Opening a PowerPoint from Storyline file

Aug 14, 2013

This is a bit complicated, but the short form is:  How do I open a PowerPoint from a published Storyline file.

Greater detail:

We want to launch an Instructor Led Training course from a single source, our Cornerstone LMS.  Storyline offers an elegant solution. We bult a Virtual Classroom for participants and a Virtual Forum for the instructor.  Originally I put the PPTs in the Resource file (which works brilliantly!  Love Storyline).  We published a test to Cornerstone and it worked.  Now we put up the real Classroom and Forum and they don't work.  I know this isn't a Storyline problem, it's a Cornerstone issue.  Oddly, the PDFs work, but Word and PPT don't.  I need a workaround now, though.

We tried to put a hyperlink to the PPTs but that didn't work because Storyline can't see or link/open a PPT from a hyperlink.  Any other way to open a PPT that I'm not thinking of?

Any other ideas?

16 Replies
Rob Swanson

FINALLY!  Someone using Cornerstone!  We may be chatting a lot, Jason.

First, yes, I tried both of those and it didn't work.  Could be the permissions required for SharePoint?  It wouldn't work for a server object either.

Have you played with the Player Options for size of the browser?  Under the Player editor, click Other on the Custom button.  Change the setting to Resize Brower to Optimal Size and the Player size to Scale player to Lock Player at Optimal Size.  See if that helps.

I haven't found Cornerstone to be terribly compatible with Storyline.  While Storyline passes good information ot the LMS, Cornerstone only uses some of it.  We want to know what wrong answer they picked on tests and unless the test is built in Cornerstone it won't report that.  Storyline sends it, but Cornerstone won't access it.

Let me know if the player settings help.  If that doesn't work, have it launch in a new window.  See if that's the issue.  Good luck!

Jason Chan

Yes I feel like we will be chatting a good amount. There's not a lot of info here or on the web about CSOD integration unfortunately.

AFter playing around, I did find the resize player to fit the browser which seems to help with the buttons not cutting off. It's a workaround, but it still doesn't solve the main problem. This is the email I sent to their IT but haven't gotten a response back. I'll post a reply when I get one....

I did some more research and this is what I found. Below is the html code that Cornerstone creates when you launch the course. The smaller window is from the SCORM 1.2 version (story.html). The larger window is from the SCORM 2004 version. In the Articulate files, there are no files called LMS3.aspx, which is what Cornerstone is generating. In the code below, I circled the code that creates a table with 2 cells at 30% and 70% of the size window. It’s this 30% that’s crowding the articulate window off the screen. I did a complete search in all the files and there is nowhere in the code that Articulate creates do a mention of the code, or the class “menuToc”. I’m almost positive that the page LMS3.aspx is a page that is created dynamically by Cornerstone, and Cornerstone is adding the table code and defining the percentages. Is there a way to change this width to 10 or 20% so that the Articulate module will display properly on the screen?

Lazaro Perez

I'm glad to see I'm not alone in this one.  Just working on a migration to Cornerstone and noticed this.  I'm using Quizmaker so my tests only have one AU in it... this is a huge waste of space.

Anyone find some resolution yet?  I don't think this is something that can be resolved on the Articulate side.  This seems more like a Conerstone thing.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Jefferson,

Thanks for sharing here and if you're able to share more information on where to change the code or what to look for, that may assist others who run across this thread. As staff we're unable to assist in modifications to the published output - so the more the community can share on these types of things the better! 

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.