Forum Discussion
Svg files for SL360 on the roadmap?
Hi, wonder if and when you are planning to let SL360 support svg images?
94 Replies
It works for me in the editor but when published they loose their transparency?
Yay for SVG import, BOO that it does not support the ALPHA channel so doesn't allow for transparency. Almost there!
I have imported SVGs with an alpha channel works just fine
Ok, I freely admit that I am being a bit of a curmudgeon here with the following comment, but, yeaaaaaaaahhhhhh, while it is absolutely most definitely great to be able to import SVG's directly into Storyline now, why are we unable to edit them, and/or have them treated like Freeform Objects (as what happens in the workflow method specified above)?
A simple black SVG icon cannot be changed to white within Storyline.
I understand that SVGs can consist of many complicated vector shapes (especially if designed poorly) but I cannot even make my SVG imports semi-transparent (ie, for background branding, etc).
One of the beautiful things about SVGs online is that they can be animated in so many ways. HTML5 makes it possible to do so much with them. It's a shame that the animation properties of Storyline cannot be extended to accommodate HTML5 features and allow SVGs to harness that.
So, YAY for importing SVG!!!
But, um... a minuscule (BOO) for limiting what can be done to them once inserted.
Yay!
Hi everyone!
I'm excited to share that we just released Storyline 360 (Build 3.57.26407.0) today which includes the option to import scalable vector graphics (SVGs) to Storyline 360 so images stay sharp when learners zoom in and out.
Thank you to everyone who continued sharing how important this feature was in Storyline 360. Now all you need to do is update Storyline 360 in your Articulate 360 desktop app!
If you run into any issues, don't hesitate to reach out in this discussion or in a support case.
Thanks for the positive words. That's a very interesting point regarding the artboard dimensions. Normally I create an Illustrator artboard to the exact dimensions of my storyline file and create all my bits and pieces in there. That's probably the 90% that import perfectly. The other 10% are obviously the items I create on the fly. It makes sense now.
I don't see the decimal point thing as being a major issue at all. Just think of the illustrator dimensions as being whole numbers. To be honest, I tend to create the Illustrator Artboard at 200% (so If I do have to create graphics with transparency I create nice big PNG files that scale up beautifully in the Storyline Player). So generally my Illustrator dimensions are big, but it's nice inputting these large dimensions (ignore the decimal points) and seeing the SVG scale-up enormously and look fantastic and crisp at that size.
It is a pain, but like anything else, once you adapt the workaround to your workflow it becomes second nature.
Just in case the whole "creating vectors in Illustrator" is too daunting for anyone I wholeheartedly recommend The Noun Project as an amazing resource for super clean and efficient compound SVG icon files. There is even an 'add in' for Powerpoint that allows one to import into PPT files with a simple click, thus removing ANY fiddling around with vector tools.
The only issue I do run into has only started happening recently and it is this:
"If you see a “Failed to import PowerPoint presentation” error message in Storyline 360, it means one or more of the following issues is occurring..." and Articulate provide suggested solutions here:
But the solution for me has been as follows:
The Presentation Doesn't Start with Slide Number 1
PowerPoint presentations must start numbering slides from 1 to import successfully into Storyline. If your presentation starts with slide 0 or another number, here's how you can fix it.PowerPoint 2016 and Later: Go to the Design tab on the ribbon, click Slide Size, and choose Custom Slide Size. Enter 1 in the Number slides from field and click OK.
Anyway, I hope this helps. Whilst I understand the frustration that Storyline cannot simply import SVGs, the PowerPoint workaround has been subsumed into my workflow and I am loving the fact that all my little icons, logos, pie-charts and graph details can all be imported and look absolutely crisp onscreen.
Thank you Diarmaid. I've always had issues importing an SVG that contains more than 1 layer into PowerPoint and then into Storyline but the method you outlined definitely seems to work great!
You have also mentioned that shapes end up being invisible once they are imported into SL. I've experienced the same thing but totally forgot to bring it up in my previous post.
Thanks for sharing! You are definitely not trodding on my toes!
Another 8 months have been added to the years... and still nothing.
I also find it insulting to my intelligence as a designer to call it "Importing SVGs from Powerpoint", as you are absolutely NOT importing the SVG, you are converting the SVG to a raster image. Which is patently unacceptable in the design world.
To add to that, if all the people that have posted workarounds would stop calling them "shapes", that'd be great. Because "shapes" implies they are vector shapes, as the default shapes within SL are. After trying all the multiple ways I've found people suggest to get their vector shapes into SL, all I'm left with are raster images, not vector shapes. Furthermore, depending on the technique, you may or may not retain transparency. So instead of a triangle covering half the stage, I get a full-stage image that is half triangle, half white (where the transparency was.) How ANYONE has found this acceptable to this point is beyond me. Each passing day brings yet another example of frustration when it comes to basic features not included in SL. No one is asking for anything over the top. Just the same basic features that almost every other design app includes in their "beginner level" features. And yet, not even the decency of an explanation as to why these requests are simply rejected, year after year.
At the risk of trodding on TP's toes and corrupting his excellent walkthrough, I'd like to illustrate his methodology with some images that do show that the end result is an imported SVG shape and not a rasterized image within Storyline.
This is a logo in Illustrator. Simplified to four shape paths. The text and lines are compound paths and the star and its outline are simple shape paths that don't need to be 'compounded.
This is the exported SVG after being imported into Powerpoint. As you can see it's looking good (awesome design).
This is the voodoo-ish part. After the Powerpoint slide has been imported into your Storyline file you will end up with an invisible mess like this.
But don't worry, the logo is there, as you can see from the Timeline. There are 4 layers corresponding to the 4 paths within the SVG file.
Yeah, this is the weird part I don't get myself. 90% of the time the SVG imports perfectly, but sometimes there is a distortion, as TP mentions. This is easily rectified, as he explains, by referring to the original dimensions of your vector file.
Once we correct the dimensions the logo is in Storyline and looking pretty good. But we want it to look like the original so we just select the shapes, because they are shapes, and fill with whatever colour we want.
And here you can see I have decided to make the middle star white and the 'outline' shape red. It looks awesome and is full of vectory goodness.
I know you are showing an example, but simply with the Shapes tools in Storyline you could just create that same logo in Storyline directly.
Hey Kevin. I agree that it is still not easy to import vector assets into Storyline, but it is possible. I've noticed that if I export a SVG shape from Illustrator that contains a clipping mask, or if the shape uses groups or layers in Illustrator, then it will look fine when imported into PowerPoint, but will convert to a raster image if you import that PowerPoint into Storyline. The key is to only import single vector (SVG) shapes into PowerPoint then into Storyline. Once the shape is in Storyline you will notice that it is a vector shape graphic not an image. Then you can add colours and gradients the same way you would to any other shape in Storyline.
It's really painful to do, but not impossible. I think this should be something Articulate should focus on more. There are definitely people that have been wanting to see this in Storyline for years.
I've created a rough guide that I shared with my team on how to import SVG shapes from Adobe Illustrator to PowerPoint to Articulate Storyline. Articulate's resource that they have on the webpage about Importing SVG files is missing some crucial information. Hopefully this helps somebody:
Illustrator Notes:
- Saving SVG files from Illustrator that contain more than one shape at a time often leads to issues when trying to bring into Storyline. To avoid this, only save one shape in Illustrator as an SVG at a time.
- Remove any gradients from the shapes that you plan to import into Articulate
- Check the layers. Make sure that there are no clipping masks, or groupings. The vector shape should be the only thing in a layer. So if you check your layers inside of Illustrator, it should be something like this: “Layer 1” —> “Component Path”. And not “Layer 1” —> “Clip Group” —> “Group” —> “Component Path”.
- Export the shape as an SVG
Instructions to import an SVG graphic into PowerPoint for Windows:
- Open PowerPoint on Windows (You need PowerPoint 2016, PowerPoint 2019, or Office 365. Earlier versions of PowerPoint don’t support SVGs.)
- Create a new blank presentation, delete title and text placeholders
- Go to Insert > Pictures > This Device, and find the SVG shape you exported from Illustrator
- Do NOT right click on the SVG and select “Convert to Shape” in PowerPoint. This will result in a png image when imported into Articulate
- You MAY have to change the SVG fill colour inside of PowerPoint in order for Articulate to recognize it. But if you did this in Illustrator it should work.
- Save your PowerPoint with a SINGLE vector SVG shape inserted into it. Sometimes multiple shapes work, but I’ve had problems with this.
Importing PowerPoint into Storyline:
- Create a new Storyline project, and import from PowerPoint.
- Check to see if the vector/SVG shape is now available on the slide. If it worked, it will show the layer as a “Freeform” graphic. If it says anything other than that, then something had not been prepped properly, and it hasn’t been imported as a vector. Go back and review.
- The aspect ratio will have changed after the vector is imported into Storyline. To correct this, open the original SVG in Illustrator to reference the width and height (Window —> Info panel) to get the correct dimensions and use those dimensions in Storyline. Once the aspect ratio is corrected, click on “Lock aspect ratio” in Storyline.
- You can now copy and paste this vector graphic from your storyline slide into your main Storyline Project.
The problem I'm running into now is dealing with a very slow and laggy Storyline project file because I've imported around 50 vector objects on a slide in order to build something that requires many layers. Might be something to keep in mind.
TP... thank you for this response. Along with Diarmaid's response, I decided I'd attempt this adventurous process to test the theory. The good news is that yes, in fact, you CAN actually get a custom vector shape imported into SL and it remains a vector shape! So I will gladly recant my previous claim that they weren't "shapes" or "vectors".
However... there are many caveats along this adventure. Along with the ones you mentioned, one possible dealbreaker is the fact that... from what I can tell... SL does not allow you to use decimals when trying to fix the aspect ratio/sizes of the objects. When entering numbers into the W and H boxes, it will not accept decimals. (Yet another) workaround is to try your best to make the overall dimensions of your shapes in Illustrator to be as close to whole numbers for the W and H before saving as an SVG. Fractions of pixels may not matter to some, but for many of us, when it comes to company logos and branded elements, fudging a half a pixel here or there can create problems when dealing with locked ratios. Either you have to distort the image (maybe not obvious by most), or worse, elements that normally line up perfectly suddenly have white or transparency showing through where they should be meeting exactly. These scenarios are often VERY visible, even to the untrained eye.
Another trip up I had... you have to make sure any transparencies on your shapes in Illustrator have the opacity adjusted on the FILL, NOT on the PATH. If the opacity of the PATH is anything but 100%, it will end up as a PNG in SL instead of a freeform shape.
Also... on the distortion issue, it appears as if you fit your artboard to the selected artwork before saving out of Illustrator, you don't get much change to the overall size and aspect ratio. My first attempt, after seeing Diamaid's comment, I attempted to bring over a group of 5 shapes together. I did not change the default artboard, and once in SL all five shapes were out of alignment. As I was trying to get the five of them back to proper proportions individually... first I realized the lack of decimal input I mentioned above... but then that frustration made the light bulb go off. Back in Illustrator I fit the artboard to the artwork, did the process again, and all five shapes remained perfectly aligned. (And I fixed the one shape that had it's 80% opacity on the Path. ;) )
All in all, this is still a ridiculously convoluted workaround. And there are issues that at this point don't appear to be avoidable (decimals in sizing), and certainly several pitfalls along the way if you're not careful. So I'm not sure I can say that I'm any "happier" about this situation than I was during my rant yesterday. But, at least I can (mostly) get a custom vector shape into SL as a vector. So that's... something. Lol.
Here's hoping that at least the Articulate staff and decision makers are reading all of this nonsense. Because by unfathomably refusing to implement this extremely simple feature, they're bringing the workflow of people who are forced to used this software to a grinding halt.
Hello Mikael and Luke,
We took a step in the direction to fill this need with the following ability:
Importing SVG Images from PowerPoint
The ability to natively use SVGs in Storyline is still a feature that we are tracking and this conversation is linked to the report so that we can share updates with you here.
Except if you don't have office 365 you can't use this feature, because that's the only version of PowerPoint that supports SVG files.
Also this link doesn't work.
I am experiencing the same issue as Dave. Many SVG components do not display at all after importing them from a PowerPoint. If they do end up displaying, many times it looks something like this. The only way I am able to import an SVG from PowerPoint into Articulate 360 Storyline is if the SVG is only using one layer and solid colours (no gradients). This makes importing SVG files from PowerPoint to Storyline much less valuable as it stands now.
When do you think it works to import native? We will start a 3 year project. I want to use Storyline 360 but the project requires us to import lots of SVG files. Solving it via PowerPoint would be time consuming. If I understand correctly, do colors change when we import from PowerPoint to SL360?
Is there no other way to import vector images so they keep in quality?
It has been over two years since the original post, the only real solution I have found is to build any course that heavily uses SVG's in captivate instead, as that has had support for some time. You can even edit colours and sizes on the fly of SVG's within a course.
Articulate really need to address this as I am less and less turning to their toolset.
The issue with Captivate is that it has not been updated in a long time and concerns about its future....over 300 of our digital learning content creators have moved this year from Captivate to Storyline only.
