Attached files not saving to external files folder

Dec 22, 2022

Hi community! I am trying to publish a project which includes a link to download a word document. I cannot get this to work as described in any instructions/discussions that I have found.

I have tried placing a copy of the storyline file and the word document into a folder on my desktop. When publishing, this does create the 'external files' folder in the story_content, but this folder is empty and the hyperlink in the published module has a 'file not found' error!

I also tried using the resources tab (as described here: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/how-do-i-embed-a-word-doc-inside-storyline-2), but it won't publish; publish is interrupted by an error every time.

The only way I can make this work is by linking to a shared document on our company sharepoint (which opens directly from sharepoint, not a version of the document in the published package as desired). This is not ideal, as the file could be deleted and then the link in the module on the LMS would break.

Has anyone else had issues linking out to Word documents or have another solution?

4 Replies
Jose Tansengco

Hi Amy,

Thanks for reaching out! 

You'll want to follow the instructions listed here to add a link to a resource in the course player, which in this case would be your Word file. 

If following these steps results in an error for you, would you be willing to share a copy of your Storyline project file and the Word file that you're trying to attach here or in private by opening a support case so we can take a look at what's causing the error? We'll delete your files as soon as we're done testing!

Amy Thornton

Thanks for the reply Joe.

Those are the instructions that I tried that don't work for my file - the external files folder is empty.

I tried making a new file to test, and that works fine, as does using the regular process of linking to file directly. There must be something in my project that is breaking it. I will open a support case as I can't share the files here.

Math Notermans

In this post i have a precise description and example on how to add external files into Storyline.
I always add an extra scene with the resources enabled, but that scene never gets called by any trigger... so the resources will be available, but the resources won't be visible in other slides.

https://community.articulate.com/discussions/building-better-courses/using-text-entry-variables-for-interactive-graphs