Cannot Export Storyline to Word

Aug 03, 2023

Hello E-Learning Community,

Hoping you can help with this one.

We need to make a Word copy of our Storyline training (to share with regulators, etc.,); however, when I Publish >> Word, I get the following error dialog:

The folder 'name of training" is read only, being used by another process or you do not have the proper security permissions to access this resource.

I have tried the following, always getting the same result:

  1. Saving the Storyline file to a different/ local drive
  2. Having a colleague try
  3. Signing in and out of Articulate

Further, I can publish to the web, to Review, etc., just not to Word.

Does anyone know what might be going on?

Thank you,
Melanie

18 Replies
Jose Tansengco

Hello Melanie, 

Sorry to hear that you ran into this behavior. 

Since the issue affects all publishing formats, I'd recommend doing a repair of Storyline 360 to fix it. You'll also want to make sure that you are working locally when attempting any publishes. 

If the issue persists, open a case with our support team here so we can take a closer look at your installation. 

Jose Tansengco

Hi Melanie, 

Thanks for clarification!

Would you mind making a recording of your publishing process to Word from start to finish so we can see if we can spot any blockers or possible causes of the behavior? Here's how you can create the recording and share it with us. 

Additionally, please try publishing to a different location such as to your Desktop or the My Documents folder to see if this makes a different. You'll also want to make sure that you are publishing to a folder that isn't getting synced to an online location to avoid running into any permissions issues.

Melanie Brooks

Hi Joe,

As I mentioned before, I have changed the export folder, and it is local (though this has never been required before) and it is still not working.

Your link to "how to create a recording" is confusing because Storyline won't record itself -- it records other screens and hides itself when the recording is taking place, thus you cannot record a Storyline screen.

Jürgen Schoenemeyer

for such simple screen recordings use "Peek 360", not Storyline

start storyline with the .story file

-> publish (start later)

start peek

  •  "new recording"
  •  select window "Articulate Storyline ..."
  •  navibar below the Storyline appears, click the red button
  • -> countdown

now publishing to word

if an error appearance and in the error text is a blue textbutton "information" - click on the button

  • click in the peek navibar "done"
  • click "Upload" (to Review 360)

post the link here in the forum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jose Tansengco

Hi Deb,

I'll be glad to look into the issue for you!

Can I ask if you are getting any error messages when attempting to export your course to Word? Does the same issue occur when you publish just a blank new Storyline 360 project?

If publishing a blank project results in the same error, try doing a repair of Storyline 360 to see if this helps. If only a few project files are affected, please share copies of the project files here or in private by opening a support case so we can take a closer look at why the files are unable to be published to Word. We'll delete it when we're done testing!

Deb Gyde

Hi Jose,

Yes the error message is the same as previous community posts on this issue.

The error message is:

The folder ‘Blank file Word test’ is read-only, being used by another process or you do not have proper security permission to access this resource.

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This is how I was exporting the Word doc. Blank file to a local non networked location.

[cid:image002.png@01DA16D3.50ABD540]

My colleagues who are also on Articulate licences are also having the same problem. We have tried uninstalling Articulate and reinstalling, but this has not fixed the problem.
We are all on Microsoft 365 Enterprise licences for Word.

Can you please advise?

Thanks
Deb Gyde​​​​
Learning Technologies Specialist
Training Alliance

Jose Tansengco

Hi Deb,

It looks like you tried attaching screenshots in your previous response. Would you mind reattaching them so we can take a look?

I also opened a support case on your behalf so we can have our support engineers troubleshoot the behavior with you. Feel free to share the screenshots there if you'd like! You're in good hands, and someone from our team will be in touch via email to assist you.

Melanie Brooks

Agreed. This has caused a lot of trouble for us, as we can't export trainings when regulators want to review the content. Instead, we have to go to every slide and every slide layer and take screen shots. Extremely time-consuming and ridiculous, considering this functionality should work. 

Deb Gyde

So according to our Microsoft team - the issue is that Storyline is exporting as a .doc format not as a .docx Word format. 

Microsoft have removed the ability to download and use .doc (MS Word 97-2003) from all enterprise MS365 solutions - so this will be having a wider impact on Articulate Storyline users. 

Ironically, if you use the Export to Translate function you can choose to export in .docx format after selecting to use the 'improved Word workflow'.  This gives you the slide thumbnails but also a lot of other not so useful information that you would need to weed out.

Surprising then that Articulate have not updated the Publish to Word option to the same workflow.  

 @Articulate - any timeframe on when this is going to be fixed, otherwise I may need to start looking at other authoring tools that provide a better user experience.

Lauren Connelly

Hi Deb!

I see that you've been working with my teammate, Lejan! As he shared with you in your support case, publishing a Storyline project to Word will only produce a .doc file. We have added your case to our active feature request and will be sure to update you when this makes it on our product roadmap. At this time, we don't have an exact timeline to share.