At some point, most everyone has faced tight deadlines and last-minute changes on their e-learning projects. So, it’s helpful to have a few good tricks up your sleeve to keep your projects on track and make you look like an e-learning super hero. One of the best is knowing how to substitute one object for another without losing the actions and effects of the original.

Imagine you’ve meticulously formatted your images, including some with complex combinations of triggers, animations, and hyperlinks, and synchronized them perfectly with your audio narration. Just when you’re ready to publish your course, your client asks you to swap out all the images. However, if you delete them and start over, you’ll miss your deadline.

Fortunately, the Change Picture feature is a quick, easy way to replace an image AND keep all of the actions and effects associated with the original. Plus, you can use this great trick in your Articulate Presenter, Quizmaker, and Storyline projects. Here’s how:


Change Picture

  1. Right-click the picture you want to change.
  2. Select Change Picture ...
  3. Locate the new picture you want to use and click OK.

Watch this tutorial to see it in action:

You can change images this way in PowerPoint, Quizmaker, and Storyline. Easy, huh?

Similar to changing images, you can also alter shapes and characters while retaining the actions and effects the same:


Change Shape (PowerPoint)

  1. Select the shape you want to change.
  2. Under Drawing Tools, on the Format tab, click Edit Shape, point to Change Shape, and then click the new shape that you want.

Change Shape (Quizmaker & Storyline)

  1. Select the shape you want to change.
  2. Under Drawing Tools, on the Format tab, click Change Shape, and then click the new shape that you want.

Change Character (Quizmaker & Storyline)

  1. Right-click the character you want to change.
  2. Select Change Character ...
  3. Locate the new character you want to use and click OK.

This approach will save you tons of time making last-minute changes, as well as while working with pre-built content. For example, if your graphics and characters are not yet finalized, it doesn’t need to hold up the design of your course. You can use placeholders, and then swap in the final shapes and characters when you’re ready.

If you want to try this yourself but don’t have Articulate Storyline or Articulate Studio ’13, no problem. Simply sign up for a fully functional, free trial and give it a whirl. When you’re done, don’t forget to share your work or post your questions and comments in the forums.

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