I'm having an issue with importing slides from PowerPoint. The text never imports correctly. I've attached 2 screenshots, one from PPT and one from Storyline. As you can see, the font is the same for both. However, the original PPT font size is 12. When it imports into Storyline, the font size changes down to 7, but no longer fits on the screen. It is, in fact, too big, even at a smaller font size.
I'm so frustrated with all the quirks of Storyline. These are storyboards from a client, so I really need this just to simply work.
Well, I started with a powerpoint that someone else had created. I got it as a pptx file, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it didn’t start life as a ppt file. I applied a different design template to it, which theoretically should have replaced all of the slide masters. I used the built in slide masters that have content placeholders. Once I had all my basic content, I imported it to Storyline to do the Storyline stuff 😊
Thanks for those details, Alison. Since I'm not seeing this happen in a new PowerPoint file, my hunch is that it's related to your set-up. If you notice this happening in a new PowerPoint file, be sure to send your file over to our Support Engineers here. They're available 24/7 to assist!
For anyone interested. I also have been struggling with this font size isn't being imported correctly issues and I believe after much searching and little tidbits I have solved the riddle.
It all comes down to Pixels, Inches and DPI
Storyline shows its "Story Size" in pixels, so in my case using the 4:3 aspect ratio it is set to 720 X 520.
Powerpoint on the otherhand, shows its slide size in inches. Again, using the 4:3 aspect ratio mine was set to 10 X 7.5.
At first, I was like ok, that's fine. I used photoshop to put in 720px by 540px and changed it to inches and it came up with 10in by 7.5in. Perfect... but it STILL isn't importing my fonts correctly.
Then I found some information about DPI. By default, most Window's systems DPI is set to 96 (if your's isn't no problem this article explains how to fix that).
So, why is this important? Well, in the case of storyline, it doesn't matter, pixels and pixels no matter what DPI you are using. However, Powerpoint is the one causing the issue. When I used photoshop to calculate pixels to inches, I calculated that based on a 72 DPI (standardly used for web development). By bumping the DPI up to 96 and doing the conversion again you actually get 7.5 x 5.625 inches.
Using this number, I changed the size of my power point slides to match and low and behold all my text shrinks down to the size that I was seeing it import in as in Storyline! Knowing this after you have spent all the time setting up everything perfect in powerpoint still sucks! This is a *In the Future* type revelation. But it means that in the future, as long as you set up both Storyline and Powerpoint correctly, your content should import into storyline pretty perfectly.
In my case a simple copy/paste operation that would work on almost any software, fails to work on Storyline. It inserts the text as a very pixelated image. Is this normal?
I don't get why simple things like this do not work out of the box. If I copy text from ppt and I paste on any Adobe app it pastes the text, but not in Storyline. It gets pasted as a pixelated graphic.
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Well, I started with a powerpoint that someone else had created. I got it as a pptx file, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it didn’t start life as a ppt file. I applied a different design template to it, which theoretically should have replaced all of the slide masters. I used the built in slide masters that have content placeholders. Once I had all my basic content, I imported it to Storyline to do the Storyline stuff 😊
Alison Coops
Thanks for those details, Alison. Since I'm not seeing this happen in a new PowerPoint file, my hunch is that it's related to your set-up. If you notice this happening in a new PowerPoint file, be sure to send your file over to our Support Engineers here. They're available 24/7 to assist!
For anyone interested. I also have been struggling with this font size isn't being imported correctly issues and I believe after much searching and little tidbits I have solved the riddle.
It all comes down to Pixels, Inches and DPI
Storyline shows its "Story Size" in pixels, so in my case using the 4:3 aspect ratio it is set to 720 X 520.
Powerpoint on the otherhand, shows its slide size in inches. Again, using the 4:3 aspect ratio mine was set to 10 X 7.5.
At first, I was like ok, that's fine. I used photoshop to put in 720px by 540px and changed it to inches and it came up with 10in by 7.5in. Perfect... but it STILL isn't importing my fonts correctly.
Then I found some information about DPI. By default, most Window's systems DPI is set to 96 (if your's isn't no problem this article explains how to fix that).
So, why is this important? Well, in the case of storyline, it doesn't matter, pixels and pixels no matter what DPI you are using. However, Powerpoint is the one causing the issue. When I used photoshop to calculate pixels to inches, I calculated that based on a 72 DPI (standardly used for web development). By bumping the DPI up to 96 and doing the conversion again you actually get 7.5 x 5.625 inches.
Using this number, I changed the size of my power point slides to match and low and behold all my text shrinks down to the size that I was seeing it import in as in Storyline! Knowing this after you have spent all the time setting up everything perfect in powerpoint still sucks! This is a *In the Future* type revelation. But it means that in the future, as long as you set up both Storyline and Powerpoint correctly, your content should import into storyline pretty perfectly.
The Bottom Line
4:3 Aspect ratio (System operating on 96 DPI)
16:9 Aspect ratio (System operating on 96 DPI)
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Awesome tip, Emily!
Welcome to E-Learning Heroes by the way! ✨ So happy to have you here- and a fantastic first contribution!
In my case a simple copy/paste operation that would work on almost any software, fails to work on Storyline. It inserts the text as a very pixelated image. Is this normal?
I've gotten in the habit of saving shapes with text as pictures so I can insert them and have them look good.
Ok I see. Thanks for the recommendation.
I don't get why simple things like this do not work out of the box. If I copy text from ppt and I paste on any Adobe app it pastes the text, but not in Storyline. It gets pasted as a pixelated graphic.
Figured it out. I had to run the import function to import the full slide rather than import elements on their own.
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