Creating Interactive Handouts with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended

Earlier this week I spoke about how you could easily create printed handouts from your Captivate 4 projects. While this is certainly an added benefit and a good approach when you are doing workshops-wouldn't it be even better if you could show your participants how to accomplish the skill in an interactive handout. Why not take the printed handout an add a video demonstration to it to make it even more engaging for your learners. If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro9 Extended it is easy to add a video to your Microsoft Word document and then convert it to a PDF file and distribute it electronically.

In this example I created my video demonstration using Captivate 4 and embedded the SWF file directly into Microsoft Word handout from the Adobe Acrobat Tab within Microsoft Word. Once I have slected the SWF file I can set the Poster view for the video that the user will see when they open up the handout. Because I am creating a PDF file I can be confident that the end user will be able to view the contents of the PDF with nothing else but the free version of Adobe Reader 9.1. Using this technique is a great way to explain and demonstrate to your participants how to accomplish a task on the computer. You now have the best of both worlds- you can print out your handouts or electronically distribute them with embedded videos. Either way I'm sure your workshop participants will appreciate your efforts, having the various level of supports available to them during and after your workshop. If you need a place to host your PDF you should take a look at Acrobat.com a free way to upload your PDF and share them.