Exporting to Powerpoint is something our clients (large organizations) really need, too. They are changing some of their training due to the pandemic.
Some sales people need the PPTs to 'speak to them' live in groups, and also to review while traveling. Word just doesn't work for this, for several reasons. Some executives are not in the office much and need something offline.
Tom's video was helpful for images, but higher resolution slide images/screenshots would be welcomed, and it's imperative that all the notes are included for each slide.
Thanks for considering to add this needed functionality to Storyline 360!
Thank you. I tried this, but the notes (as well as headers, titles, footers, etc) all show up as part of the image section. Did you find a way to get the notes into the "Notes" section?
I am not sure I'm doing it correctly as it has the header, footer, image, notes and everything in the image area of every PPT slide.
Storyline has a PowerPoint import feature. PowerPoint does not have a Storyline import feature. They are two different tools with different features that don't translate.
If you know you need a PowerPoint version of what you build in Storyline, I'd start with PPT and then import that into Storyline to build the interactive elements.
I pulled all of the different tips together in this blog post.
Adding my experience here also. In my institution we like to offer a print out of our courses (similar to a handout). It would be great to have the option to transfer content from storyline to PPT.
We currently publish the content to word, clean it up, and then convert it to a PDF. However, there is a lot to clean up in the word version and it is harder to work on design in a word document than it is in a PPT.
Just to add to the conversation, I think it is clear that a export to PPT is a feature that users need and want and I don't understand Articulates push back.
I understand triggers, interactivity etc can't be used in PPT. However 99% of elearning projects developed (that need exporting to PPT) are simple text and images with the occasional layer. Why is it so difficult to export the content only to pptx? People do not expect the PPT to act like storyline. Just like exporting to video I would not expect interactivity. Saying this, I must say the export to video is a great feature.
The workarounds from staff are not viable solutions for large corporate organisations, time to stop asking why and ask yourself how. I don't believe this one is too hard for your developers and would add real value to the product.
Well said Glen! We get so many requests for just the slide content that it should be a feature! Having to take screenshots to paste into PowerPoint is crazy. You already have an import from PPT, why not create the reverse?
Adding our vote here to enable exporting to PPT in future updates. We LOVE using articulate/storyline; however, we have some clients who insist on receiving PPT versions (period, end of story). It's really tedious to have to convert this by hand. Thanks!
We often get (dreaded) requests from SMEs like this for content that used to be in PowerPoint: "Can you send me the PowerPoint file of that course?"
We then have to explain that we have made updates since the course was converted from PowerPoint and that the only PowerPoint files we can give them are old.
There is a current option to Publish to Word. What if there was a similar option that just sent an image capture of each Storyline Slide as the slide, and pasted the notes into the PowerPoint notes panel?
I am currently in the painstaking process of rebuilding a Storyline file as a PowerPoint file. My client has had a request to present her course as a live instructor, and Storyline obviously won't work for that. Furthermore, since she'll need to update the content so that it works for a live audience, she needs it to be fully editable. Therefore all the workarounds suggested previously with screen shots are of no help. Please add an export to PowerPoint feature!
To be honest, this is not entirely an Articulate problem. PPt neither imports from, nor exports to SL. We should also be asking Microsoft to import from SL every time we ask Articulate to export to PPt. I suspect Articulate gets the heat because they have a forum with staff members that actually answer users.
I know it is a sidenote, but this issue is why I wish Articulate wasn't essentially abandoning Articulate Presenter. The model of working directly within PowerPoint does have its advantages.
If you want to have an editable PowerPoint, you should start the project with PowerPoint.
The workaround I offered is mostly so you have a PowerPoint version of what you built in Storyline. I suppose if you have minor editing, you could rebuild the slide and/or hide the text of the old slide with a shape and then add new text over it.
There are some OCR text reading apps that can extract text from existing images and you could copy and paste into PowerPoint.
I'm fine with the Word version that gets produced. I would like to be able to have the customers download the file for reference material. The Word is fine, except any links I used are not clickable. If that was an option, I would be fine. My option is to just add the links under each slide image.
It is a pity that I am reading these comments and they are still not solved. I also worked with an outsource company to create e-learnings by Storyline and they are used as e-learnings and now our SMEs will use this information for shorth virtual sessions and we want to use the same information and make small revisions too, not use as is. And we just want to convert them into ppt. Even if they are different companies storlyine should work with them to help us, the customers. And solutions as of today?
I was looking for a similar option. I would have been happy with publishing to MS Word, but the text that was on slides in Storyline is converted to images. So from an accessibility POV, visual impaired learners cannot view those published Word Documents.
Something that I would appreciate is if we'd be able to have the slides exported as a PDF vs word so there was a higher resolution images to copy and paste into PowerPoint. I understand that we're not able to directly import, but for me I prefer to build in Storyline (I find it a much better design tool vs PPT). Obviously we would lose any interactivity, but I'd still prefer to be able to copy and paste the slide for example into PPT (even as an image!). Other than screenshots, do y'all have any other recommendations here?
If you want screen grabs of your course, I've found one of the easiest things to do is set your course at the resolution you want. Then use Screentogif (free) to record going through your course.
Tom, thank you so much for this video and for this method. We often get requests from lawyers and other regulating agencies wanting paper copies of courses. I will definitely use this method that you've outlined so well here in the future when I get a request like this. It will make things so much faster.
We already have our Storyline course built (we never started with a PPT file) and I'm now being asked to provide a PPT file to one of the other departments so they can work with it for their purposes.
So, I'm putting my hand up for the ability to publish to either PPT (preferred) or to PDF. Having a flattened image (when published to Word) is useless for our purposes. We're more than happy to lose the interactive bits and the branching, etc. All we want are editable pages (eg. change text and move images) for each slide.
If we could publish or print the course to PDF, we could then easily convert it to PPT from within Acrobat Pro.
OK, for those interested, the closest workaround I have found is to do the following (sorry it's long but I have had to write these instructions for my colleague). It's a bit labour-intensive (outputting one slide at a time) but you'll get as close to a working PPT file (with separate, editable elements) as you can get. You'll need Acrobat Pro for this workaround:
Publish your course to Web format
Export individual pages from your course
Open the course in your favourite web browser
Go to the desired slide
Set the slide up how you'd like it to be seen (ie. animations completed, tick/reveal/complete as wanted)
Print the PAGE to PDF with the following settings (note: the settings will remain the same when printing the next slide)
Destination: PDF
Orientation: Landscape
Paper size: anything larger than your course (as shown in Acrobat's preview) - we'll crop it later.
Margins: None (puts the course flush to top of the page)
Scale: Default (or adjust as needed)
Background graphics: ticked (to show the bounds of your course)
Save: Name it with the appropriate page/slide number
Repeat steps 3 to 5 for every slide you want to output
Build a PDF of the complete course
Open Acrobat Pro and Choose File > Create > Combine Files into a Single PDF
Drag all of your PDF files onto the window - they should be in correct order
Press the Combine button (this builds a multi-page PDF)
Crop the course
Select the Crop tool (in the "Edit PDF" tools panel)
Drag the marquee to the bottom-left and bottom-right corners (you can use the Control-space and Control-Alt-Space keys to zoom in/out on the corners while doing this)
Press the Enter key to invoke the Set Page Boxes window
Set "Page Range" to All so all pages are cropped
Save the PDF (just for good measure)
Convert the PDF to PowerPoint
Select File > Export to > Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation
Name & Save it
Open the resulting file in PowerPoint
NOTES (my quick observations - don't hold me to them):
Some elements may not convert properly (eg. gradients, vectors with transparency).
Text and items outside of the view of a Scrolling Panel are lost.
Some graphics may be grouped together and can easily be ungrouped.
It seems to build Slide Masters (not perfectly accurate but a good start).
Images seem to retain their original size (ie. they're NOT re-sampled and therefore don't lose quality)
Hyperlinks get lost (although a mailto: link still worked in the exported PDF but didn't work in the final PPT file). You'll have to add them back to the editable text in PPT.
That's all I have come across so far. I hope this helps someone from having to completely rebuild complex pages, until Articulate adds the Publish to PPT option in the future (putting it out there...)
57 Replies
Hi all,
Exporting to Powerpoint is something our clients (large organizations) really need, too. They are changing some of their training due to the pandemic.
Some sales people need the PPTs to 'speak to them' live in groups, and also to review while traveling. Word just doesn't work for this, for several reasons. Some executives are not in the office much and need something offline.
Tom's video was helpful for images, but higher resolution slide images/screenshots would be welcomed, and it's imperative that all the notes are included for each slide.
Thanks for considering to add this needed functionality to Storyline 360!
Thank you. I tried this, but the notes (as well as headers, titles, footers, etc) all show up as part of the image section. Did you find a way to get the notes into the "Notes" section?
I am not sure I'm doing it correctly as it has the header, footer, image, notes and everything in the image area of every PPT slide.
Storyline has a PowerPoint import feature. PowerPoint does not have a Storyline import feature. They are two different tools with different features that don't translate.
If you know you need a PowerPoint version of what you build in Storyline, I'd start with PPT and then import that into Storyline to build the interactive elements.
I pulled all of the different tips together in this blog post.
https://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/convert-storyline-courses-powerpoint/
Hello!
Adding my experience here also. In my institution we like to offer a print out of our courses (similar to a handout). It would be great to have the option to transfer content from storyline to PPT.
We currently publish the content to word, clean it up, and then convert it to a PDF. However, there is a lot to clean up in the word version and it is harder to work on design in a word document than it is in a PPT.
I hope there is a way to do it soon!
thanks!
Vero
Just to add to the conversation, I think it is clear that a export to PPT is a feature that users need and want and I don't understand Articulates push back.
I understand triggers, interactivity etc can't be used in PPT. However 99% of elearning projects developed (that need exporting to PPT) are simple text and images with the occasional layer. Why is it so difficult to export the content only to pptx? People do not expect the PPT to act like storyline. Just like exporting to video I would not expect interactivity. Saying this, I must say the export to video is a great feature.
The workarounds from staff are not viable solutions for large corporate organisations, time to stop asking why and ask yourself how. I don't believe this one is too hard for your developers and would add real value to the product.
Well said Glen! We get so many requests for just the slide content that it should be a feature! Having to take screenshots to paste into PowerPoint is crazy. You already have an import from PPT, why not create the reverse?
June
Adding our vote here to enable exporting to PPT in future updates. We LOVE using articulate/storyline; however, we have some clients who insist on receiving PPT versions (period, end of story). It's really tedious to have to convert this by hand. Thanks!
Having a PowerPoint export feature is also something that our team could use as well.
We often get (dreaded) requests from SMEs like this for content that used to be in PowerPoint: "Can you send me the PowerPoint file of that course?"
We then have to explain that we have made updates since the course was converted from PowerPoint and that the only PowerPoint files we can give them are old.
There is a current option to Publish to Word. What if there was a similar option that just sent an image capture of each Storyline Slide as the slide, and pasted the notes into the PowerPoint notes panel?
I am currently in the painstaking process of rebuilding a Storyline file as a PowerPoint file. My client has had a request to present her course as a live instructor, and Storyline obviously won't work for that. Furthermore, since she'll need to update the content so that it works for a live audience, she needs it to be fully editable. Therefore all the workarounds suggested previously with screen shots are of no help. Please add an export to PowerPoint feature!
This is exactly what I needed! Thanks :)
Kenneth,
Did you find a solution or are you saying you need the ability to do this as well?
June
To be honest, this is not entirely an Articulate problem. PPt neither imports from, nor exports to SL. We should also be asking Microsoft to import from SL every time we ask Articulate to export to PPt. I suspect Articulate gets the heat because they have a forum with staff members that actually answer users.
I know it is a sidenote, but this issue is why I wish Articulate wasn't essentially abandoning Articulate Presenter. The model of working directly within PowerPoint does have its advantages.
Hi, @Tom Kuhlmann. I am able to export in to PP. However, is there a way now that the PP can be editable? (Text)
If you want to have an editable PowerPoint, you should start the project with PowerPoint.
The workaround I offered is mostly so you have a PowerPoint version of what you built in Storyline. I suppose if you have minor editing, you could rebuild the slide and/or hide the text of the old slide with a shape and then add new text over it.
There are some OCR text reading apps that can extract text from existing images and you could copy and paste into PowerPoint.
I'm fine with the Word version that gets produced. I would like to be able to have the customers download the file for reference material. The Word is fine, except any links I used are not clickable. If that was an option, I would be fine. My option is to just add the links under each slide image.
Hi All,
It is a pity that I am reading these comments and they are still not solved. I also worked with an outsource company to create e-learnings by Storyline and they are used as e-learnings and now our SMEs will use this information for shorth virtual sessions and we want to use the same information and make small revisions too, not use as is. And we just want to convert them into ppt. Even if they are different companies storlyine should work with them to help us, the customers. And solutions as of today?
Thanks, Ebru
HI, can yo share how you are able to do that?
Thanks, Ebru
I was looking for a similar option. I would have been happy with publishing to MS Word, but the text that was on slides in Storyline is converted to images. So from an accessibility POV, visual impaired learners cannot view those published Word Documents.
Something that I would appreciate is if we'd be able to have the slides exported as a PDF vs word so there was a higher resolution images to copy and paste into PowerPoint. I understand that we're not able to directly import, but for me I prefer to build in Storyline (I find it a much better design tool vs PPT). Obviously we would lose any interactivity, but I'd still prefer to be able to copy and paste the slide for example into PPT (even as an image!). Other than screenshots, do y'all have any other recommendations here?
If you want screen grabs of your course, I've found one of the easiest things to do is set your course at the resolution you want. Then use Screentogif (free) to record going through your course.
I detail how to do that in this blog post.
Tom, thank you so much for this video and for this method. We often get requests from lawyers and other regulating agencies wanting paper copies of courses. I will definitely use this method that you've outlined so well here in the future when I get a request like this. It will make things so much faster.
We already have our Storyline course built (we never started with a PPT file) and I'm now being asked to provide a PPT file to one of the other departments so they can work with it for their purposes.
So, I'm putting my hand up for the ability to publish to either PPT (preferred) or to PDF. Having a flattened image (when published to Word) is useless for our purposes. We're more than happy to lose the interactive bits and the branching, etc. All we want are editable pages (eg. change text and move images) for each slide.
If we could publish or print the course to PDF, we could then easily convert it to PPT from within Acrobat Pro.
OK, for those interested, the closest workaround I have found is to do the following (sorry it's long but I have had to write these instructions for my colleague). It's a bit labour-intensive (outputting one slide at a time) but you'll get as close to a working PPT file (with separate, editable elements) as you can get. You'll need Acrobat Pro for this workaround:
NOTES (my quick observations - don't hold me to them):
That's all I have come across so far. I hope this helps someone from having to completely rebuild complex pages, until Articulate adds the Publish to PPT option in the future (putting it out there...)