Bullet Isssue in Storyline

Aug 29, 2012

Hello everyone,

I am not sure whether someone have answer to the question below:

I woudl like to know is there any efficient way to provide sub-level bullets and change the color of bullets in storyline?

I tried inserting through symbols or text boxes but it consumes more time when the slide count is huge.

Please let me know if anybody have any better solution apart from this.

Thanks for your assistance.

37 Replies
Brian Allen

Bullet formatting is still an area under development in Storyline, and there is little support for sub-level bullets, etc. in unordered lists.

I've found it easier to create my bulleted lists in PPT, and then import the PPT slide.  After importing I need to make a few tweaks, but it's not a bad work around in the interim.

Hope this helps

Eric Stephan

Hi guys -- just to throw a few bullet-related things into the discussion --

1-- My own most hoped-for fix to the bulleting is to make it easy for bullet items to have additional vertical space in between then, rather than the next bullet appearing directly below the previous bullet with no vertical gap separating them.  Much clearer to read bullets that way especially in an e-learning context.

2-- Am I right that if you paste a full text box in from powerpoint, the entire text box that you pasted in from PPT becomes turned into a graphic item?  Therefore turns into un-editable bitmap graphics?  But, if, over in PPT, you go INTO a text box, select a bunch of bullety text from there, and then go paste it INTO a text box that exists in Storyline, then all the bullets are lost?  Both of those options are not so good, right?

3-- Also -- I find that the LAST bullet in any of my bullet lists has its bullet shape smaller and different from its brother bullets!  Have you seen that?  Can not fix it, even by making a new bullet below it and then deleting that last bullet... still takes the last bullet and shrinks it... any fix you know of?

4-- And of course, clearly, another wished for item -- when you use the button to "further indent"  certain bullets in your list, it's best if the new hierarchical level is indicated by a different bullet shape... but that is clearly understood by you guys already...

Brian Allen

Eric Stephan said:

2-- Am I right that if you paste a full text box in from powerpoint, the entire text box that you pasted in from PPT becomes turned into a graphic item?  Therefore turns into un-editable bitmap graphics?  But, if, over in PPT, you go INTO a text box, select a bunch of bullety text from there, and then go paste it INTO a text box that exists in Storyline, then all the bullets are lost?  Both of those options are not so good, right?

Eric, on point #2 you are correct in both your statements.

The workaround I have found for this is to format my bulleted text in PPT, then import the slide into Storyline.  Just insert a new slide, select Import from the bottom of the list on the left, choose PPT and then you can choose to import a single slide or multiple slides.

For the most part your bullet points will be maintained and the text remains editable.

Ragunathakrishnan G

Brian & Phil,

Thanks for your suggestions.

Brian:

In the very first reply, you have told us that  you have "found it easier to create my bulleted lists in PPT, and then import the PPT slide.  After importing I need to make a few tweaks, but it's not a bad work around in the interim"

I understand that you have a bullet layout in the master slide of your PPT and then design the slide in PPT and import into Storyline.

Is my understanding correct? Also, it would also help what kind of tweaks that you make?

Because, when I import into Storyline, the problem is that, the bullet color changes to black color and it takes more effort for me to change the bullet color in all the slides if slide count  is huge.

Brian Allen

Ragunathakrishnan Govindan said:

I understand that you have a bullet layout in the master slide of your PPT and then design the slide in PPT and import into Storyline. 

Is my understanding correct? Also, it would also help what kind of tweaks that you make?

Because, when I import into Storyline, the problem is that, the bullet color changes to black color and it takes more effort for me to change the bullet color in all the slides if slide count  is huge.


Hello Ragunathakrishnan, 

There is more than likely a more efficient process, but here is mine: If I am working on a Storyline project where I have slides using bulleted text (that is bulleted lists more complex than what Storyline can handle), I create a PPT deck and create the text for those slides, formatting the lists the way I need them to look.

I then import these slides into Storyline into a new scene.  I have found that some special characters do not make the import process, such as "≥", so I will double check my text to make sure that I have everything.  The issue with some special characters may be a result of font selection, not sure...

You can also make some tweaks here if needed such as font color, font type, even font size, but your results may vary.  This sometimes results in losing most of the formatting for the bulleted list, so I try to have things as ready to go as possible in PPT before importing the slides.

I will then copy the entire text box from the imported slide and paste it onto the slide in my presentation where I need the bulleted list.  I'm sure I could apply a master slide, layout, etc. to the imported slide from my PPT, but I just find it easier to do this way.

I've not played around a lot with colored bullets in unordered lists, but from what I've done with ordered lists the bullet colors seem to come over through the import process, so I haven't run into the issue you mention above.

Not ideal, I know, and again I'm sure there are probably a dozen tips and tricks others could share as far as workflow, things they do differently, etc.  Hope this helps!

Brian

Brian Allen

Ragunathakrishnan, 

After some experimentation I am not able to replicate my success around ordered lists with unordered lists.

When I create an ordered list in PPT and import into Storyline, the bullet formatting is preserved.  I don't use unordered lists as often so I tried to do the same thing but without any success.  Storyline converts everything into the standard "dot" filled disc type of bullet, regardless of what I was using in PPT.

Additionally, the success I've had with bullet color probably isn't the same thing you have in mind.  My experience has been where I had adjusted the color of the text, which subsequently changes the color of the bullet.  When imported into Storyline the color is honored (example story file attached).  However, if you use the bullet formatting settings to change the color of just the bullet point (not affecting the text color), like you I have found that this does not import successfully to Storyline.

After looking at more scenarios/uses, and seeing what is possible vs not possible, I feel like David Anderson's suggestion above is probably the route I would go if I needed to customize unordered bulleted lists, or if I needed to customize just the bullet color of a list.

Ragunathakrishnan G

Thanks Brian for sharing the file. I looked into the file and found that I can change the color of ordered lists.

Now, I found a work-around to solve the color issue using Unordered lists:

Steps: (to change my bullet color to red)

  1. Insert a storyline default UL bullet
  2. Change the color of the bullet to red color
  3. You can now find that the color of the text along with the bullet changes to Red
  4. Select the text and change the color to default black
  5. You can now find that the bullet color is red and the text is in black. 
Allison Black

Ragunathakrishnan Govindan said:

Thanks Brian for sharing the file. I looked into the file and found that I can change the color of ordered lists.

Now, I found a work-around to solve the color issue using Unordered lists:

Steps: (to change my bullet color to red)

  1. Insert a storyline default UL bullet
  2. Change the color of the bullet to red color
  3. You can now find that the color of the text along with the bullet changes to Red
  4. Select the text and change the color to default black
  5. You can now find that the bullet color is red and the text is in black. 
Thank you so much - this was my problem with a client project and this helpful trick worked - 98% of the time.  And the remaining 2%, well, I just changed the color on most of the text, then re-typed the remaining (which stayed black - yay) and then deleted the incorrect colored (blue) characters.  Clicked Save and It was as I wanted it to be.  Thank you!
Killian Holmes

Another option is this.

  1. Create your bulleted content in  PowerPoint
  2. Save this presentation as .png or .jpg. (This will create a folder in which each slide is converted to an image)
  3. Open a new PowerPoint , click Insert Photo Album and point to the folder with the images
  4. Import this PowerPoint into Storyline

It works and all of the design elements from PowerPoint are present exactly as you'd want.

There are of course a couple of cons;

  1. The images are not quite as crisp as a regular slide
  2. You can't edit the content in Storyline. Instead you'd need to edit the source PowerPoint and follow the 4 steps above.
  3. Depending on the number of slides the Storyline project  has the potential to becomes enormous 
Kristin Augusta

Can I add an issue to the Storyline bullet thread here?  (Well, I am going to...) 

I set up my bullets to align with audio using the timeline and animation.  Worked great until this one slide.  The last 3 bullets are pulling parts of the other lines.  I re-created them from scratch and same thing is happening.

So -

* Serve as a focal point for a management discipline to practice the application of methodology & policy and improve performance over time

* Broker scarce skills and capabilities to maximize benefits and effectively mitigate risks from an enterprise perspective

* Accelerate organizational proficiency through education and dissemination of leading practices and experiences

are coming in as

* Serve as a focal point for a management discipline to practice the application of methodology & policy and

improve performance over time (in the correct location as part of that last sentence)

* Broker scarce skills and capabilities to maximize benefits and effectively mitigate risks from

an enterprise perspective (in the correct location as part of that last sentence)

* Accelerate organizational proficiency through education and dissemination of leading practices and experiences

It's only happening on this one slide - and I already tried recreating it.  So, any help is appreciated!

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