Long time to import from PowerPoint?

Hi Louise,

Yes importing from PPT into SL can take a considerable amount of time. (read more than 1 hour)

All depends what SL needs to import. If it is just a matter of pictures, then it'll go reasonably fast. Yet if using a lot of separate elements/objects in your PPTX, they need conversion and this takes some time.

So waiting is the only thing you can do,...you  could watch some Screenrs in the meantime

Cheers

geert

Thank you Geert. It completely ground to a halt so imported a few screens at a time instead which worked. Not as easy as I had hoped but at least can start working on it.

Thanks,

Louise

Well Louise, there may just be another reason to it;

Sometimes an import just fails because of macro's or hidden slides in the power point.

I usually reboot my computer before doing an import.

Cheers

Geert

Hi Geert

I am currently importing an Articulate project into Storyline and so far it has taken 45 minutes and still going. Its telling me "Importing Engage Interaction..."  I have waited this far but I am not sure if anything is really happening and I do not want to cancel it at this point.  Is there any way I can check to see if this is still working as it should? The progress bar is near its very end.

Thanks again

Hi Gary! 

Yikes, 45 minutes is a long time to wait! I wouldn't expect a file to take longer than 1 or 2 minutes to import, even if it was a large file. 

I'm happy to help you figure out why this is happening. But first, can you provide a few more details?

• What version of Studio is installed on your computer?
• What version of Storyline are you using?
• Have you downloaded the latest updates of those versions?
• Are all of your files saved to your local hard drive?

You might want to dig into that source PPT file and see how many master pages and layouts are being implemented in the file, because it may seem like you are bringing in only a few simple slides, but if there are excessive master pages and complex layouts to translate in the sub layouts, it takes time to process that for every slide you import.  

This issue becomes compounded when you try to import chunks of slides because your Storyline file is going to contain new master pages and layouts for EVERY batch you bring in, even if layouts match slides that were brought in previously.  There's currently no way for Storyline to recognize that it's pulling from a "familiar" file.    The Master page manifest can get very long and complicated and hard to unravel.  Again I recommend cleaning things out on the PPT end, saving an intermediary file and then I guarantee your import times will dramatically increase.

This should honestly be an option within the import dialogues to let the developer decide what masters to bring in.  (no im not submitting this as a feature request, I feel like this is an issue that Articulate will have to decide is worth that level of scrutiny and control)

I frequently have issues with importing relatively small PowerPoints into Storyline and it grinds to a halt. Essentially this is not really to do with the PowerPoint, but that Storyline iteslf has got itself in a jam. The fix that works for me is to uninstall Storyline and then re-install....the PPT file then imports as it should (in a reasonable timeframe that you can actually see progressing), and the whole process takes much, much less time than I was waiting for the PowerPoint to import!

It gas been hours and my PPT (79 slides) still has not loaded. We are talking about at least 8 hours and from the status bar it maybe 40% done. Any ideas? 

Oh no, Edmund, I'm sorry for this wait—we're here to help!

Can you confirm you're running the most up-to-date versions of Storyline 360 and Studio 360? Also, do you only experience these long loading times with this specific project?

If possible, can you share the file with us in a support case so our team can investigate? We'll reach out with our findings shortly after we hear from you!