From Former Employer
“Anita is a consummate multi-media instructional designer, eLearning developer, and project manager. For Tesoro, a Fortune 100 oil refining and marketing company, Anita worked on a year-long project which required her to understand the complex demands of a retail point-of-sale system, which was being deployed to 840 retail stations. Working with our internal training team, project manager consultants, and our chosen website developer, Anita developed a series of Adobe Captivate files, incorporating text, video, and voice-over. Most importantly, she incorporated changes to the project quickly, on-time and under budget. Anita was integral to our project's success!” Erik Eisel
From a recent email Jan. 2016:
I have been a long time fan of Anita Horsley’s wonderful advice and lessons on using Adobe Captivate, especially about Advanced Actions. And so, I was especially pleased to discover that she had developed a video course to introduce beginners to Captivate, which at that time was for version 6. As an instructional designer and a teacher of eLearning development at California State University, Monterey Bay, I have had the opportunity to use a number of different textbooks and video lessons to teach our students the ever evolving versions of Captivate. (We started with Captivate 4!) And while many of the books and videos were very good at covering the features of Captivate, or showing how to capture software demos, few of them directly addressed teaching teachers how to create multimedia-rich interactive eLearning. As many of our Masters students are K-12 teachers themselves, we needed concise training that would quickly provide them the essentials of Captivate, so that they could create eLearning for their own classes within the 15 week semester. Anita’s Fast Track to Adobe Captivate 6 Video Course, published by Packt Video, proved to be a wonderful balance of hands-on instruction, practical design expertise, and just the right amount of information to get my students producing their own eProducts immediately. Anita presents such confidence and enjoyment in her videos that even my least technically experienced students were able to overcome their fears of Captivate’s often daunting intricacies. And the lessons were of just the right length to fit 8-weeks of instruction without overwhelming, allowing my students to follow along and build actual eLearning modules using the media and assets provided—before spending the remainder of the semester developing their own original eProducts. Anita, we sorely miss seeing more such training from you! Captivate just keeps getting better and better, and version 9 is awesome! But it is also getting even more daunting than ever to introduce to beginners…what with HTM5, Flash being Dead, and all the new capabilities, such as Drag and Drop, eBrother Templates and Widgets, SCORM and Mobile Responsive design! Needless to say, should you decide to create any new training videos, we would be very interested in having our students pilot them. – Sincerely, Troy Challenger Teacher/Instructional Designer CSU Monterey Bay
From Iconlogic Online Class Sept. 2015
Anita was very good…professional…interactive, ..really involved people and helped them….answered all the questions. I look forward to taking more lessons from her. Scott
Actually all of the information given was very helpful. Barb
From CA Employment Development Department, June 2015
Anita did a fantastic job! She made it fun, and the tools and tips she gave us are very useful. Anita was very patient, and her knowledge and skill level were extraordinary. Stacy Morrison, EDD The instructor walked us through the steps, and made sure everyone was understanding. The pacing was very good, and the instructor provided some tips and tricks that aren’t in the manual. I loved the Advanced Actions and HD video editing portions of the training. I also really liked that Anita showed Captivate course examples to give us ideas for our own training. I liked learning about the versatility of Smart Shapes and scenario based training.
From email:
Every time I don’t know how to do something I just Google it and almost all of the time it routes me to captivatecrazy.blogspot.com/. The latest help I needed was embedding a pdf file in Captivate. I spent a whole day extracting all of the content and adding them one by one in the module I’m creating. When I figured it’s easier to just embed the file (since it’s just a supplementary material) I didn’t know how. So off I go to Google and Google led me to your Blog site once again. Your site is a VERY BIG help. I’d probably spend longer hours creating mediocre stuff without it. Please, please, please… keep updating it with wonderful Captivate stuff. 🙂
Again, THANK YOU!!! From a grateful fan.
From online class:
I think you are an excellent teacher – you were very clear, communicated well, and I understood what you had to say. I do not say that lightly. The point I am trying to make is.. you taught me what I wanted to learn, didn’t waste time, and you provided me the necessary depth when I needed it – with patience! You taught me well, and I appreciate it. Thanks L.E. Boca Raton, FL.
Adobe Learning Summit, 2014: Anita, you are such a natural presenter and excellent at explaining processes. Allison Davis, Project Officer (U@USQ) I just enjoyed the video of your session with Ashkay at the Adobe Learning Summit. It was great to see you talk through issues that I had been working through pretty much all alone in my head! Anthony, Austrialia
Adobe Captivate and Storyline Class Sept. 2014: As I mentioned I have been a student for the last 4 years and I love learning and I had the time of my life in your class, so impressive how well versed you were in what you were teaching. Your course was so well structured and so well taught, it was an absolute pleasure to be in your class. I learned loads and everything seemed so cool and interesting and you have loads to do with that. The planning, communication, quality of work, instructors knowledge and support was excellent. The practical exercises and working through real life examples was the best part of the class. Natasha Desai and Kevin Shepherd, Dubai Airwing
Iconlogic Adobe Captivate 8 Responsive Design Class, Aug. 2014: “The class was excellent, and I picked up some tips that will be very useful when we move to Captivate 8”. Thanks again! Sara
“The instructor was superb. She explained each topic very well and how to work with your projects much more efficiently. Very good class. Excited to start using some of the techniques”. Pamela
“Instructor was clear, and made sure that everyone grasped the topic(s) being taught.” Kevin
“Loved this course – hands-on is perfect, great presenter. THANK YOU!” Nancy
Thank you SO much Anita!! Your recorded webinars helped me complete the advanced action I needed and gave me even more skills to add to my belt! I truly appreciate what you do. Rachel A. Miller. Deloitte Consulting LLP
Anita, many thanks for your efforts to help me, I will not forget that effort and your passion to help others. Let me always hear good news about you. Best Regards from an Egyptian fan of you. Yusif Feb. 18, 2014 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Adobe Captivate Class: 4 days, beginner – advanced . Louisville, KY. Feb. 2014
- This training far exceeded my expectations. Was very thorough and relevant.
- The content was good – the instructor was great!
- Was a very knowledgeable trainer. She has actually used the product and had great suggestions. Thanks!
- I would recommend this training. It has been very easy to understand and to apply.
- It was great!
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What did you like best from CALEX Learning Consultants, LLC services?
- Your Technical Training for Advanced Actions and new HTML5 development
- Your responsiveness, patience and flexibility with our own learning curve
- You’re Depth of knowledge
- Excellent, the work will help us complete a very large and strategic project
- Great working with CALEX. They provided excellent materials and met all of the required deadlines.
- We are very happy with their services and will definitely be contacting them for future projects.
From various customers: Online Tutoring: Colin MacNeil CLM RedTeam Canada, 2013 eLearning Development: Infinity Human Resource Group Inc., 2013 Virtual Producer: Patty McCourt, Managing Partner, Insight Leadership LLC, 2013 eLearning Development: R Tech contracted to GCSS-MC Program Office __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Adobe Captivate beginner and advanced. Denver, CO, Dec. 2013 
As for your style, it was fun for me! I keep having to undergo over-confident and really lineal instructors,and it was relaxing to flow along with you yesterday! And when you said, “you all will only remember about 10 percent of what we do in class”…..I loved that! So true. So liberating!
instructor is competent, professional and courteous. It’s a good jump start to using the software. I would recommend the class to a colleague. _____________________________________________________________________________________ GAAP Seminars – One-on-one instructor-led trainingI really enjoyed sitting down with Anita and going through problems that I had encountered in my development process. I learned a lot of tips and tricks that I can carry forward into other development projects! Anita listened to my requests during our initial planning meeting and pulled together a course that addressed all my needs. She was also flexible anytime I had questions or wanted to switch topics during our time together. Anita was able to teach me much more about templates than I knew before our session that will save me time and increase my efficiency in developing eLearning content. Vicky Hale, Nov. 2013 _____________________________________________________________________________________________ LinkedIn: You obviously have the passion for learning and development which is the most important part; and I hope you are also rewarded financially for what you are worth. Go Anita! Kenneth ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Adobe Captivate class, New York, NY, Nov. 2013 (2 day – beginner) 
Anita was excellent! She really knows her Captivate!… and she can convey her knowledge so well. Everyone really got a lot out of the training and with Anita’s review of and guidance with our project, we got a lot closer to launching on time… The instructors knowledge was the most useful part of this class and her willingness to share tips, tricks, and resources. The instructor was very engaging and professional and provided good information to take into account when developing e-Learning. The most useful part of the class for me was the synching slide objects with audio cues. Now that I have actual training, I will be trusted to do a project! Jose I was not familiar with the software at all and now I feel like I can build a project. The most useful part of the class was the ability to save styles and apply to other objects and export them. Also, the instructor provided tons of shortcuts. The entire class was useful, I think we will be able to really use it! Anita was a great instructor with a lot of enthusiasm. I enjoyed the hands-on ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
DevLearn: Pre-conference certificate program on Adobe Captivate Advanced Actions. Co-taught session with Pooja Jaisingh, Oct. 2013 Pooja and Anita are two of the most knowledgeable captivate users out there. This session was everything I hoped it would be!
Loved the knowledgeable instructors, pre-made course files and take-away instructions. Amazing presentation, even for a beginner. OMG, this is what I have been looking for to enhance my skills. Excellent workshop. Jammed packed for one day but both instructors did a great job. Great to be in a class with Pooja, she’s my hero. Outstanding information. Presenters were patient, knowledgable and a joy to what was a challenging task, and were helpful with questions. Very excellent class, thank you! Great presentation – the instructors had more material than could be covered in the short amount of time we had. But having the take-away manual is extremely helpful. I found the course very informative. Very effective training. Thank you for teaching me so much. This session was extremely helpful, the presenters were very patient, there were many beginners in the class. Great session. Anita and Pooja are wonderful Clear presentation on how to use this eLearning tool, presentation and written materials was excellent Great session, reinforced what I already know and taught me new skills. Good balance of presentation and hands-on learning. Pooja and Anita were personable, knowledgeable and encouraged student participation. Well done! This was a great course, very interactive, fun, and helpful. Thanks Pooja and Anita, you made my life MUCH easier. oohhh, ahhhhh Anita and Pooja were very engaging Fantastic speakers/teachers/presenters. Thank you SO MUCH! ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Adobe Captivate class, Atlanta, Sept. 2013 (4 day – beginner to advanced)
Beginner class: The training location was really nice. Instructor done an excellent job! I’ve been using captivate for 5 years (completely self taught) and the basics class provided me with so many tips, tricks, and shortcuts to effectively manage my workflow! I’m blown away by how inefficient I was with my captivate use. I should have done this 5 years ago! The training and instructor were fantastic!! A wealth of information presented, highly likely to recommend to anyone using the Adobe Captivate software. I was thoroughly impressed with both the nature of the class and the professionalism/patience of the facilitator Like the location and the small class size. Instructor was very knowledgeable. Covered a lot of material in 2 days. Advanced class The training was excellent and the facilitator made the course interactive and easy to understand. Anita was phenomenal. I’ve learned so much in the full bootcamp program that will help me streamline my workflow and use Captivate more efficiently and effectively. I would recommend an additional 1/2 day session for work-shops to review and work on student projects with peer and instructor review time for help etc. (in order to apply the tools learned to relevant projects from our workplace). This training is fantastic. The instructor was well-organized, flexible to classroom needs, instinctive and paid attention to body language, allowing more time as needed to make sure the users understood. One of the best facilitators I have seen in action. Content was excellent. Instructor kept it fun and lively. Like the location and the training facility. Instructor was very knowledgeable and responsive to issues about the software, she was able to provide great workarounds and a wealth of experience. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Twitter: Thank you very much Anita 🙂 for the inspiration I got from you. Alisha You are doing GREAT Anita. You are showing the business model can work and work well. Kenneth ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ You Tube: Anita is an amazing and knowledgeable person who is always available to help me with any Captivate issue. Thank you! ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Adobe Captivate Class, Nashville, TN Aug. 2013 (3 day class – beginner)
All of the content was useful and presented in an easy to understand way. This was the first time I used Captivate and I feel fairly comfortable with the software. Great teaching style! Suzann What I liked the most was the personal experience with guidelines and time frames and areas of troubleshooting that have arisen for various issues she has come across. Wonderful class. Can’t wait until the advanced class. The hands on was great and sharing tips an added bonus. I have a better understanding of time and planning for us to move forward. Paula Palk The entire class was useful but especially the quizzing. I also like the way we are able to shorten a long presentation but still make it effective. I am now ready to begin creating projects and feel with a bit of practice I will have it. Stephanie Davis ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Email: Anything Anita touches turns to gold. Kathleen Brown _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Adobe Captivate Class, Anaheim, CA, Aug. 2013 Anita is very knowledgable, I liked the fact that she was able to give her independent and personal interactions and experience with the system. The use of captivate is invaluable and will help us prepare for future eLearning development. Jeopardy Rocks! Isaac I wanted to thank you for an amazing training. I came to the class thinking I knew pretty much everything about Captivate, but I truly learned a lot from you. I liked everything about the class, Anita is very fun and she knows her stuff. Anna Everything about the class was highly interactive. Expect me for the advanced course! Jesse The entire course was new information and relevant to the intended outcome of the course is is the basic grasp of the software. As a developer, I feel the class provided me with the knowledge and skills that I will be able to implement right away. Jose I found Anita’s advise regarding production workflow to be very helpful. Anita is able to answer questions and yet stay on task in a very skillful manner. Answering our questions about how to solve our specific problems was also of critical importance to our office and her advice regarding the advantages of captivate 6. Nancy. I have acquired new skills to use in my daily work assignments. Thank you. Wish we had more time! Excellent presentation. Anonymous ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Adobe Captivate Class, San Antonio, TX, July 2013 Anita presented the Adobe Captivate course in such a way that it was easy to follow and very hands on. I enjoyed the entire course, but especially Anita. Very professional, knowledgeable, and articulates beautifully. Sandy This was my first exposure to Captivate an it was awesome, Great Experience. Excellent Instructor. Lori Very dynamic instructor from intro to the end of the class – Anita was very generous with her knowledge and didn’t make us suffer! Catherine Anita knocked it out of the park. Excellent! Jay Great class, the tips on the shortcuts and how to edit material will save us so much time. Thank you so much. Jennifer. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Video Tutorials: I recently purchased your video course on Captivate 6 from Packt publishing. Congratulations on a great job. It was wonderfully prepared, planned and executed. I am learning Captivate 6 and learnt a lot from it. Robert One-on-One web-based training: I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started down this path (one-on-one web-based Adobe Captivate instruction with Anita) but I really appreciate your encouragement and support. As someone in the eduction field, I absolutely love the goals and objectives of each session along with the flexibility to answer each and all of my questions as they come up. Not only are you a great teacher and adviser, but you are also an excellent and patient problem solver. Working through each step and giving alternatives allows me to see the process and not just the outcome. Thank you! Toni Rosenbaum Webinar and Blog: Scenario-based Training using Conditional Advanced Actions is a brilliant tutorial; it’s easy to follow, even if you are not too familiar with scripting, it helped me massively with interactivity and communication with internal colleagues. Not only that, but it enhanced my knowledge in knowing about different ways of interacting with users. Spot on tutorial! Thanks Anita. Jason ______________________________________________________________________________________
Great trainer! The handouts and the hands on walking through the using Captivate was most useful. we will definitely be using your blog! The class was great, it has taken us to the next level of instruction. Tess
I am always so impressed at how generous you are at sharing tips. T I’d like to express my appreciation to you for your Captivate training. After locating your tutorials I jumped directly to the section on advanced actions and found the details/tricks that I really need to grasp, which will enable me to move up to the next level with Captivate. Your clear presentation style and various project examples demonstrate the creative possibilities of the software and will certainly educate anyone wanting to learn more about Captivate. Thanks so much for making these available, You certainly have the chops for doing this and I expect to see your updates as new versions are released. I highly recommend your training to others. Kind Regards, P. Olson, Multi-media developer for E-Learning and Interactive E-books Blog: I’m a Captivate novice and am getting started using it to develop training here at Micron in Boise. I’m reading all your stuff out there and learning a lot…thank you! Jim Very professional. Nice video Video Tutorial on Adobe Captivate Interface via YouTube Found your blog…WOW…very very impressive and rather GENIUS! Bobbi I found your blog. It is very helpful. I actually use your site a lot. Please keep putting your wonderful advice there, and THANK YOU for sharing! Anita, your blog is superb! I have passed many colleagues at FV College trying to use Captivate to it’s full potential :-). Jasmin I watched your advanced actions workshop over the weekend and it was very helpful. And the skills that I obtained from watching your lesson on advanced actions allowed me to land my first instructional design contract! Thanks again, Kelsie I do really appreciate all your help – and as the self-taught Captivate person for my department, your blog has been incredibly helpful. Thanks so much! Chris
Hi, thank you for this blog. Extremely helpful. Unknown! Developing: Anita delivered an amazing eLearning module for us. I was very impressed with how she made our modules easy and interesting and new. Anita’s availability to review requirements and talk through areas was very helpful. She had great ideas and explained how the modules would work. she was also very timely with all her communications and any requested changes or fixes. Exceptional work and I appreciate all your help. Thank you again! Prudence. Blog: Anita, as a new Adobe Captivate user, I came across your blog when searching for information about creating a certificate. I then spent some time working through that particular blog and many more. Your tips, tricks, and blogs provide great explanation and captivate examples to help others. I thought the advanced actions tutorials, which included handouts, was great. Not only was I able to follow through the logic after seeing it in action, but I could then apply this knowledge to my own projects. I now check back regularly for updates and share your link with others. Thanks for all your help, Pam Leatch. Useful advice for Captivate Users. Ryan. Thank you for such great posts (always)! #AdobeCaptivate. Gena Anita, you are made of awesome. Kirstin Wanted this (blog post on Open Book Effects) ever since I saw something similar in Lectora. Thanks a ton. Sreekanth Thanks for being a great resource for the Adobe Captivate community! Rapid Templates_ One-on-One Training: Hi Anita, Thank you so much for your help. You have answered all my questions and then some. I so much appreciate your help. You are an excellent teacher. Your blog is an excellent resource. Your blog shows your passion for teaching and I like your style of teaching because besides teaching functionality of the application and making it look so easy, you also lay out the concepts and use-case for these functionalities. That is what beginners need to become designers. Thanks for doing what you do. Regards, Neerja
Your Captivate blog articles have often helped me with e-learning projects. Mike Anita, your website is a really helpful place for a captivate learner like me…Thanks Yes I often visit your blog, my favorite blog post is the one where users cannot proceed to the next slide before clicking on every button. I used that one for my current project! Ashwini Thanks so much for your help. I really enjoy your blog. Lyn Thanks again for your help! You’re always willing to assist and I’m grateful. Sally
You Tube: I just saw one of your videos on YouTube. Can you say AWESOME! Do you realize that your videos are some of the better ones that YouTube has to offer? Thank you so much for making them! Finally, something new and unique. It really blows me away that more people aren’t seeking out videos like yours, they are so much better than some of the garbage out there! Cimre Blog: This is a great tutorial and I’ve learned a lot from this blog. Thank you so much for the clue and getting back to me so quickly, You ROCK! BTW. have you thought about writing a book? With your knowledge I bet you could make a lot of money just by addressing advanced actions for Captivate. You do a good job at stepping through the process which many writers of software don’t. I’d buy your book! Kelly. Nice and informative Blog regarding Advanced Actions, this is really helpful for people who are interested in online education. Thanks and continue to share useful information to us.
Great blog post on advanced actions. Sarah. I loved the advanced actions demo. Will Presentation: Nice job on the presentation (Adobe Learning Summit), I sat down and viewed it… then also viewed Jeff’s videos on how you made the project. I must say, I didn’t even realize you could use Photoshop to edit videos… or 3D mockups. I learn something every day and that’s what I love most about this line of work. Thanks for pointing it out… and again… awesome work!
Blog: I was reading your blog (which is awesome, thank you, thank you, thank you!) And I watched your “advanced actions for dummies” presentation that you did, which helped immensely as well. I am so happy to have found you! Given Thank you Anita, Adobe should pay you! You helped me so much. Miriam Anita! You inspire me from afar :-), Juliette Webinar: I just completed Anita’s webinar for Adobe on using templates, master slides, styles, themes, and custom branding in Adobe Captivate 6. It is superb and certainly answered my question; therefore, a personal recommendation and thanks to Anita. Steve
This was so terrific and simple, thanks to your spot-on instructions! I applied this to my current project but I went a step further. I layered two transparent text captions below the buttons. One instructed the user to click on the objects to learn more and the other said to click CONTINUE to move on. I added “show caption A/hide caption B” to the “All Clicked” IF section and added “hide caption A/show caption B” to the ELSE section. It worked like a charm! Thanks, Anita! on Make eLearning Engaging with Advanced Actions in Adobe Captivate: Click any button, in any order AND Jump To: Part 3 This was awesome! Thank you so much for making it so easy to follow. on Make eLearning Engaging with Advanced Actions in Adobe Captivate: Click any button, in any order AND Jump To: Part 3 What great instruction to take advanced actions further. So many cool tricks in Captivate and this just gets me excited to master more. Thanks for this tutorial, it worked beautifully and just what my project needed! on Make eLearning Engaging with Advanced Actions in Adobe Captivate: Click any button, in any order AND Jump To: Part 3 Yah, great description!
Thanks Anita! The naming convention while publishing is the greatest ah-ha moment for me as I often change my name at publishing time. Hopefully this will reduce the number of crashes 🙂 ~Kerry Thanks, Anita! I just used your “recipe” for a captivate module in which the user needed to explore five elements before moving on. This worked like a charm and took no time at all to build! ~ Krista
The advanced action help you gave was beyond helpful and the button info was invaluable. Your input about the time investment was golden regarding what is involved to take these projects to a higher level, but also the power of Captivate, without having to know Flash. Thanks again! Diane Oh wow, thank you so much for the quick response Anita! I was really excited to find your blog (most of my other clients use version 5 or 5.5), but 4 has been tricky for me to try to get back in the swing of things. Looking forward to following your tips for future courses! Kelly
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