:

Color palette

In the Color Palette panel, you can change the project's theme colors, color configuration, color for various objects, and many more.

Theme colors are a group of colors with associated variables and are reused across preset properties within the theme.​ The colors are listed in each color palette in a group of nine colors. You can update these colors in the editor.

Font palette

In the Font palette panel, you can change the default text properties of a project. You can also change the default text.

The Font palette loads with the Body preset of the first font pack selected by default. You can change the properties of the text in the right panel. Moreover, you can update a font across presets wherever a preset is used. View Text in Adobe Captivate for more information.

Image

In the Image panel, change the style, or add a border and shadow to an image style. The changes will them reflect in all your projects.

The properties that make up an image preset are:

  • Enabling or disabling border​
  • Border sub-properties​
  • Enabling or disabling shadow​
  • Shadow sub-properties​

You can also change:

  • Intensity​: Change the intensity only for colorize and overlay filters.
  • Color Style: solid, linear Gradient, and Radial Gradient​

Slide background

You can change a slide's background colors and other properties in this panel. You can then use the new colors for your projects.

Content Section

Select the Solid color picker to set the to fill a content block. You can enable or disable the fill from a Design option.

UI Components

In this panel, you can change the appearance of the various User Interface components, such as buttons, drop-downs, checkboxes, and so on.

Enable the Flow to all states toggle to ensure that whatever changes to a theme you've applied to the property apply to the same property in other states.

Parts of a UI Component

A UI component consists of a few style and font properties for a text-related component.

There are a few state-specific properties:

  • Primary color
  • Shadow color
  • Border color
  • Text color
  • Font family

Set any theme as default

After changing the properties of a theme, you can set the theme as default, and apply the theme to the project. If you create another project, the default theme applies to the project.

  1. Select Project Properties in the right toolbar. 

  2. Select Change Theme.

  3. In the Theme panel, select the ellipsis icon on any theme, and select Set as default

    The name of the theme changes to <Theme name> (default).

  4. Apply the default theme to the project.

    For any project you've created, the theme you'd set as default automatically applies to the project.

For any project that you create and insert a new slide, the default theme applies to the project.

Reset project theme

Captivate enables you to update presets for individual objects, or perform an overall project-level reset to maintain uniformity. Resetting the entire project removes object-level overrides and updates to the new theme defaults from the theme editor.

Reset entire PROJECT THEME

You can perform a project-level reset if you want to reset all visual changes made on various slides and maintain uniformity across the project. ​ This will change all visual modifications to objects in the project to preset properties from the new theme or updated preset properties in the existing theme.

  1. Open Project properties from the right toolbar and select Edit Theme.

    Opening Edit theme from Project properties
    Opening Edit theme from Project properties

  2. Apply the new presets to font, color, image, slide background, and UI components. Enable the Reset entire project toggle in the lower left corner.

    Location of the Reset entire project toggle
    Location of the Reset entire project toggle

  3. Select Apply. ​This will reset the theme for the entire project, ensuring all new objects incorporate the new theme. 

You can also enable the Reset entire project theme inside the Change Theme panel.

To recap, resetting the project theme in its entirety enables you to undo all prior visual modifications to objects and establish a new project-wide theme, ensuring consistency throughout. Any new additions will now adhere to the updated theme.

Update a preset

You have the option to make a visual alteration to an object and save it as a preset. Simply choose the Update Preset icon, which becomes visible only after you have made a visual adjustment to the object. This action will update the theme preset for that specific object, promoting consistency across the entire project. Any new slides featuring that object will automatically adopt the updated preset.

This is an image on how to update text preset for heading 2 by making it bold
Update text preset for heading 2 by making it bold

Note:

Updating a preset only applies to objects that have not been modified visually from the Visual properties panel. Changes that are already made to objects in existing slides will not be overwritten.

Reset theme for interactive components

Interactive components have two types of visual presets, text, and shape presets. Resetting the entire project will reset visual changes made to interactive components to their design option selected.

All user interactive components reset to their design option selected when resetting entire project theme
All user interactive components reset to their design option selected when resetting entire project theme

Delete a theme

Note:

You’ll be unable to delete any system theme. System themes are indicated with a Cp icon on the upper right corner of the theme. 

  1. Import any theme.

    In the list of themes on the Theme panel, the imported theme displays.

  2. Select the ellipsis icon on the theme.

    Note:

    If the theme is the default, the Set as default option will be grayed out.

  3. Select Delete to delete the theme. This also removes the theme in the Assets folder.

    Note:

    If you delete any custom or imported themes that you'd set as default, the Light theme becomes the default theme for new projects.

What's next

After saving all your changes, it's time you export the theme, so that you can reuse the theme for your projects.

To export a theme, on the Theme screen, select Export. Save the theme on your computer as a .cpth file.

You can also import a theme in the Theme editor and change its properties. After changing the properties, you can export the theme, and also apply the theme from the Theme editor.

 Adobe

Get help faster and easier

New user?