Storyline 360: Adding a Glossary

Add a glossary to your player so learners can quickly discover the meaning of terms and concepts in your course content. Storyline 360 makes it easy to add, edit, and reuse glossaries. This user guide explains how.

• Displaying the Glossary Tab in Your Course
• Showing or Hiding the Glossary on Individual Slides
• Adding Terms and Definitions
• Importing Terms and Definitions from a CSV File
• Exporting Your Glossary to a CSV File
• Editing Entries
• Deleting Entries
• Changing the Name of the Glossary Tab

Displaying the Glossary Tab in Your Course

For the glossary to appear in your course, it needs to be enabled in your player (the frame around your slides).

1. Go to the Home tab on the ribbon and click Player.
2. When the player properties appear, the Features button will already be selected on the ribbon. Mark the box to display the Glossary tab.
   
   
3. Click OK to save your changes and close the player properties.

Learn more about choosing player features.

Showing or Hiding the Glossary on Individual Slides

When you enable built-in player tabs, such as the glossary, they display on all slides in your course by default. However, you can hide them from specific slides. For example, you might not want learners to have access to the glossary on quiz slides. Use slide properties to turn built-in player tabs on and off. See this user guide for details.

Adding Terms and Definitions

There are two ways to add terms and definitions to your glossary. You can type them in Storyline, as described here, or you can import them from a CSV file, as described in the next section below.

1. Go to the Home tab on the ribbon and click Player.
2. When the player properties appear, click Glossary on the ribbon.
3. Click the Add button at the bottom of the window. (The icon looks like a blank piece of paper.)
4. When the Glossary Term window appears, enter a term and its definition in the fields provided.
   
   
5. Click Save. As you add glossary terms, Storyline automatically alphabetizes them for you.
6. When you’re done adding terms and definitions, click OK to save your changes and close the Player Properties window.

Importing Terms and Definitions from a CSV File

Save time by creating a glossary in a spreadsheet and then importing it into Storyline. This is a great way to involve subject matter experts (SMEs) in the course creation process. Ask your SMEs to build the glossary. Then all you have to do is import it. And if they update the spreadsheet later, you simply import it again. It’s so easy!

To import glossaries, you must have Storyline 360 build 3.30.19518.0 or later (July 23, 2019 or later).

Step 1: Create the CSV File

First, create the file that you’ll import.

1. Create a spreadsheet in your favorite app, such as Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, or Google Sheets.
2. Enter terms in the first column and their definitions in the second column.
3. Save, export, or download the spreadsheet as a comma-separated values (CSV) file.

Here are some helpful tips for building your spreadsheet:

• Column headers are optional. If you add a header row, call the first column Term and the second column Definition. If you use any other words for the header row, Storyline will think it’s a glossary entry and import it into your project.
• Storyline won’t import rows where either the term or the definition is blank.
• Storyline imports plain text only.
• Want to start with a glossary template? Download this simple CSV file, then enter your terms and definitions.

Which CSV format should I choose when saving a file in Excel? Excel supports several CSV file formats. For the best results with non-English characters, use one of the following formats when you save your CSV file. Other file formats can change accented characters to symbols. Excel for Windows: CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) CSV (Comma delimited) Excel for Mac: Windows Comma Separated (csv)

 

Step 2: Import the CSV File

Next, import the CSV file into Storyline.

1. Go to the Home tab on the ribbon and click Player.
2. When the player properties appear, click Glossary on the ribbon.
3. Click the Import Glossary button at the bottom of the window. (It’s the next to last icon.)
4. Select your CSV glossary file and click Open.

Step 3: Respond to Confirmation Messages

Storyline is smart about importing—and reimporting—CSV files. You’ll see one of the following messages with details about how your CSV file imported.

Storyline Message	Your Response
The glossary was imported successfully.	Everything imported smoothly. You only need to click OK to complete the process.
There are {#} terms in your project that do not exist in the imported file. Do you want to keep them?	Click Keep to retain all the entries in your Storyline project and also import the new entries from your CSV file. Click Delete to remove the entries from your Storyline project that don’t exist in your CSV file and import all the terms from your CSV file instead. Click Cancel to abort the import process.
The CSV file is locked because it’s already open.	Click OK, close the CSV file if it’s open in another program, then try importing it into Storyline again.

 

What happens when I reimport a CSV file into the same project? If a term exists in your project file and in the CSV file, Storyline updates the definition in your project file to match the CSV file. If a term exists only in the CSV file, Storyline imports it and adds it to your glossary. If a term exists only in your project file, Storyline asks if you want to keep it or delete it.

Exporting Your Glossary to a CSV File

To export glossaries, you must have Storyline 360 build 3.30.19518.0 or later (July 23, 2019 or later).

Easily export your glossary to a CSV file so you can reuse it in other projects.

1. Go to the Home tab on the ribbon and click Player.
2. When the player properties appear, click Glossary on the ribbon.
3. Click the Export Glossary button at the bottom of the window. (It’s the last icon.)
4. Choose a location and file name for your CSV file, then click Save.

You can import the CSV file into another project or edit it and import it back into the same project.

Editing Entries

Inline Editing

The easiest way to edit a glossary entry is to click a term or its definition to open the field for inline editing. Then edit the text and press Enter.

To use inline editing, you must have Storyline 360 build 3.30.19518.0 or later (July 23, 2019 or later).

Editing in a New Window

You can also edit glossary entries in a separate, resizable window.

1. Select an entry and click the Edit button below the glossary. Or, double-click a glossary entry.
2. When the Glossary Term window opens, edit the term and/or the definition.
3. Click Save to close the window.

Deleting Entries

To delete an entry, simply select it and click the Delete button below the glossary.

To delete multiple entries at the same time, use Ctrl+Click, Shift+Click, or Ctrl+A to select the entries you want to remove. Then click Delete. Note: You must have Storyline 360 build 3.30.19518.0 or later (July 23, 2019 or later) to multi-select glossary entries.

Changing the Name of the Glossary Tab

Want to change the title of the Glossary tab? Just edit the name in your player text labels. If you need help editing text labels, see this user guide.