File SIze In Articulate Storyline

Hi Fraser,

I totally agree with Vispi - that sounds really off.  I don't think you'll be able to attach a file that size to the forums, though.

Curious about the file itself. Are you working off of a network drive, or any other external source by any chance? If so, please try moving or saving the project to your local hard drive and see if that helps. 

• Work on your local drive (your C: drive). Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, including file corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior. 
• You should also make sure the directory path to your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters (for example C:\Articulate).
• Avoid using special characters, accents or symbols in your file names (this includes spaces and underscores).

Additional information regarding "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" in Windows operating systems can be found in the following Microsoft article.

If you are working locally and the file still seems excessively large, can you try recreating the issue while monitoring the file size of the project? For example, what's the file size showing for a brand new file, with no content (other than the default slide that's inserted)? How much does the size increase when you modify the background color? How much does it increase when you add the logo?

Thanks!

Hi all,

I'm having the same problem. I want to save 10 slides from a previous course to use as a "template" but the file size remains the same size it was before I deleted the slides. We need to house this template in a file repository that has a 50 MB limit. Has anyone found a solution to this yet? I have installed the most recent update. 

import them into a new file

Hi Trisha,

Phil's suggestion to import just those 10 slides into a new project should help,and you'll want to follow the directions here to import into a new project. 

Hi ,

I noticed that removing unused Slides Masters and layouts can reduce dramatically the file size. ...and when you remove slides in a project, the slides Masters are still in. ....

Michèle.

I too had a size issue : a theme where I deleted all images had no reason to weigth around 4MB.

I renamed it to .zip and was able to open an "assets" folder where images where still there, so I deleted the whole lot. Size went down to 200KB. Thanks for the trick Gerry !

This was just done to upload the theme here for testing purposes, I wouldn't risk using it on a project.

Weird though those files aren't purged sometime.

The zip trick doesn't work for .story file, BTW.

What do you mean ? Storyline developpers are former MM employees ? Flash devs maybe ??

Wow great point about using 7Zip to see 'inside' the .story file.

I always wanted a way to look inside !

I just upgraded to Storyline 2.  I'm working on a project with 7 HD videos in it and the Storyline file size is 2.4GB.  I wanted to reuse the template so I deleted the HD videos and saved it with just blank slides and it is still 2.4GB which is obviously very difficult to work with.  Any solution to this?

Hi Fraser

try creating a new project file and then importing the template in.

Hi Fraser,

As Wendy mentioned you'll want to try importing it into a new project as described here. 

We have shared an issue with our QA team that editing or trimming a video causes the file size to increase. So I'll include this thread in the report filed with our team so that we can keep you posted on this particular issue. 

Is there any way to reduce the published file size and still include html5 for mobile?

When I publish without html5, the zip file is 7K. With html5, it's 22K. 

The client is a large global company, and we are concerned about performance in remote areas and bandwidth.

There are no videos or narration. I've used minimal variables and layers. I do have animations.

The actual storyline file size is around 51K.

I'm using Storyline 2 Update 5.

Thanks.

Hi Linda,

Unfortunately there isn't a way to change the file size for the published output. Could you publish and share two versions - one for those who need to access on HTML5 and one for those who can use Flash? 

Hi Linda - 

As for performance (bandwidth and latency), the HTML5 files won't be loaded at all if the user has the Flash version. The same can be said if the user has a device without Flash, the HTML5 files will be used instead of the others. 

Thank you Ashley and Steve for your responses.

OK - so I just had a 1.5 gig Storyline file, with about 40 slides, heaps of audio, video etc. 

I did a 'Save As', then deleted all scenes except 1, which just had a single audio file on it. When I resaved, the size of the audio file was still 1.5gig.

I then did the old trick of changing the file extension to .zip and unpacking the file. Guess what? All the video elements and audio files from the original file are still there in the saved version. 

This is a bug people. 

Hi Cal

instead of doing a save as...if you import the reduced file into a new file it will change the file size...not ideal but it works for me.

Hi Cal,

You mentioned the size of the audio file was still 1.5 gig? I want to make sure you meant the .story file? Assets and elements are kept in the file if you were to delete them or similar until you save, close and reopen the project - this way if you needed to use the undo button you'd still be able to access them. As I mentioned above, there is a known issue with the trimming of videos and how that is doubling the project size, so we've reported that to our QA team for additional review and I don't currently have an update to share on that. 

As Wendy mentioned, going through the import method is also a good way to ensure extra slide masters, removed elements, etc. aren't transferred or lingering around the file. 

I have a 400 MB Storyline file; the bulk of it comes from videos.  I just finished substituting the videos for lower-quality versions to reduce the SCO package I upload to the LMS.  The Storyline file is now 510 MB.  The new 110 MB comes from the new videos I inserted, but it is clearly keeping the original versions in the Storyline package.

In Adobe Captivate, there is a function in the library called "Delete unused objects" which would normally fix this kind of problem.  Is there any similar function in Storyline?

PS: my SCO package is about 110 MB.  Regardless of any compression and additional encoding Storyline is doing, there is clearly a lot of unused garbage left in the Storyline file.

Hi Alexander! This is an issue that our QA Team is aware of. In the meantime, if you import into a new file, the issue should be alleviated.

I had this issue again today (Storyline 1, but same with SL2)

I took a project as a base for a new one, deleted every unneeded scenes and started making new slides.

Size was huge (35Mb) for just a bunch of slides.

I used the "import" trick and I could see (and import !) ALL scenes that were supposed to be erased! (some containing videos)

File size dropped to 3.4Mb afterwards.

A clean-up routine would be great when saving (or when "saving as" at least).

Thanks.

Thanks Pierre for sharing that here - and I know it may be something others have also sent in as a feature request to have a clean up behavior. 

Here's a side effect which I consider as a bug : I cannot delete unused Feedback Masters because SL thinks they still are in use : one of them is said to be used in 44 slides when my current project as only 1 quiz slide !

I then tried the import trick but it does not work because even with no quiz slide, two feedback Masters are in use by 1 slide.

I'll submit my file to the support...

Have you looked in question banks and also the question bank slide itself can have a master applied to it.

You also need to manually delete question banks from the manager

Great suggestion Phil and I wished you were right but... question bank is empty!