Changing the output quality of a course doesn't seem to change the size of the individual image files within the mobile folder -- they remain the same size regardless of if I publish at 100% or 50%. What is actually being compressed in Storyline to lower the overall size of the zipped package?
On average, how big are the image files in your courses upon publish?
Hey Ashley, not sure exactly what SL does but I'd imaging it lowers the pixel count on the pallet of the images.
Did you adjust your image compression with the Publish Quality settings? Clicking the Publish option and then under "Properties" toward the bottom click on "Custom optimization" next to Quality. The following image shows you the compression options you are presented with if using SL2:
Yes, regardless of what we select for Image Quality, the size of the images in the Mobile folder in the Output folder remain the same (seemingly full resolution). See the attached images -- one is from publishing the image quality on 10% and one is from publishing the image quality on 60%. Literally the same final image size.
So I'm trying to understand how the image compression works and what is actually being made smaller, especially as we have clients complaining about the size of the images. (Now we have gone in and shrunken all of the images post-publish using TinyPNG.com and got them all down to under 500 kb but they are STILL saying the "huge" images are spiking bandwidth, so I'm trying to understand better how images are loaded in a course, how Storyline compresses images, etc.)
I see that you submitted a support case with us and Lea should be getting back to you shortly. We have looked into this with our engineers and it is a bug. This has been filed and we will let you know any updates through your support case.
Could you tell me if this bug has been fixed yet as we are experiencing the same issues. An image is added into SL3 at 100KB but shows as over 500MB when published and running through an LMS. Thanks.
They are all either jpeg or png. Don't get me wrong, some a very large file
sizes - but it was never an issue with SL3 at all, yet it's a big issue for
SL3.
The reason you're seeing increased image sizes is because the resolution at which we publish PNG files has changed for the HTML5 player in Storyline 3 and Storyline 360. We'd be happy to take a closer look at your file if you'd like us to compare the increased file size after publishing. You can send it straight to our Support team by clicking here!
Does this then mean it's a waste of my time reducing the file sizes of all
my .png's as they are set to a certain level anyway?? Just wanting to
understand if I'm doing an unnecessary task! Thanks
We don't support modifying the published output files, but I can definitely understand why you would if the larger file size is causing slowness in your LMS. Is that what what's happening on your end?
I've been comparing the output files of my SL courses with the source files, and noticed that sometimes SL converts JPEGs to PNGs during publishing. This happens with some files and not others; in one case, it converted every JPEG to PNG.
Also, in almost every case, the output PNG file is larger than the source PNG file.
I was wondering if anyone knew what method SL uses to decide when to convert JPEG to PNGs and why PNGs in the output are larger than their source? Very frustrating for bandwidth / file size reasons.
Thanks for reaching out, and great call to open a case! I see that it's been assigned, and one of our support engineers is testing your file. I appreciate all the details you shared as that will help us troubleshoot the issue.
The issue with this appears to be that any time an image is cropped in SL, SL converts that image to a PNG and does a very poor job compressing it. I have numerous images I crop in SL to make smaller in pixel count, but when published, they are almost always larger file sizes than the original uncropped images.
Is there a fix or a way for SL to handle image cropping better? It's really inefficient to go through all the images after publishing to shrink them, and also bad for bandwidth reasons to have these unnecessarily large files.
I see that you were working with my teammate, Sheila! It looks like your case is now in the hands of our QA team. We'll keep you updated when we have a fix!
Hello. I'm having a similar problem with SL3 courses playing slowly. I've reduced all the image sizes to below 1MB but when i publish to LMS and look at the Mobile folder, i notice that SL3 has increased the image size to almost 5x what it should be. How do i make it stop?
I should note that we are running SL3 version 1.49.24347.0 because our LMS was having problems with the more recent versions. Publish is scorm 2004 - 4th
It sounds like you're using the latest update of Storyline 360 actually, as we're on version 49 now!
As for the sizes your seeing, our image compression settings will only impact JPEGs, not PNGs. That being said, I wouldn't think that you should experience such a drastic file size increase. I'd love to have our team take a look - as they may be more familiar with those changes than I am! Are you able to connect with our Support Team to dig in on next steps?
18 Replies
Hey Ashley, not sure exactly what SL does but I'd imaging it lowers the pixel count on the pallet of the images.
Did you adjust your image compression with the Publish Quality settings? Clicking the Publish option and then under "Properties" toward the bottom click on "Custom optimization" next to Quality. The following image shows you the compression options you are presented with if using SL2:
Yes, regardless of what we select for Image Quality, the size of the images in the Mobile folder in the Output folder remain the same (seemingly full resolution). See the attached images -- one is from publishing the image quality on 10% and one is from publishing the image quality on 60%. Literally the same final image size.
So I'm trying to understand how the image compression works and what is actually being made smaller, especially as we have clients complaining about the size of the images. (Now we have gone in and shrunken all of the images post-publish using TinyPNG.com and got them all down to under 500 kb but they are STILL saying the "huge" images are spiking bandwidth, so I'm trying to understand better how images are loaded in a course, how Storyline compresses images, etc.)
Hi Ashley,
I see that you submitted a support case with us and Lea should be getting back to you shortly. We have looked into this with our engineers and it is a bug. This has been filed and we will let you know any updates through your support case.
Let me know if you need anything else.
Thank you!!
Hi Emily,
Could you tell me if this bug has been fixed yet as we are experiencing the same issues. An image is added into SL3 at 100KB but shows as over 500MB when published and running through an LMS. Thanks.
Hello Sally!
Can you let us know what type of image you are adding to the course? Is it a .png?
Hi Leslie,
They are all either jpeg or png. Don't get me wrong, some a very large file
sizes - but it was never an issue with SL3 at all, yet it's a big issue for
SL3.
Thanks,
Sally
Oops -I meant not an issue with SL2!!
Hi Sally,
The reason you're seeing increased image sizes is because the resolution at which we publish PNG files has changed for the HTML5 player in Storyline 3 and Storyline 360. We'd be happy to take a closer look at your file if you'd like us to compare the increased file size after publishing. You can send it straight to our Support team by clicking here!
Does this then mean it's a waste of my time reducing the file sizes of all
my .png's as they are set to a certain level anyway?? Just wanting to
understand if I'm doing an unnecessary task! Thanks
Hi Sally,
We don't support modifying the published output files, but I can definitely understand why you would if the larger file size is causing slowness in your LMS. Is that what what's happening on your end?
This post was removed by the author
I've been comparing the output files of my SL courses with the source files, and noticed that sometimes SL converts JPEGs to PNGs during publishing. This happens with some files and not others; in one case, it converted every JPEG to PNG.
Also, in almost every case, the output PNG file is larger than the source PNG file.
I was wondering if anyone knew what method SL uses to decide when to convert JPEG to PNGs and why PNGs in the output are larger than their source? Very frustrating for bandwidth / file size reasons.
Hi Jordan,
Thanks for reaching out, and great call to open a case! I see that it's been assigned, and one of our support engineers is testing your file. I appreciate all the details you shared as that will help us troubleshoot the issue.
Be on the lookout for a response soon!
The issue with this appears to be that any time an image is cropped in SL, SL converts that image to a PNG and does a very poor job compressing it. I have numerous images I crop in SL to make smaller in pixel count, but when published, they are almost always larger file sizes than the original uncropped images.
Is there a fix or a way for SL to handle image cropping better? It's really inefficient to go through all the images after publishing to shrink them, and also bad for bandwidth reasons to have these unnecessarily large files.
Hi Jordan!
I see that you were working with my teammate, Sheila! It looks like your case is now in the hands of our QA team. We'll keep you updated when we have a fix!
Hello. I'm having a similar problem with SL3 courses playing slowly. I've reduced all the image sizes to below 1MB but when i publish to LMS and look at the Mobile folder, i notice that SL3 has increased the image size to almost 5x what it should be. How do i make it stop?
I should note that we are running SL3 version 1.49.24347.0 because our LMS was having problems with the more recent versions. Publish is scorm 2004 -
4th
So at this point there is not a fix? I've already spent so much time exporting out all the images to import them back in. It's double work.
Hi Rachel,
It sounds like you're using the latest update of Storyline 360 actually, as we're on version 49 now!
As for the sizes your seeing, our image compression settings will only impact JPEGs, not PNGs. That being said, I wouldn't think that you should experience such a drastic file size increase. I'd love to have our team take a look - as they may be more familiar with those changes than I am! Are you able to connect with our Support Team to dig in on next steps?