quickest way to delete unused layouts?

Oct 22, 2013

Each time I import PowerPoint into Storyline, all the layouts - used and unused - come with it.  So now I have several sets of the same Masters and layouts and it is very slow trying to find and delete the unused ones.  Often they do not delete even when they are not used by any slides.

What's the best way to do this?

7 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Ray,

There isn't a "fast" way to remove unused layouts, you can select multiple at a time from the Slide Master view to delete a bunch at once. You'll see that the "Delete layout" function is greyed out if they are used by any slides, but if you're unable to delete layouts that aren't used at all, that sounds like a situation where you may want to repair your Storyline software to see if that resolves the issue of not being able to delete layouts. 

Kristin Fiore

Does this reduce the file size as well? I've read that deleting things once they're in Storyline doesn't entirely erase the MB used for them (like for images). I'd love to ensure that unused layouts, images, videos, and the like aren't needlessly stored in Storyline, particularly since there's no separate folder we can view that caches all of these files.

Anne England

Hi - I've had this problem whenever I've imported Studio projects into Storyline - mainly quizzes from Quizmaker. I've ended up with literally dozens of slide masters that won't delete despite the 'delete' option being available (and despite my being in story view); I click 'Preserve master' twice, and SL2 asks me if I want to delete the master, and I click 'yes'. It doesn't delete. I change feedback layouts - i.e. fonts and font sizes - and they don't apply and I have to change every single feedback layer manually. Furthermore, when I tried the repair process you mention above, I only got the option to uninstall, not reinstall. All this extra work is something we can't easily pass on to a client, so it's very cost-ineffective.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Anne,

Turning off preserve shouldn't give you the prompt to delete the master, and that's something that we've seen in Storyline 2 only and have reported to our QA team as such. But I haven't seen or experience the issue with just not being able to delete them entirely - and I'd want to confirm that you were working on project files as described here. 

In regards to repairing, uninstall is what you're looking for - and you'll want to review the steps here for Storyline 2.  This is a more involved repair process but should ensure that you have an entirely clean install. 

If you're able to replicate the behavior after reviewing the above on a brand new file, we'd be happy to take a look at one of your files to determine what could be causing the issue. You can share it here or with our Support engineers here. 

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