Importing vector graphics

In story line 3 i can paste straight from illustrator and ungroup.

Hi everyone,

I know this thread is old. I signed up just to comment. I may be late but here's how I managed to work-around importing vector into AS2 without raster conversion or compromising the quality of my vector images. This will not allow me to manipulate the shapes and colors after I've brought it into AS2, however. This will only preserve the integrity of my image regardless of how much I scaled it within AS2.

Note: You will need Illustrator, Powerpoint, and Articulate Storyline 2. This was done on a Mac with AI installed native on OSX, PPT on Windows 7 of Bootcamp, and AS2 on Windows 7 of Bootcamp. You may find better or different results depending on your rig. There is a possibility this method may not work if you are running both AI and PPT native on OSX, though. Just a theory I haven't the luxury to test out. Chances are, however, if it works on mine, it should definitely work on yours.

1. Design your shape (or even your entire scene/slide) in illustrator with as many art boards needed. Each artboard will represent different slides if you choose to do the majority of the designing in illustrator. Avoid clipping masks if possible... you'll thank me later. Save your work as AI (for backup).
2. Save your art boards as EPS. Be sure to check the size of your slide (art board) and convert your pixel measurements to inches before saving it to EPS. This will save you some headaches later when jumping into Powerpoint.
3. This step may take awhile for the app to process. Import your EPS file to a Powerpoint slide via drag and drop (be sure to adjust the size of your slide to match the measurement of your art board). You will notice that your images will look a bit jagged. That's just how Powerpoint is interpreting your file.
4. Size up your image to the desired dimension. If done correctly to this point you should only just need to center your image to fit snuggly into your slide (give or take a few hundredth of an inch).
5. Select your image, right-click, and choose "edit image". A warning appears telling you Powerpoint will convert the image to something more native than EPS. Accept it and you should now see the wonderfully clean vector-type image you had been expecting.
6. Select your image, ungroup, clean up bounding boxes accordingly. You should be able to adjust fills, strokes, and whatever else within the constraints of Powerpoint to each and every object you ungrouped.
7. Group any objects you will want AS2 to interpret as a single object such as logos and outlined text. Repeat steps 3-7 for each art board you want on their respective slides.
8. Save your work as a Powerpoint presentation (.PPT).
9. Start a new project in AS2 and adjust your dimensions accordingly.
10. Click on the INSERT tab, click New Slide, click the Import tab, click on the Powerpoint logo, select your PPT file, click Open, click Select All, and finally click Import.
11. Grab a beer. It may take awhile to load. Once it's in you'll see you have objects stacked up on your timeline ready to be triggered and sized to your liking without worrying about image quality.

There you go. I hope this was helpful and I hope I didn't explain anything that was already mentioned. As far as importing actual text/font is concerned... you're on your own and I'm definitely all ears. Anyone else see the irony in having to learn so much about an eLearning software?

Cheers

All vectors come in as images unfortunately, you can add a feature request.  One of my hopes is that they add addtional editing features to objects  such as combine shapes etc and make it an accomplished vector editor.

At the moment, the only vectors are the objects and characters

Good suggestion, Gary!

Unfortunately, Storyline converted it to a raster graphic as well.

Hi Andrew,

Can you share a bit more about what issue you're encountering - this thread is a bit long, and I'm not sure which piece you're referring to. Did you try any of the solutions mentioned here about using Adobe Illustrator to export the image or using Fireworks? 

Hi!

Try this.  insert your EPS into PowerPoint.

Right-click on it and choose "Save as picture."

Save it out as a EMF file (Enhanced Windows Metafile).

Import the EMF into Storyline.

Work?

Hey Johh (and others)

Try this character. (attached) It's a WMF file. You can resize it to any size and crop it using the crop tool like an image. The character retains its vector clarity no matter what size and won't get *fuzzy* 

Just import it like you would any picture/image.

Still finishing up a few tweaks on an entire library (over 110 characters, poses, props, and backgrounds) of this style. A bit behind but hope to have them ready by next month.

Basically, WMF files are vector files. Although you can't edit them in Storyline you can retain their quality. If you have existing .EPS or .AI artwork, simply export them as a WMF or EMF file and then import it into Storyline for the same results.

I've always used Adobe Fireworks for image editing, it has great shadow and bevelling tools plus it plays well with both vector and bitmap images - its ideal for screen based graphics editing. The native PNG output imports properly into storyline and you get transparency and access to shadow, glow and mirror effects, or just copy and paste from Fireworks to Storyline

Hey Steve,

If you have Adobe Illustrator, follow these steps: 

1. Open, Import, or Create your vector graphic
2. Choose File > Export...
3. Format: Windows Metafile (WMF) - or- Enhanced Metafile (EMF)
4. Save to a location you can have access from Storyline
5. In Storyline: Insert > Picture > [select your new WMF or EMF file]

You can import the same file into PPT, too. While you can't edit the vector file in Storyline, you can edit it in PPT. Once in PPT:

1. Select the image
2. Ungroup > Say Yes > Ungroup again
3. All of the individual shapes are not editable to change colors, size, or delete.

Hope that helps.

EMF and WMF files are not really the best vector formats.  You can't use gradients and masks (WMF). If you have any in the illustrator files and you export it to WMF/EMF formats it will convert gradients and masks to raster images. 

I hope in the next update/version Articulate fixes this and lets us import EPS file formats.