Storyline 3: Working with Hotspots

Hotspots are invisible buttons. They're great for triggering actions, like showing layers and jumping to other slides. They're also very effective in drag-and-drop interactions.

• Adding Hotspots
• Resizing, Rotating, and Repositioning Hotspots
• Showing or Hiding a Hand Cursor When Hovering over Hotspots
• Renaming Hotspots
• Making Hotspots Work
• Deleting Hotspots

Adding Hotspots

1. Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon, click Hotspot, and choose one of the hotspot shapes.
2. Draw the hotspot on your slide or layer.

While you're working in Storyline, hotspots will appear as semi-transparent shapes, but they're completely invisible when you preview or publish.

You can format hotspots with colors and effects to make them easier to see while you’re working in Storyline, but they'll still be invisible in your published course.

Resizing, Rotating, and Repositioning Hotspots

Resize	To resize a hotspot, drag any of its sizing handles.
Rotate	To rotate a hotspot, drag its rotation handle.
Reposition	To reposition a hotspot, just drag it to another location on the slide.

 

Another way to resize, rotate, and reposition a hotspot is to right-click it and select Size and Position. See this user guide for details.

You can arrange hotspots with other objects on the slide by sending them backward or bringing them forward. However, their triggers won't work if they're covered by other objects.

Showing or Hiding a Hand Cursor When Hovering over Hotspots

By default, your mouse will change to a hand cursor when you hover over a hotspot in a published course.

This is great if you want learners to know that part of the screen is clickable. However, if you don’t want the mouse to change to a hand cursor, right-click the hotspot and uncheck the option to Show Hand Cursor on Hover.

Renaming Hotspots

Storyline gives each hotspot a default name: Hotspot 1, Hotspot 2, etc. We recommend giving them more intuitive names, so they're recognizable when adding triggers and creating freeform interactions.

One way to rename a hotspot is to right-click it, select Rename, enter a new name, and click OK.

Another way is to double-click the hotspot in the timeline to open it for editing, enter a new name, and press Enter on your keyboard.

Making Hotspots Work

To make hotspots interactive, you'll need to add triggers to them. To learn more about triggers, see this user guide.

Tip: You can add multiple triggers to the same hotspot. For example, you might add a trigger to show a layer when learners hover over a hotspot, and you might add another trigger to jump to a different slide when they click it.

Deleting Hotspots

To delete a hotspot, select it on the slide or in the timeline, then click Delete on your keyboard.