I'm having issues with blurry screenshots when I publish to Word. They look fine in the Player, but when they show up in Word, they are fuzzy. I've tried using different screen resolutions for the Screen Recordings, but regardless of the size, the screenshots in the published Word document show up fuzzy. Any suggestions on how I can get clear screenshots when Publishing to Word?
You may want to change the size of the screenshot when publishing - you'll see that option on the publish window. Also, is it only the screen recording slides which appear blurry?
You'll also want to make sure you're on the most recent update of Storyline, we're currently on update 5.
Thanks for the quick response! Are you talking about Publish Quality under Properties on the Web tab of the Publish dialogue box? I've tried turning the Image quality up to 100%, and the quality of the Word images stays the same.
Great question. Actually, every slide shows up blurry in the Word printout.
I doubled checked for updates, and I've already installed update 5.
The blurriness has always been my experience, too, when publishing to Word. I find that there is also a certain degree of blurriness even when I publish it the file to run through our LMS (though not as bad as in Word).
Within publish to Word, there is an option to change the image screenshot size as shown here:
Thanks for also confirming you were on Update 5, as there was a fix included in update 4 to help with the blurriness - but I do see another user has reported the issue recently with some blurriness in publish to word. Do you have a .story file and/or some screenshots I could take a look at and then add to the existing QA report if it seems to match?
Not trying to horn in on the discussion, but this is what I get when publishing that same slide as above to Word, even selecting the "large" option. There is a definite "shadowing" that occurs:
The blurriness is definitely worse when the font size is smaller. With the "medium" option it's pretty much unreadable (this is "large").
Where did you take the first screenshot from? Any chance you could share the original .story file so that we could take a look at how the original .story file looking in editing, preview, and publish to web? You can share it here in the forums or I can let you know how to send it to me directly, and as always you can connect with our Support engineers.
Hi Ashley - the first screen shot I took (using Windows Snip-it tool which gives a pretty accurate rendering) when I logged into our website as a "student" and launched our course from our LMS. So it's exactly as a student sees it, here's the entire look. I'd be happy to send you a file directly and also to enroll you as a student so you can see it published through the LMS if you will let me know how to do so.
I am experiencing the same problem as what Emily had logged in the original post here.
My scenario is:
I use ASL to record the screen while I am navigating through a program (software simulation) and then do an slide-by-slide insert which gets captioned in order to explain each step. these stories are usually layer-less and limited to one screen shot per page with applicable brief explanations.
I recently upgraded to ASL 2 and re-recorded one of my projects to see if I could see any improvement on the word output, but still fuzzy and very small - even if I select large slides prior to publish.
There aren't any ways to change the overall quality of the images when publish to Word - but you mentioned you selected the "large slide" view - and it's still small? Is it small to read or the slide stays small and doesn't change based on what you select in the publish settings?
The slide size in relation to the page size scales correctly to show large vs medium. The information on the slide is my bug bear - its small and blurry.
I have attached a document for your reference - see from page 4 specifically.
Thanks for sharing the pdf here of your publish to Word output. Was this version in SL 2 or SL1? I know that SL2 included a number of updates to the way we handle text including how it appears within the published output. If it's SL2, are you able to share a copy of that .story file as well so that I could share this with our QA team for some additional review?
Thanks for sharing those here. I saw the same behavior as you mentioned in your file and in a new file I tested with some captions and additional text. I've shared this with our QA team to see if this is by design when publishing to Word as the text and elements are turned into images and placed within Word - or if it's considered to be a bug. I'll share any information here in the thread once it's available, but I don't have a time frame to offer in regards to hearing back.
I did also publish it to Web just to compare the two, and the text is much crisper in that version and just wanted to share that link to your published output here.
Thanks for the efforts! I agree - the output to Web is clearer as you say.
My work around in the meantime has been to record the screen simulation (view mode insert) and then export the recording to mp4 on the insert window, then attach the mp4 via resources. This means changing story design a bit, but the mp4 is way way clearer
If there is anything that can be done to the Word output, I owudl be really happy to hear - thanks for the submission to the QA's.
I'm glad you've found a workaround that will work for you as well. I'll update you here if I have any additional information to share in regards to this issue.
I took my screen captures in Articulate Storyline 2, Update 4: 1501.717. When I print my slides to Word with medium or large screenshots the images a very blurry. They look fine in the presentation but the print is nearly useless. My screen resolution was set to 1024 x 768 when I recorded my screen so everything was clear and big. Is there any way to get a crisper print without having to replace each screen shot one-by-one? We're hoping to use the Word print out as a job aid for people to learn tasks. We also want to use them for instructor's notes. We were hoping the print to Word feature could replace Oracle's UPK tool that prints out crisp job aids so we could finally decide on one training application.
Since the images are having to scale based on the size of your screen and print to word set up, I'm not sure there is a way to reduce the blurriness that you're seeing - although we're happy to take a look at the .story file to confirm as we've shared similar set ups with our QA team before to help clarify.
Thanks a bunch for your help. My team really likes the product and we're hoping to use it as our main training tool. So far biggest pain points are the size of the files and image quality of the prints.
I didn't realize that I could change the story size so I created a new test with the Story Size and screen resolution to 1024x768. Anything smaller was too difficult for viewing the course. I recorded at full screen. Unfortunately there was really no improvement in the Word file.
Ah, interesting so your screen size and recording size were different? I'd always recommend using the same size for each for the clearest image - but depending on what you're recording, as you mentioned smaller may be too small to see anything.
In regards to file size, are you talking about the .story file or the published output? If the .story file you may want to look at removing slide masters, images, extra scenes, or screen recordings that you're not using to reduce file size. If it's the published output you could change the quality of the publish settings to lower to help Storyline compress elements further - although that would impact things such as blurriness.
That's the only method I have - but if you have access to another file sharing site such as Dropbox you could load the .story file up there and then share the link either here or through the case form for us to download it.
Also an FYI that replying via email includes your signature here as well so you're welcome to edit the post and remove that information if needed.
30 Replies
Hi Emily and welcome to Heroes!
You may want to change the size of the screenshot when publishing - you'll see that option on the publish window. Also, is it only the screen recording slides which appear blurry?
You'll also want to make sure you're on the most recent update of Storyline, we're currently on update 5.
Hi Ashely,
Thanks for the quick response! Are you talking about Publish Quality under Properties on the Web tab of the Publish dialogue box? I've tried turning the Image quality up to 100%, and the quality of the Word images stays the same.
Great question. Actually, every slide shows up blurry in the Word printout.
I doubled checked for updates, and I've already installed update 5.
The blurriness has always been my experience, too, when publishing to Word. I find that there is also a certain degree of blurriness even when I publish it the file to run through our LMS (though not as bad as in Word).
Hi Emily,
Within publish to Word, there is an option to change the image screenshot size as shown here:
Not trying to horn in on the discussion,
but this is what I get when publishing that same slide as above to Word, even selecting the "large" option. There is a definite "shadowing" that occurs:
The blurriness is definitely worse when the font size is smaller. With the "medium" option it's pretty much unreadable (this is "large").
Hi Laura,
Where did you take the first screenshot from? Any chance you could share the original .story file so that we could take a look at how the original .story file looking in editing, preview, and publish to web? You can share it here in the forums or I can let you know how to send it to me directly, and as always you can connect with our Support engineers.
Hi Ashley - the first screen shot I took (using Windows Snip-it tool which gives a pretty accurate rendering) when I logged into our website as a "student" and launched our course from our LMS. So it's exactly as a student sees it, here's the entire look. I'd be happy to send you a file directly and also to enroll you as a student so you can see it published through the LMS if you will let me know how to do so.
Hi Laura,
I'll send you directions on how to share the information with me directly.
Hi!
I am experiencing the same problem as what Emily had logged in the original post here.
My scenario is:
I use ASL to record the screen while I am navigating through a program (software simulation) and then do an slide-by-slide insert which gets captioned in order to explain each step. these stories are usually layer-less and limited to one screen shot per page with applicable brief explanations.
I recently upgraded to ASL 2 and re-recorded one of my projects to see if I could see any improvement on the word output, but still fuzzy and very small - even if I select large slides prior to publish.
Suggestions or advice please?
Hi Nadine,
There aren't any ways to change the overall quality of the images when publish to Word - but you mentioned you selected the "large slide" view - and it's still small? Is it small to read or the slide stays small and doesn't change based on what you select in the publish settings?
Hi Ashley,
The slide size in relation to the page size scales correctly to show large vs medium. The information on the slide is my bug bear - its small and blurry.
I have attached a document for your reference - see from page 4 specifically.
Hi Nadine,
Thanks for sharing the pdf here of your publish to Word output. Was this version in SL 2 or SL1? I know that SL2 included a number of updates to the way we handle text including how it appears within the published output. If it's SL2, are you able to share a copy of that .story file as well so that I could share this with our QA team for some additional review?
Hi Ashley,
The copy I attached in the post was a SL1 output.
I did re-test in SL2 after the upgrade - please see .story attached. I also published to Word again from the SL2 project just in case.
.story file...
Hi Nadine,
Thanks for sharing those here. I saw the same behavior as you mentioned in your file and in a new file I tested with some captions and additional text. I've shared this with our QA team to see if this is by design when publishing to Word as the text and elements are turned into images and placed within Word - or if it's considered to be a bug. I'll share any information here in the thread once it's available, but I don't have a time frame to offer in regards to hearing back.
I did also publish it to Web just to compare the two, and the text is much crisper in that version and just wanted to share that link to your published output here.
Hi Ashley
Thanks for the efforts! I agree - the output to Web is clearer as you say.
My work around in the meantime has been to record the screen simulation (view mode insert) and then export the recording to mp4 on the insert window, then attach the mp4 via resources. This means changing story design a bit, but the mp4 is way way clearer
If there is anything that can be done to the Word output, I owudl be really happy to hear - thanks for the submission to the QA's.
Hi Nadine,
I'm glad you've found a workaround that will work for you as well. I'll update you here if I have any additional information to share in regards to this issue.
Hi,
I took my screen captures in Articulate Storyline 2, Update 4: 1501.717. When I print my slides to Word with medium or large screenshots the images a very blurry. They look fine in the presentation but the print is nearly useless. My screen resolution was set to 1024 x 768 when I recorded my screen so everything was clear and big. Is there any way to get a crisper print without having to replace each screen shot one-by-one? We're hoping to use the Word print out as a job aid for people to learn tasks. We also want to use them for instructor's notes. We were hoping the print to Word feature could replace Oracle's UPK tool that prints out crisp job aids so we could finally decide on one training application.
Hi TS,
Since the images are having to scale based on the size of your screen and print to word set up, I'm not sure there is a way to reduce the blurriness that you're seeing - although we're happy to take a look at the .story file to confirm as we've shared similar set ups with our QA team before to help clarify.
Thanks for the reply. Is there a way I can send it to you without posting my tests on this discussion board?
Sure TS - you can send along to me here. Even just a few sample slides that represent the behavior should work.
Thanks a bunch for your help. My team really likes the product and we're hoping to use it as our main training tool. So far biggest pain points are the size of the files and image quality of the prints.
I didn't realize that I could change the story size so I created a new test with the Story Size and screen resolution to 1024x768. Anything smaller was too difficult for viewing the course. I recorded at full screen. Unfortunately there was really no improvement in the Word file.
Ah, interesting so your screen size and recording size were different? I'd always recommend using the same size for each for the clearest image - but depending on what you're recording, as you mentioned smaller may be too small to see anything.
In regards to file size, are you talking about the .story file or the published output? If the .story file you may want to look at removing slide masters, images, extra scenes, or screen recordings that you're not using to reduce file size. If it's the published output you could change the quality of the publish settings to lower to help Storyline compress elements further - although that would impact things such as blurriness.
I'll try your suggestions. I'm having trouble getting my file to you. Is there another way other than e-mail?
Hi TS,
That's the only method I have - but if you have access to another file sharing site such as Dropbox you could load the .story file up there and then share the link either here or through the case form for us to download it.
Also an FYI that replying via email includes your signature here as well so you're welcome to edit the post and remove that information if needed.
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