Setting slide duration for ALL slides

Hi all,

I wanted to let you know that I have successfully created a solution for the issue of setting a default timeline length for all slides imported from PowerPoint that is longer than the Storyline default of 5 seconds.

In our project, we wanted to take several of our ILT PowerPoints and deliver them through our LMS. We also wanted to ensure that the user spent a set amount of time on each slide (longer than 5 seconds).

Like Bernd Lehle and others above, we didn't want to spend all the time it would take to develop each slide whether in PowerPoint or in Storyline. Having Visual Basic for Applications experience, I created a macro, which we ran in the PowerPoint presentation. The macro is straightforward. It prompts you to enter a number of seconds. Then, it creates an invisible rectangle on every slide in the presentation with an animation having the duration of the number of seconds you entered.

When you import the presentation into Storyline, the duration of the animated, invisible rectangle on every slide overrides the Storyline default of 5 seconds setting the timeline length to the number of seconds you had entered in the macro.

I've attached the How-to steps and the macro (as text) in a Word file. If you are uncomfortable with VBA, you may need assistance from your IT department.

Hi all!

I am jumping into this discussion to share that we just released Storyline 360 (Build 3.63.27628.0) which includes changes to the timeline.

New: Create slides faster with time-saving upgrades to the timeline. Multi-select objects and move them all at once. Choose where pasted objects appear in the stacking order or even paste them into an existing group. Align objects to the playhead or vice versa. And when the timeline is too long, you can instantly reset it to five seconds or shorten it to the object with the longest duration.

Now all you need to do is update Storyline 360 in your Articulate 360 desktop app!

If you have additional questions, don't hesitate to reach out in this discussion or in a support case. 

Sigh.  Thank you.  I look forward to exploring these enhancements.  However, your designer/coders didn't address the actual request here, which was an option to globally set the timeline duration for all slides, based on the instructional designer's needs.  As in, click to open option, type in the time, close box, apply to all slides.   One simple enhancement that collectively would save your customers thousands of hours.

We know our learner populations best.  We do learner assessments to determine who our target audiences are, and what the average learning rate and challenges would be for each educational product.   We also have regulatory requirements to meet in terms of time exposure to materials.  A 5 second default may be utterly inadequate in either time direction.  Some slides don't contain audio or video that forces an extension.  Sometimes, we just need time for the reader to read and absorb.

Again, respectfully, would you please put this feature on your "roadmap" and try again?

Hi Julia, and thank you for your feedback.

We do have another feature request for the ability to change the default timeline length, so this is still on our radar. I have linked you to the feature request, and we will be sure to update you with any news should this make it onto our features roadmap.

Thank you again for sharing your comments! 

As someone who is new to Storyline, I have spent a frustrated afternoon looking for this feature only to stumble upon this thread and realise it does not exist. Gobsmacked.

Hello Katie and welcome to the E-Learning Heroes Community! ✨

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us in the forum. I understand your frustration. 

If you haven't had the chance to take a look, I recommend our Tutorials, On-Demand, and Live Webinar offerings as you dive into Storyline. 

If you have any specific questions, our talented Support Engineer staff is here to help you within a support case.

Have a great day and happy developing! 

Hello, following up on this request - is there an enhancement to set the slide duration globally rather than setting the duration for each slide manually by dragging the timeline? In Captivate, we can set the slide duration in the properties which is a very nice option to have. I hope this would be an easy feature for the Articulate team to add to the storyline360 🙏