photos disappearing from imported PPT slides

Feb 09, 2013

My client wants  me to use their corporate template with their photos, colors, fonts, etc. I have imported their PPT template into Storyline by opening it from Storyline. It was working fine for a few days and now when I open the fileI can see the photos in story view. but when I click it for slide view, the photos and other elements from the client template disappear. And then they are gone from story view as well.

How do I ensure all the client PPT template elements stay put? Thanks.

4 Replies
Christine Hendrickson

Hi Susanne,

First, keep in mind that importing from PowerPoint to Storyline is not an exact one-to-one conversion. However, one thing you may want to check is the location of the content you're wanting to import and the location of the Storyline course files. Are all of the files you're working with local? 

1.  Work on your local drive (your C: drive). Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, including file corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior. 

2. You should also make sure the directory path to your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters (for example C:\Articulate).

3.  Avoid using special characters, accents or symbols in your file names.

Additional information regarding "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" in Windows operating systems can be found in the following Microsoft article.

susanne flynn

Hi Christine,

The links and tips you gave me are very helpful. My files are local and the directory path is way under 260.

I think the issue has more to do with the template sent by the client as the photos  and the formatting of the template disappear. Do you know if it is better to import a PPT into Storyline and then work with it from there? Or open a Storyline file and then important what I want from the PPT file? Which alternative presents fewer issues?

Christine Hendrickson

Hi Susanne,

Personally, I would suggest importing and then modifying the course to suit your needs. The more content you need to pull in from PowerPoint, the chances are higher that you'll run into formatting issues, etc. So, you wouldn't want to spend hours modifying the PowerPoint presentation only to lose 50% of the formatting you've used in the file when you move it over. However, if it's more of an issue with getting the images into the course, you could save the images from PowerPoint and insert them directly into your Storyline course. This is only assuming, however, that you don't need the other content from the PowerPoint presentation and I doubt that's the case for you.

I certainly hope this works out for you, Susanne! Good luck with the project. Let me know how it turns out!

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