Slide numbers

When I started producing e-learning I never thought about numbering the slides. I don't think I ever saw it done by anyone else either. However when one day a learner called in to report a bug I realised how useful such things could be. The learner reported that there was a problem in a section of one of the units of their e-learning. Unfortunately that section had over thirty slides and they were no more specific about what the problem was (which was in the content itself) in it so tracking down the problem took ages.

So I had the brainwave to number slides. Doing it manually was a no-no of course as it would take ages and any later edits or updates which required adding/removing slides would mean many of the slide numbers would become incorrect.

Luckily Captivate includes a number of system variables which you can use in your e-learning courses. The ones of use here are $$cpInfoCurrentSlide$$ (the number of the current slide) and $$cpInfoSlideCount$$ (the total number of slides). The latter I use too as I like learners to know how far they are through the e-learning (we hide the playbar for... reasons).

When you insert a variable you get the below window pop-up, you need to select System in the "Variable Type" list and then you will see a long list of variables which you can select and insert into your slide in a text-box (but if you know what the variable is you can type it in as well, put a double dollar sign at both ends of the variable). By the way I've found its best to add the slide numbers to the master slide.