Another publishing option that's available in Captivate is the ability to publish the project as an Adobe PDF document. This process is tied to the Flash publishing process we covered previously. When converting to PDF, Captivate first converts the project to Flash and then embeds the resulting .swf file inside a PDF document. To read the Flash file that's embedded in the PDF document, the free Adobe Acrobat Reader relies on the Flash Player plugin that is installed on the student's computer. This is why this option does not work on a mobile device, even if the Adobe Reader app is installed.

Publishing the Captivate project to PDF is a great way to make the eLearning course available offline. The students can, for example, download the PDF file from a website and take the course on a train or on an airplane where no internet connection is available. However, be aware that, if the course is viewed offline or outside an LMS, quiz scores and the course completion...