What Bruce said. Although it's quite different from Presenter in text animations and annotations, it is by far more flexible in terms of what you can do. Just takes time to get used to the new features and tools.
As Bruce pointed out, the cue points in the timeline are a very handy tool coupled with the ability to play audio directly from the timeline without previewing gives you more freedom and in time you'll see is quite efficient.
Hi David, you can apply the fade in and fade out effects by selecting the text and going to the Animations tab, but you have to control the start and stop times by using the timeline.
As Bruce said, the easiest way to do this is create Cue Points. To do this click the play button on the slide to start your audio playing (the play button is at the bottom left) and then at each point that you want text to display press "C" to create a cue point in the timeline. Once you have done this you just move each text block along the time line to the cue points.
It is a little fussy until you get used to it but it really does provide a lot more flexibility than the Sync tool in Presenter because it is so much easier to fine tune timings.
Yeah, that what I have been doing. It is a bit of a pain compared to Presenter, but I can live with having one step more complicated since Storyline makes so many other things easy.
It's a lot better than syncing in Presenter, as I remember you had to get all the sync's correct in one go, or else you had to start again from scratch.
Additionally, using bullet points in Storyline???? SL is so much bigger and better than simple bullet points on a screen! If you can get away from bullet points, by all means, go for it!
Oh yeah, David. Once you get used to the timeline for timing, you'll see how difficult PowerPoint's queued event system really is. The timeline is how all the audio and video editors work.
Hugh, activating a trigger at a cue point is a piece of cake. Just put an object at that cue point (it can be off slide if you don't want to visually see it). Then, attach a trigger to it whose event is "when the object's timeline starts".
Programming is much easier and more reliable in Storyline. And with the ability to use triggers, variables and javascript, you can pretty much do anything you want much better than other development platforms.
The exception which has always bugged me is when it comes to motion paths, animation styles and text formatting. I tell you, when/if they ever solve those issues, SL will be the absolute king of the hill IMHO. Heck, I would even be ok if they had a direct interaction between a new Presenter and SL so you can leverage some of those strengths (if they didn't want to cannibalize Studio's sales).
Whoa, can you imagine if you could combine tweening into a slide's timeline capabilities? Makes me all warm and squishy just to think about it.
New user here so want to clarify before I start adding more slides...
For each text item that you want to animate (appear), do you create each point in a separate layer and then adjust the layers using the timeline and cues?
Yes, so the trick is to create a text box for each line of text that I want to animate and then use the timeline and cues to have it appear at the right time.
I think I made the mistake of trying to put all of the text in the same text box like you can do in Articulate and PowerPoint.
Bruce - Thanks for the info about opening the "paragraph" to show the individual lines of text! I didn't know I could that. I've been trying to figure out a way to animate text in my courses so it shows up when I want it and I couldn't figure it out.
It's happened twice in separate courses when I have used two different fonts in a line of text.
I set the animation to display by first level par., added cues to my timeline and aligned each line to the desired cue point. When I preview, lines 2 and 3 dispay simultaneously even though they are about 5 seconds apart on the timeline.
What Margharita describes has happened in several of my courses. Sometimes, it just happens with the final bullet in a list, sometimes it's all of them. I tried to figure out if it was some issue with rectangles (with text) vs. text boxes or imported bullets vs. bullets created directly in Storyline, or maybe soft returns vs. hard returns. However, nothing obvious has come to light. I usually just eliminate the animation. In the course I just completed, I deleted the offending list, created a new text box, and pasted in the bullets as raw, unformatted text, reformatted, then applied the animation. They animated just fine after rebuilding.
Not helpful...but at least others will know they are not alone if they experience the same issue.
What Margharita describes has happened in several of my courses. Sometimes, it just happens with the final bullet in a list, sometimes it's all of them. I tried to figure out if it was some issue with rectangles (with text) vs. text boxes or imported bullets vs. bullets created directly in Storyline, or maybe soft returns vs. hard returns. However, nothing obvious has come to light. I usually just eliminate the animation. In the course I just completed, I deleted the offending list, created a new text box, and pasted in the bullets as raw, unformatted text, reformatted, then applied the animation. They animated just fine after rebuilding.
Not helpful...but at least others will know they are not alone if they experience the same issue.
Amy, thanks for sharing! I'll keep this in mind when it happens again.
25 Replies
Hi David,
You mention the Timeline - that's the way I have done all my animations during the Beta.
You can use the "C" button to create Cue Points, and then the animations become really simple to achieve.
Were you looking for something else different?
Bruce
Hi David!
What Bruce said. Although it's quite different from Presenter in text animations and annotations, it is by far more flexible in terms of what you can do. Just takes time to get used to the new features and tools.
As Bruce pointed out, the cue points in the timeline are a very handy tool coupled with the ability to play audio directly from the timeline without previewing gives you more freedom and in time you'll see is quite efficient.
Hi David, you can apply the fade in and fade out effects by selecting the text and going to the Animations tab, but you have to control the start and stop times by using the timeline.
As Bruce said, the easiest way to do this is create Cue Points. To do this click the play button on the slide to start your audio playing (the play button is at the bottom left) and then at each point that you want text to display press "C" to create a cue point in the timeline. Once you have done this you just move each text block along the time line to the cue points.
It is a little fussy until you get used to it but it really does provide a lot more flexibility than the Sync tool in Presenter because it is so much easier to fine tune timings.
Yeah, that what I have been doing. It is a bit of a pain compared to Presenter, but I can live with having one step more complicated since Storyline makes so many other things easy.
Thanks for the quick replies.
The more you get used to the timeline the more flexible you realise it is
It's a lot better than syncing in Presenter, as I remember you had to get all the sync's correct in one go, or else you had to start again from scratch.
Additionally, using bullet points in Storyline???? SL is so much bigger and better than simple bullet points on a screen! If you can get away from bullet points, by all means, go for it!
I would love it if I could use a cue point to activate a trigger though, would let me do all sorts of other actions.
You can place a triggable object at that cue point, off the slide area, and use it to trigger other objects at the cue point.
Oh yeah, David. Once you get used to the timeline for timing, you'll see how difficult PowerPoint's queued event system really is. The timeline is how all the audio and video editors work.
Hugh, activating a trigger at a cue point is a piece of cake. Just put an object at that cue point (it can be off slide if you don't want to visually see it). Then, attach a trigger to it whose event is "when the object's timeline starts".
Timeline--good. No, strike that--GREAT.
Besides all the all the other great reasons mentioned, you can more easily have multiple animations and your own custom annotations.
I missed the Presenter and PowerPoint animation styles/annotations for about two weeks. Then I got "it," embraced the timeline and never looked back.
I can now animate and annotate far faster in Storyline.
Programming is much easier and more reliable in Storyline. And with the ability to use triggers, variables and javascript, you can pretty much do anything you want much better than other development platforms.
The exception which has always bugged me is when it comes to motion paths, animation styles and text formatting. I tell you, when/if they ever solve those issues, SL will be the absolute king of the hill IMHO. Heck, I would even be ok if they had a direct interaction between a new Presenter and SL so you can leverage some of those strengths (if they didn't want to cannibalize Studio's sales).
Whoa, can you imagine if you could combine tweening into a slide's timeline capabilities? Makes me all warm and squishy just to think about it.
+ 10, Doctor Ben.
When I retire, I really want to be super hero like my friend Gerry.
Awesome Lance, thanks for mentioning this. Played around and it does exactly what I wanted.
Hi All,
New user here so want to clarify before I start adding more slides...
For each text item that you want to animate (appear), do you create each point in a separate layer and then adjust the layers using the timeline and cues?
Hi Jan,
No - you do not need to put each one on a new layer.
This image shows text boxes that just come in synched with my voiceover, on the same layer.
You can add animations etc. to them.
Does that all make sense?
Bruce
Yes, so the trick is to create a text box for each line of text that I want to animate and then use the timeline and cues to have it appear at the right time.
I think I made the mistake of trying to put all of the text in the same text box like you can do in Articulate and PowerPoint.
Thanks Bruce!
YEs.
There IS another trick......
If you create some text, you can enter it in one box, and you will see animation options for "...first level paragraph...".
You can then shift these around to fit to, for example, a voiceover, so it looks like this:
So - you do not need to use a different text box for each entry, but you can do it this way if it suits you.
Best advice, (as always...), just have a play, and see what happens!
Have fun.
Bruce
Bruce - Thanks for the info about opening the "paragraph" to show the individual lines of text! I didn't know I could that. I've been trying to figure out a way to animate text in my courses so it shows up when I want it and I couldn't figure it out.
Regards,
Stephanie
No worries Stephanie.
Bruce
PS - I only found out about it 2 weeks ago - it helped me out no end
!!
Has anyone experienced this?
It's happened twice in separate courses when I have used two different fonts in a line of text.
I set the animation to display by first level par., added cues to my timeline and aligned each line to the desired cue point. When I preview, lines 2 and 3 dispay simultaneously even though they are about 5 seconds apart on the timeline.
Any thoughts?
What Margharita describes has happened in several of my courses. Sometimes, it just happens with the final bullet in a list, sometimes it's all of them. I tried to figure out if it was some issue with rectangles (with text) vs. text boxes or imported bullets vs. bullets created directly in Storyline, or maybe soft returns vs. hard returns. However, nothing obvious has come to light. I usually just eliminate the animation. In the course I just completed, I deleted the offending list, created a new text box, and pasted in the bullets as raw, unformatted text, reformatted, then applied the animation. They animated just fine after rebuilding.
Not helpful...but at least others will know they are not alone if they experience the same issue.
Amy, thanks for sharing! I'll keep this in mind when it happens again.
I knew I'd seen a way to do this in Storyline, thanks for the reminder!
Glad this older post was able to help you out Ephraim :)
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