Four Things You Should Know About Articulate Presenter ’13 Player Templates

One of the most stunning changes in Articulate Studio ’13 is the new, completely redesigned player. It offers more control and flexibility than ever before—in fact, you can customize just about any part of the player when you’re ready to move beyond the default settings.

For instance, on some projects, you might need to follow corporate branding standards by using a specific logo and color scheme. On others, you might need a totally different look or want to apply navigation controls that are better suited to other types of courses.

Take a look at these examples for a glimpse of what’s possible:

Tip 1: Customizing Your Course Player

To customize the player settings, click the Articulate tab on the PowerPoint ribbon and then select Player.

In the Player Properties window, you can customize just about any aspect of the player, including the colors, navigation controls, course elements, text labels, and language.

These helpful tutorials show how to customize the various player elements. 

Tip 2: Saving Your Course Player Template

Articulate Presenter ’13 automatically saves all of the changes you make to the course player. You can also save as many unique player configurations as you’d like as templates that you can re-use in other courses.

When you’re ready to save your player settings as a new template, click the Current Player button, choose Save as …, and give your template a name.

Tip 3: Switching Player Templates

When you save a new Presenter player, it is added to the list of available custom players. To apply one to a project, simply click Current Player, scroll to Open, and choose the player you want to apply to the course.

This is a huge time-saver because you can apply a whole host of player settings with just a couple of clicks.

Tip 4: Sharing Player Templates

Another great thing about player templates is that they’re easy to share. Simply export your template to an .xml file, and then any other Presenter user can import that file and apply it to any project.

Check out this tutorial for details on importing and exporting custom players.

If you want to try this yourself but don't have Presenter '13, no problem. Just sign up for a fully functional, free 30-day trial. And don't forget to post your questions and comments in the forums! We're here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.