Big pictures in your Storyline course can REFUSE to shrink. Here’s a fix…

The problem

For learners on mobiles (or in remote areas), big pictures in your Storyline course can?really?slow it down, making it painful to use. (Or even?useless?to them!)

So, to avoid that, your LMS team might have a size limit on SCORM files they’ll accept onto the system.

Recently, I came across that problem – on more than one project. But, thanks to the Articulate community, I found a neat fix…

The cause

When you publish, Storyline saves your?cropped?pictures as PNG files – even if they?should?be JPEGs. (And PNGs are often up to?10× bigger.)

In essence, this tip involves discarding cropped areas from your biggest pictures. For some reason, that keeps them as JPGs in your SCORM file.

The diagnosis – to check if you have this problem

1. Go to your course’s?Storyline output?folder in Windows.
2. Open the?Mobile?folder.
3. Sort by file size. (Choose?View > Details, then click the?Size?column heading.) Chances are, some PNGs will be among the biggest files.
4. Preview a few big PNGs to see which pictures they are. (View > Preview pane)

The workaround

Here’s the fix in brief:

a. Back up your?.story?file.

b. Save your biggest pictures as cropped JPEGs.

c. Replace the originals on your slides.

And here’s the fix in full:

1. Back up your?.story?file (so you can adjust the cropping later if needed).
2. In Storyline, choose?View > Media Library > Images.?(You can sort by size, too).
3. In Media Library, click the biggest picture you previewed in Windows.
4. To go to the relevant slide, choose?Jump to location. (It’s the button with a “magnifying glass on a page” icon.)
5. Copy the offending picture from your slide (rather than from Media Library).?If you want, drag Media Library out of the way – but keep it open (for speed).
6. In your preferred* photo editor, paste the picture. (It’ll appear cropped and sized like it is on your slide.)
7. From that app, save the picture as a JPEG file.
8. On your slide, right-click the picture and choose?Replace Picture > Picture from File, then replace it with the JPEG file.
9. Using the?next biggest?PNG?file you found, return to?step 3?in this section...

(* In?step 6, you?could?use Photoshop. Or, for speed and simplicity, you might prefer to use Paint –?like me. Each to their own!)

The result

Now, when you publish, the pictures you replaced will stay as JPEGs in the output. (It’s like?magic??)

For instance, in the screenshot at the top of this post, you could shave about?10 MB?off the size of the SCORM file, just by replacing the?6 biggest?PNGs with JPEGs.

Might your peers find this tip helpful?

Please share it.

Had this problem yourself? How did you work around it?

Feel free to raise any queries or suggestions you have about this tip, too...

P.S. Thanks to?Mark Lentz?for sharing?here?(in the Articulate community) his outline of this tip, which is how I fixed the projects I mentioned at the start.

??If you follow that link, you might see the discussion dates back over?3 years.?It’s a real shame when Articulate don’t?fix?these things!