Publish to Word suddenly fails

Jul 19, 2023

Today I successfully published two Storyline 3 (latest update) courses to Word for a customer, but suddenly it does not work anymore. Upon publishing, it remains grey and after a minute or so it says 'successfully published' but nothing has happened and no document is available. Publishing to LMS or Web goes well, without any issue.

 Trying it with the two earlier courses also does not work anymore.

I restarted the PC, did a thorough cleanup, saved the file to the C: drive, but it just does not work anymore.

Who can help?

12 Replies
Jan van Vledder

UPDATE:

After i) uninstalling Storyline 3, ii) reboot the PC, iii) install Storyline 3 again and iiii) reboot the PC again, the problem is still the same. Not any course can be published to Word. Not even those two courses that I successfully published to Word earlier today. 

Did the same steps with the previous version (19), and the same result.

This is very worrying, please help!

Jan van Vledder

UPDATE 2:

I finally got it to work, but I have no idea how this is possible. Still working with the previous version (19), I did the following:

1) tried a few times to use the Translation function, which did not work due to a communication error with Word.
2) opened an empty Word document to stay open during the publishing effort
3) tried to publish it without layers and without notes

During these experiments, I tried to publish again and after a few seconds it started and completed publishing the course to Word. However, the behaviour is rather erratic, not predictable whether it will work each time and what causes it to work.

Articulate: any idea what has happened?

Jan van Vledder

UPDATE 3

A few hours later, having switched off the PC, a new attempt.

First time, publishing to Word does not work.

Then, open an empty Word document and try again: success!

After closing the Word document, a few more successful attempts, publishing the course to Word.

To me this suggests that something between Articulate and Word mysteriously prevents or allows the function publish for Word to work correctly.

@Articulate: any idea what this is?

 

Steven Benassi

Hi Jan!

So sorry to hear that publishing from Storyline 3 to Microsoft Word has been so erratic for you! Thank you for sharing such detailed feedback about the troubleshooting steps you've implemented so far.

I've opened a support case on your behalf so our support engineers can take a closer look into this issue for you. You should be hearing from them shortly!

Jan van Vledder

Hi Steven,

Thanks!  FYI, I repeated the test today, i.e. tried to publish a course to Word three times, all without success. Then I opened an empty Word document and after this I successfully published the course to Word.

For now this is a very simple and effective workaround, but I would be interested to know what happens 'inside' :)

Please note that these tests were with vs19.

 

Steven Benassi

Hi Jan!

Thanks for added feedback! Sorry to hear the issues are still present, but I checked your case and it looks like my colleague Jan Lua has picked it up. You're in excellent hands working one on one with him!

It looks like Jan Lua replied to your e-mail with some feedback and troubleshooting steps. I'd suggest giving those a shot to see if that does the trick!

We'll continue this conversation over in your support case.

Steven Benassi

Hi Christina!

I'm sorry to hear you've also run into issues when publishing from Storyline to Word! Thank you for sharing the troubleshooting steps you've tried so far.

I've opened a support case on your behalf so our support engineers can take a closer look into this behavior. You're in excellent hands working with them and they should be reaching out to you shortly!

Eveline Holmes

Hi

I'm also having an issue publishing from SL360 to Word.  It usually works no problem.  Nothing has changed here - same version of Word.  Updated my SL to the latest version whenever it came out.  Need the transcript document for a client urgently.

Typed the issue into the SL error report screen that comes up but had not realised this error was under it. 

Thanks

Eveline 

Steven Benassi

Hi Eveline!

Sorry to hear you've also hit a snag when trying to publish a Storyline 360 course to Word. I'd be happy to help troubleshoot, and had some follow-up questions to start.

Looking forward to hearing from you!