Tips When Using Articulate Storyline 360 Templates

This post is adapted from a webinar, register here to view the recording.

One of my favourite new features in Storyline 360 is the ever-growing Content Library that has lots of new characters, photos, illustrations, icons and videos – all of which can be found via a new section in the Insert tab.

But wait, there’s more! If you go to the Slides tab, you’ll see a Content Library icon where you can access hundreds of slide templates that have been designed by the folks at Articulate. You can use the templates to build entire modules or add in amongst your own content slides.

The templates are grouped into sets (some have cool names like Tectonic, Quantum and Chroma) and within each set there’s opening and closing slides, content slides, interactive slides, quizzing slides and more. You can look for a particular slide template by using the filter on the left:

When you’ve selected a template you’d like to use, click on the Insert Slide button and if you hold down the Ctrl key you can select multiple templates and insert them all at once. Then you can replace the placeholder images and text with the content for your module. Many of the templates have instructions for using the template as the placeholder text like this one:

Here’s five tips when using slide templates in a project:

1. The layouts work best if your slide size has an aspect ratio of either 4:3 or 16:9. If you’re using a custom aspect ratio, you may need to adjust the slide objects especially if the template uses a background image.
2. When you add a template to your project it also adds a set of Master slides for that group to your Slide Master (you can see this via the View tab).
3. The templates are completely editable and you can add or remove objects to suit the needs of your project.
4. Some of the layouts use text, shapes and icons that have been grouped (you’ll see this in the timeline). You can edit items within the group or ungroup, edit then regroup the objects.
5. If you’re using a colour theme in your project (I’d recommend setting this up before you get started) you’ll be able to recolour the templates after you’ve inserted them. Go to the Design tab > Colours > then right-click on your colour theme and select Apply to All Slides. You can do the same if you’re using font themes.

Using these templates can be a huge time saver as the design aspect of the slide is already done for you. You’ll need to plan how you’ll be chunking your content (which you’d already be doing) to know which of templates to choose. Even if you don’t use the templates, they can even be a source of design ideas if you want to build your own slides.

For more information on using the Content Library templates, check out this article.

If you’re interested in an Articulate 360 subscription, remember you get more when you buy from B Online Learning. We are a local Articulate Reseller and the Exclusive Certified Trainer in Australia and New Zealand. Be sure to check our event schedule for upcoming professional development.