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Adobe Captivate quiz generator: create Captivate quiz questions and import a question pool from any video

Draft the question slides from your training recording, then import them into Captivate as GIFT or CSV depending on which build you run.

Sample quiz

Real output, not generated live

What VidQuiz reads: paste a YouTube link and VidQuiz watches the video itself. For any other source (Vimeo, an MP4, a screen recording, an upload) paste that video’s transcript and VidQuiz writes the questions from it.

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Questions from your video · answers and explanations · edit before you share

Free plan: 3 quizzes a month, no card needed

The short answer

Last updated August 2026

An Adobe Captivate quiz generator writes the question slides so you are not typing them into Captivate one at a time. VidQuiz reads a training video or lecture straight from a YouTube link; a screen recording or anything else off YouTube goes in with its transcript. From either it drafts multiple choice questions with the correct answer marked and a short explanation. How the questions get into Captivate depends on which build you run: Captivate Classic imports a GIFT .txt file directly through Quiz, Import GIFT Format File, while the rewritten Captivate dropped GIFT and takes a CSV from version 12.3 onward. Builds 12.0 to 12.2 import nothing at all, so on those the questions are typed in by hand.

Adobe Captivate sits in a lot of US corporate L&D teams, and the quiz side of it is solid once the questions exist. Writing them is the part that eats the week. A Captivate question slide wants a stem, the answer choices, the right answer flagged, a point value, and feedback, and you are doing that after already rewatching the recording to decide what is worth asking about.

VidQuiz takes the writing half. Paste a YouTube link to the session, or upload the file with its transcript, and it reads the spoken content and drafts multiple choice questions with the correct answer marked and a one line explanation of why it is right. Every question carries a timestamp back to the moment it tests, which is what you want when someone disputes an item in a compliance course.

The handoff is where Captivate gets genuinely confusing, because Adobe shipped two different products under one name. Captivate Classic, the 2019 and 11.x line, imports GIFT text files and CSV. The rewritten Captivate that replaced it launched with no question import at all and then added CSV in 12.3, without bringing GIFT back. So the right file to send depends on the build sitting on your machine, not on the product name. The table below is the version by version answer, checked against Adobe documentation rather than guessed.

At a glance

Which Adobe Captivate build imports which question format

Swipe left to see all columns →

Captivate build	Question import it accepts	What to send it from VidQuiz
Captivate Classic, 2019 release and 11.x	GIFT .txt and CSV, via the Quiz menu	The GIFT export. It imports with no reformatting
Captivate Classic question pools	GIFT .txt, imported into a named pool	The same GIFT file, pointed at the pool instead of the project
Captivate 12.0 to 12.2	Nothing. Question slides are typed by hand	The PDF export, as the script to type from
Captivate 12.3 and later	CSV only. GIFT was not carried over	The CSV export, remapped to the Captivate column names

Checked against Adobe help for Captivate Classic (Import questions from GIFT format files, and Import questions from CSV format files) and Adobe help for the current Captivate (Import Questions as CSV, added in 12.3). Adobe ships a sample import CSV with the application at Gallery/Quiz inside the install folder, which is the safest thing to copy your column headings from.

Can you import questions into Adobe Captivate?

Yes on Captivate Classic and on the current Captivate from 12.3 onward, but through different formats. Classic takes GIFT text files and CSV from the Quiz menu. The rewritten Captivate takes CSV only, from File, Import, Import CSV. Between those two, builds 12.0 to 12.2 shipped with no import at all.

This is the single thing most people get wrong about Captivate, and it is Adobe's naming that causes it. When the rewritten Captivate arrived, the older product was renamed Captivate Classic and kept on sale, so two very different applications now answer to the same brand. Advice written for one is frequently wrong for the other, and a lot of blog posts do not say which they mean.

The quick way to tell which one you have: open the Quiz menu. If you see Import GIFT Format File and Import Question Slides from CSV listed there, you are on Classic. If there is no Quiz menu of that shape and importing lives under File, Import, you are on the rewritten Captivate and GIFT is not an option.

Does the new Adobe Captivate import GIFT files?

No. GIFT import belongs to Captivate Classic only. The rewritten Captivate launched without any question import, and when Adobe added importing back in version 12.3 it was CSV, not GIFT. There is no setting or plugin that restores GIFT on the new application.

If your questions are already in GIFT and you are on the new Captivate, you have two honest options. Convert them to Captivate CSV columns, which is a spreadsheet job rather than a technical one, or generate the CSV directly instead. VidQuiz exports both, so this is a choice at export time rather than a conversion chore.

It is worth knowing that GIFT is not an Adobe format in the first place. It came from Moodle, and Captivate Classic reading it was Adobe supporting somebody else's text format because it was widely used in education. That is also why the same GIFT file we generate for Captivate Classic loads into Moodle unchanged.

How do you import a GIFT file into Adobe Captivate?

In Captivate Classic, click Quiz, then Import GIFT Format File, select the .txt file, and click Open. Captivate parses the file and creates the question slides. If it finds a question type it does not support, it shows an error message naming the problem rather than importing a broken slide silently.

Two details decide whether this works first time. The file has to be saved as UTF-8, which matters as soon as a question contains a curly quote or an accented name, and the GIFT control characters have to be escaped. In GIFT the symbols tilde, equals, hash, colon and the two brace characters all mean something structural, so a timestamp written as 12:04 or a stray equals sign inside answer text will either break the parse or quietly create a second correct answer. Our GIFT export escapes those for you.

That error message is a real advantage over some other importers. Moodle, for example, will accept a malformed block and create a question where every option scores zero without warning you. Captivate telling you what it could not read means a failed import is a five minute fix rather than something you discover when a learner complains about an unanswerable question.

What is a question pool in Adobe Captivate?

A question pool is a named bank of questions that sits outside the slide order, and random question slides pull from it at runtime. Instead of every learner seeing the same ten items, each attempt draws a different selection from the pool. Captivate Classic can import a GIFT file straight into a pool.

Pools are the reason bulk question generation pays off in Captivate specifically. A fixed ten question quiz needs ten good questions. A pool that feeds ten random slides wants forty or fifty so that a retake is genuinely different, and forty questions is exactly the volume nobody wants to hand write. Generating a long draft from the recording and trimming it is much faster than starting from an empty pool.

Practical note: import into the pool rather than into the project when the questions belong to a topic you will reuse. Questions imported into the main project are tied to that project, whereas a pool can feed several random question slides and is easier to extend next time the material is updated.

What question types can Captivate import?

Captivate Classic imports multiple choice, true or false, short answer, and matching questions from a GIFT file. The current Captivate CSV import covers multiple choice, true or false, short answer, sequence, and match. In both cases the correct answer travels with the question, which is the part that usually gets lost in a manual rebuild.

VidQuiz writes multiple choice and true or false, so everything it generates lands inside what both importers accept. That is deliberate. Those two types auto grade cleanly everywhere, whereas short answer needs a human to mark it and matching questions rarely come out of a video recording in a form worth keeping.

On the current Captivate the CSV carries a little more than the question itself. Its columns are Question Type, Points, Question Stem, Answer Options, and Slide Type, where a leading asterisk on an option marks it correct and Slide Type is either G for a graded slide or KC for a knowledge check. So the point value and whether an item counts toward the score are set in the spreadsheet, not clicked in afterwards.

The same GIFT file works in Moodle so a course that runs in both places only needs the questions generated once.
A worked GIFT walkthrough shows the syntax and the escaping rule with real question blocks you can copy.
Starting from a training recording covers what makes a good question from a session that was recorded for staff.
If the recording came out of Camtasia that page covers the Smart Player limitation and why a plain MP4 export drops an in-video quiz.
Sending the same quiz to Canvas or Brightspace the QTI package is the format those systems import, and it is generated from the same questions.
Every route into a Blackboard test why Blackboard takes an upload file rather than the QTI package.

Why VidQuiz

What you get with captivate quiz

The questions get written for you

Paste a recording and get stems, four options, the marked answer, and a one line explanation. Captivate becomes a review and styling pass instead of a blank question slide.

GIFT imports clean on Classic

Our GIFT export writes the explanation as feedback on the correct answer, so Captivate Classic pulls in the reasoning along with the question rather than leaving it in a separate document.

Learners are never metered

Generating and reviewing in VidQuiz does not charge per person taking the quiz. Whoever ends up in your Captivate course is between you and your LMS.

What you can do

Everything adobe captivate quiz generator gives you

Paste a YouTube link and VidQuiz reads the video itself; for anything else, upload it with its transcript. Either way it writes the questions and you edit anything before you share. You stay in control of the final quiz.

Turn a recorded training session into Captivate question slides
Fill a Captivate Classic question pool without typing each item
Keep the explanation attached to the correct answer through a GIFT import
Work out which format your Captivate build actually accepts
Trace any question back to a moment in the recording
Reuse the same quiz as QTI, Google Forms CSV, Moodle GIFT, PDF, or a share link

Quiz Studio

Try it on a video right here

Pick a sample or paste your own link, generate the quiz, then answer the questions. Each one is tied to a moment in the video, with the answer and a short explanation.

Sample quiz

Real output, not generated live

Good questions

Questions about captivate quiz

No. Classic gives you the cleanest path because our GIFT file imports with no editing, but the current Captivate from 12.3 onward imports CSV and we export that too. On 12.0 to 12.2 there is no import at all, so the PDF export is the practical route and you type the slides.

Through a GIFT import into Captivate Classic, yes. The explanation is written as feedback on the correct answer, so it arrives with the question. Through the CSV route it depends on how you map the columns, since Captivate CSV does not have a dedicated explanation field.

No. VidQuiz writes and exports questions, it does not build or package courses. Captivate is the tool that publishes SCORM. We hand you the questions, you publish the course from Captivate as you already do.

If a quiz shows ten random questions, aim for forty or more in the pool so a second attempt looks genuinely different. Generating a long draft from the recording and cutting the weak items is far quicker than writing forty questions from scratch.

A YouTube link is the one source VidQuiz reads on its own. For anything else (recorded training sessions, webinars, lecture capture, screen recordings, audio only files) upload the file and paste its transcript, because VidQuiz has no speech-to-text of its own. It reads the spoken content it is given, so a narrated recording gives much better questions than a silent screen capture.

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Draft the question slides from your training recording, then import them into Captivate as GIFT or CSV depending on which build you run. Make your first quiz in seconds.