I've imported some PowerPoint slides into Articulate and I am finding that while the boxes and text look clear and crisp, the arrows connecting the boxes are fuzzy. Has anyone come across an approach that works here? I tried recreating the arrows in Articulate but they still look fuzzy and pixelated. Screen shot below, we are making this full screen but the boxes seems fine it's just the arrows that look odd, I experimented with different kinds.
Hi, Tim -- Thanks for providing your screenshot, and if you would like to share your PowerPoint file, I can attempt to import it into Storyline on my end to see if I can reproduce the error. In the meantime, there are a few troubleshooting steps we can try to rule out the causes of some common errors.
Please make sure you are working locally as described here, and you may want to try importing the file into a new file. If you are still having issues, you might want to try to repair Storyline. Also, could you please ensure that you are utilizing the most recent SL2 Update? Info on Update 5 can be found here.
Hi thanks for the quick reply. I am still on the trial version (although we have purchased the software) so I don't think I can add that update. I have attached the one slide show in the screen capture I posted. You will notice that the look is a little different, I added borders in Articulate (which looks fine) it's just the arrows that don't look sharp. My gut feel is that this is not an issue of recreating the project or repairing anything because the rest of the graphics on the slide look fine. The arrows are the same thickness of the borders on the boxes but are fuzzy. I tried to recreate the arrows in Articulate but they are fuzzy as well.
We are viewing this close to full screen but as I said the other graphics look fine, it's just the arrows. Thanks for any suggestions.
Hi, Tim -- Thank you for providing your .pptx file and I will let you know what I find shortly. I also wanted to note that you are able to install Update 5 on a trial version. I'll be in touch!
Hi, Tim -- Thank you for your patience and for bringing this to our attention. I came across this article that I thought might be of some use, but after importing your PPTX file into a new Storyline file, and attempting to replace one of the blurry lines with a brand new line, I also saw the same results in the published output. I intend to submit your thread and file to our QA team for review, and although I cannot provide an exact time frame or a workaround at this time, I will be sure to provide any updates here in the thread.
Yes I saw that post about conversion but unfortunately the arrows don't look better when created within articulate. The only short term solution I see is to create high Rez arrows in an external graphics program like photoshop etc
On the other hand it appears that inserting a shape arrow does look better...see screen shot there's two block arrows one horizontal and one at an angle.
See attached screen shot the block arrows are definitely cleaner. I guess the short term learning if you are importing PPT is to use block shapes or be prepared to create them in Articulate.
I'm running into this issue, but I haven't imported anything. I simply inserted the arrow+line from the ribbon in Storyline, and they all appear fuzzy.
Hi Leslie--thanks for helping! I've attached the Storyline file. When I'm in editing mode or preview mode, the arrows look great. But when I view the file in published mode, the arrow lines look fuzzy. The lines with no arrows look fine, it's only the lines with arrows on the end that look fuzzy.
Also--when I was first prepping the file to send to you, I copy+pasted the slide into a new Storyline file, and the arrows showed up just fine. But the Player size and other settings were also set to the Storyline default settings, so maybe it has something to do with the way my player is set up. The files I'm sending now are my original files (just stripped of all my client's info for confidentiality reasons), and I've attached 2 images showing my player settings.
Thanks for sharing the details and the file. The scaling is causing the issue. If you set the browser to optimal size and lock the player at optimal size, then this will alleviate the issue you are having post-publish.
Articulate Storyline lets you control several aspects of the browser and player for your published course, including:
The size of the browser window
Whether the course stays locked at the same size or lets learners scale it by adjusting the size of their browser windows
Whether the course launches in a separate window and, if so, the properties of that window
Do you folks plan on fixing this anytime soon? This thread is over a year old and I experienced the fuzzy lines today whenever I'd set an arrow setting for a line.
If enabling arrow settings completely removes a shape's ability to scale to different sizes, why are they even included? Does the line magically lose vector status when an arrow setting is applied? It doesn't seem like that would be very hard to fix.
I appreciate the workarounds, but please don't neglect finding a SOLUTION because another user posted a WORKAROUND. Designers shouldn't HAVE TO lock the browser and player at optimal size to take advantage of the full functionality of SL2.
Sorry for the rant and thanks for the otherwise excellent software. I hope to see a solution to this issue soon.
I can't remember if I posted this but the only workaround I was able to find was to create high rez arrows in Photoshop. I haven't revisited this lately so I don't know if this has been addressed but looks like it hasn't obviously given your experience.
Thanks for the reply. You did post that, and it's definitely a viable workaround. I just cringe a bit whenever I have to work around a problem that seems easy enough to solve. Take care!
I'm also experiencing fuzzy lines. Testing I've done. Open current project on different machine. Still get same fuzzy results. Open a new .story file on different machine and create a straight line at 1px width. Preview slide and the line looks a little fuzzy, but not bad. Create the same line and add a circle for the Begin Type Arrow Setting. Preview slide and that line is definitely fuzzy.
22 Replies
Hi, Tim -- Thanks for providing your screenshot, and if you would like to share your PowerPoint file, I can attempt to import it into Storyline on my end to see if I can reproduce the error. In the meantime, there are a few troubleshooting steps we can try to rule out the causes of some common errors.
Please make sure you are working locally as described here, and you may want to try importing the file into a new file. If you are still having issues, you might want to try to repair Storyline. Also, could you please ensure that you are utilizing the most recent SL2 Update? Info on Update 5 can be found here.
Hi thanks for the quick reply. I am still on the trial version (although we have purchased the software) so I don't think I can add that update. I have attached the one slide show in the screen capture I posted. You will notice that the look is a little different, I added borders in Articulate (which looks fine) it's just the arrows that don't look sharp. My gut feel is that this is not an issue of recreating the project or repairing anything because the rest of the graphics on the slide look fine. The arrows are the same thickness of the borders on the boxes but are fuzzy. I tried to recreate the arrows in Articulate but they are fuzzy as well.
We are viewing this close to full screen but as I said the other graphics look fine, it's just the arrows. Thanks for any suggestions.
Hi, Tim -- Thank you for providing your .pptx file and I will let you know what I find shortly. I also wanted to note that you are able to install Update 5 on a trial version. I'll be in touch!
Hi, Tim -- Thank you for your patience and for bringing this to our attention. I came across this article that I thought might be of some use, but after importing your PPTX file into a new Storyline file, and attempting to replace one of the blurry lines with a brand new line, I also saw the same results in the published output. I intend to submit your thread and file to our QA team for review, and although I cannot provide an exact time frame or a workaround at this time, I will be sure to provide any updates here in the thread.
Yes I saw that post about conversion but unfortunately the arrows don't look better when created within articulate. The only short term solution I see is to create high Rez arrows in an external graphics program like photoshop etc
On the other hand it appears that inserting a shape arrow does look better...see screen shot there's two block arrows one horizontal and one at an angle.
Hi, Tim -- I agree and thank you for the update! I will be sure to share any information I receive from QA as soon as possible. :)
See attached screen shot the block arrows are definitely cleaner. I guess the short term learning if you are importing PPT is to use block shapes or be prepared to create them in Articulate.
Hi, Tim -- Oh, wow, that definitely does look a lot more crisp for sure! I appreciate you sharing your workaround/discovery. :)
I'm running into this issue, but I haven't imported anything. I simply inserted the arrow+line from the ribbon in Storyline, and they all appear fuzzy.
Thanks for the workaround suggestion, Tim.
Hi Sarah! Would you be able to share your .story file for us to take a look? I'm not sure that I'm seeing this behavior.
Hi Leslie--thanks for helping! I've attached the Storyline file. When I'm in editing mode or preview mode, the arrows look great. But when I view the file in published mode, the arrow lines look fuzzy. The lines with no arrows look fine, it's only the lines with arrows on the end that look fuzzy.
Also--when I was first prepping the file to send to you, I copy+pasted the slide into a new Storyline file, and the arrows showed up just fine. But the Player size and other settings were also set to the Storyline default settings, so maybe it has something to do with the way my player is set up. The files I'm sending now are my original files (just stripped of all my client's info for confidentiality reasons), and I've attached 2 images showing my player settings.
Thanks again. I'm sure this is just user error!
Hi Sarah!
Thanks for sharing the details and the file. The scaling is causing the issue. If you set the browser to optimal size and lock the player at optimal size, then this will alleviate the issue you are having post-publish.
Articulate Storyline lets you control several aspects of the browser and player for your published course, including:
See this tutorial for details.
Easy fix! Thanks so much.
Hello!
Do you folks plan on fixing this anytime soon? This thread is over a year old and I experienced the fuzzy lines today whenever I'd set an arrow setting for a line.
If enabling arrow settings completely removes a shape's ability to scale to different sizes, why are they even included? Does the line magically lose vector status when an arrow setting is applied? It doesn't seem like that would be very hard to fix.
I appreciate the workarounds, but please don't neglect finding a SOLUTION because another user posted a WORKAROUND. Designers shouldn't HAVE TO lock the browser and player at optimal size to take advantage of the full functionality of SL2.
Sorry for the rant and thanks for the otherwise excellent software. I hope to see a solution to this issue soon.
Cheers!
I can't remember if I posted this but the only workaround I was able to find was to create high rez arrows in Photoshop. I haven't revisited this lately so I don't know if this has been addressed but looks like it hasn't obviously given your experience.
Tim,
Thanks for the reply. You did post that, and it's definitely a viable workaround. I just cringe a bit whenever I have to work around a problem that seems easy enough to solve. Take care!
This problem isn't solved yet today. I've got the same problem of fuzzy arrows when creating them from storyline 360.
Hi Gillian,
Do you have a sample .story file that we can take a look at? I'd love to understand what you are seeing.
I'm also experiencing fuzzy lines. Testing I've done. Open current project on different machine. Still get same fuzzy results. Open a new .story file on different machine and create a straight line at 1px width. Preview slide and the line looks a little fuzzy, but not bad. Create the same line and add a circle for the Begin Type Arrow Setting. Preview slide and that line is definitely fuzzy.
Hi Sandie,
We've discovered an issue with blurriness on dashed lines and lines with a custom end type. Here's a sample slide that shows a comparison.
We're still looking into this bug and keeping our eye on the impact of it. As soon as I hear more on this, I'll let you know!
Hi everyone!
Just popping in to notify you of our latest update to Storyline 360, which includes:
Fixed: Arrows and dashed lines were blurry when previewed or published.
To get the latest update, launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button for Storyline 360. Details here.
Please let us know if you have any questions. You can reply here or reach out to our Support Engineers directly.
This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.