How to Get Cleaner Imports Using Powerpoint

Jul 30, 2021

Michael Miner
By Michael Miner

I'm a graphic designer on a learning and development team. I typically design the courses in Powerpoint, then of course the ID imports that Powerpoint into Storyline to make it come to life. The biggest problem we face is that when the Powerpoint is imported formatting isn't correct for things like text and spacing for graphics. The ID has to waste time trying to fix all of this and make sure it looks like the original design, and in many cases isn't able to match exactly and then I have to try to point it out in review.

How can we get cleaner imports so text and graphics aren't totally off and maintain the proper formatting and look? This problem comes down to the most basic design with title text and basic shapes.

I even attached a few slides from a menu design exercise so you can see the sort of thing we might be working with.

3 Replies
Maria Costa-Stienstra
over 2 years ago08/02/21 at 3:20 pm (UTC)

Hi, Michael, and welcome to E-Learning Heroes! ✨

When importing from Powerpoint, it's important to match the sizes of the two projects.

I noticed your Powerpoint file has a presentation size of 14.221 in x 10.67 in:

Windows 10 (1) 2021-08-02 at 11.10.28 AM

If we convert inches to pixels, it would be roughly 1365 x 1024. You want to set your Story size in Storyline to match that aspect ratio:

Windows 10 (1) 2021-08-02 at 11.15.23 AM

I am attaching the edited .story file so you can take a look at how that works. You can also refer to the following articles for additional suggestions:

Michael Miner
over 2 years ago08/04/21 at 1:06 pm (UTC)

Thank you for the response. Yes we do have the dimensions of the storyline file and PPT the same. Which is why we haven't been able to figure out why font sizes and graphics are the same as what they were in the PPT.

*edit - sorry correction, we just realized the ppt slide size is different from what i originally set them to. i originally set them to 1024x768 pixels to match the storyline size. What on earth would cause the dimensions to be different in ppt even though I manually set them??

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