Articulate Studio Cookbook

Chapter 1. Getting Started with Articulate Suite

In this chapter we will cover:

Launching Articulate Presenter
Publishing a simple, slide-only course for a website
Adding a background theme
Modifying slide masters
Adding a learning game to your course

Launching Articulate Presenter

Once you have Articulate installed on your computer, you can run any of the four programs that are part of the Articulate suite. Articulate Presenter functions as a plugin for Microsoft PowerPoint. Although the four programs are standalone applications, they are intended to work together. Articulate Presenter is the main program while Engage, Quizmaker, and Video Encoder can produce standalone, finished products.

How to do it…

When the Articulate suite is installed on your computer, it should provide you with desktop icons for all four of the programs in the Suite. This is the easiest way to access any of the programs in the Suite:

If you have installed the Articulate Studio Suite, you should have an icon for Articulate Presenter on your computer's desktop. Double-click on the icon and a dialog box should appear.
This dialog box gives you basic information about the application and how it should appear in your PowerPoint application.
Note
On the launch screen there are a series of buttons for View Tutorials, Join the Community, Product Support, and Visit Blogs. These buttons take you to recourses that are located on Articulate's website.
Note that at the bottom right-hand side of the dialog box it now says Launch PowerPoint. Clicking on this button will open PowerPoint with the Articulate plugin.
Once you have opened up PowerPoint, check that the Articulate tab has been included on the ribbon.

How it works…

If you need to perform this recovery feature, you will need to make sure to have administrator privileges on your computer. If you don't have such privileges, ask your system administrator for assistance.

There's more…

There is also another way to access Articulate Presenter. Since Presenter is a plugin of PowerPoint, it opens whenever PowerPoint is opened.

The other method of launching Articulate Presenter is simply by going to Start | Programs | Microsoft Office on your computer's desktop and double-clicking on the Microsoft PowerPoint application. Launching it in this way actually cuts out a step for those concerned about efficiency.

Recovering from startup errors

While Articulate Presenter is a stable application that works well, it is still a PowerPoint plugin. So like any software, from time to time, there's the possibility of errors happening. When these happen, don't be too alarmed. There are ways of recovering from most of the things that can happen:

If the Articulate tab is not there, you can get it back. If you are using PowerPoint 2010, start by clicking on File and then Options. If you are using PowerPoint 2007, start by clicking on the Office button, and then click on the PowerPoint Options button at the bottom of the menu.
A PowerPoint Options dialog box will appear; click on Add-Ins.
At the bottom of the dialog box, where the Manage select box is, select COM Add-Ins.
Click on the Go… button.
A COM Add-Ins dialog box will appear. Look for a line that says Articulate Presenter Ribbon and make sure it is checked. If not, check it; then click on OK.

Once these steps are completed, the Articulate tab should appear in PowerPoint.

Publishing a simple, slide-only course for a website

Articulate handles presentations differently from PowerPoint, creating a Flash animation video (a .swf file) out of it. This means that Articulate has to publish the presentation and not just save it as PowerPoint does. The published presentation consists of two parts, the presentation itself and the player. The player folder is the skin with the controls and other information about the presentation. In addition to controlling the slides of the course, it also allows access to other files if they have been added to the course.

When finished, each slide becomes its own Flash file. This allows for fast downloading by users who are accessing the course or presentation via the Internet. Additional content, such as a glossary, would be a separate Flash file accessible through the player.

Getting ready

Any presentation will consist of a number of slides. These slides may contain any of the text, graphics, and objects that PowerPoint can produce, along with other content that is created in Articulate Presenter or the other programs contained in the Articulate suite. We will be showing you how to add this material throughout this course.

In order to walk through the process of publishing a presentation, we're going to need a presentation that we can use. You can either open an existing PowerPoint presentation that you have on your computer or create a simple one. I've created a simple, three-slide presentation about the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

How to do it…

Once you have your presentation, there are two parts to accomplishing this recipe. The first one consists of creating the player template. Once we have created the template, we'll use that template to publish our simple course.

As you can see from this flow diagram, the process is a logical one. Typically, one starts by creating the presentation before creating or choosing the template. In this way, the template can be made to match the needs of the presentation.

Creating the template

The first thing we're going to need is a player template. This will tell Articulate how to set up the player when the presentation is published. Click on the Player Templates button in the Tools section of the Articulate ribbon.
The Player Templates dialog box will open. As we've already seen in other Articulate dialog boxes, this one also has a set of tabs along the left-hand side. It should open with the Layout tab highlighted; if not, select it.
The only change we want to make here at this time is in the View Modes. You will probably find all three tick boxes checked on the upper part of the center pane. Deselect the Standard view and No sidebar view, leaving only the Slide only view (Starting view) tick box checked.
We're now going to save these settings as a new player template. To do so, go to the drop-down list at the bottom of the dialog box. It will say Corporate Communications. Since we want this to be a new template, we're going to click on the button to the right of it that says File…, and select Save As… from the menu. A small dialog box opens for us to type in the new template's name. Let's call this one Slide Only Template.

Publishing the Course

Now that we have our template set up, we can go on to publish the presentation. Close the Player Templates dialog box and select the Publish button from the Articulate ribbon.
To do this, we'll need to be on the Web tab. The first thing we need to do is to provide the Publish Location. If you don't want to use the default location shown in the Folder area, click on the button to the right-hand side of the location (arrow 1 in the screenshot) and select the folder you would like to place the published presentation in. You can also type the location directly into the provided area (arrow 2 in the screenshot).
Dropping a little further down in the dialog box, we find an area called Properties. We'll need to give our presentation a name in the Published title area (arrow 3 on the screenshot). This is the name that will appear in the presentation window header when the presentation is published. Therefore, you want to use a proper name for the presentation. Finally we need to tell the program what template to use. We're going to select Slide Only Template (the template we just created) from the drop-down list.
We are now ready to publish our presentation. All we have to do is click on the Publish button in the dialog box and the program will do the rest.
Depending on the length of your presentation, publishing may take several minutes. To make this process run as fast as possible and reduce the chance of errors, it is recommended to not use your computer for other operations while Articulate is creating your Flash presentation. If you use copy and paste, what you have copied will show up in your presentation.

How it works…

As you can see from the tabs in the Publish dialog box, Articulate can publish your finished Flash presentation in a number of ways. The first tab, the one we used, creates the necessary files for publishing to the Web. You can also use this option for publishing on your computer for local use.

Note

Before you start publishing presentations, it's important to realize that not everything that PowerPoint does is supported by Articulate; specifically, the slide transitions aren't supported. So if you're accustomed to using transitions between your slides, you'll have to forgo that in Articulate Presenter. Likewise, not all animations from PowerPoint are supported. Later we'll show you which ones are.

Once you start working in Articulate Presenter, it creates a second file for your presentation. So instead of only having a .pptx file from PowerPoint, you will also have a .ppta file. The name will be the same, and only the file extension will be different. If you need to move your presentation to another folder on your computer or put it on removable media for it to work on another computer, be sure to copy both the files, otherwise you will lose all the work that you did in Articulate.

The Flash presentations that Articulate creates are noneditable Flash files. This provides a great advantage over standard PowerPoint files, which can be modified by the end user. In training and sales presentation situations, where the user is viewing the presentation on their own, there is no possibility of the viewer accidentally or intentionally making changes to the file.

Once Articulate has finished publishing your Flash presentation, it will notify you by displaying the Publish Successful dialog box. This provides you with a number of options, including the ability to view your presentation, upload it to the Web via FTP, or compress it in a ZIP file.

If you open the folder that contains your presentation, you will see that it consists of a number of files. The folder will be titled with the name of the presentation, and it will contain two folders (titled data and player) and a player.HTML file. The player file is the one that you click to play the presentation. It will open in whatever program the user has selected as your default for Flash files, probably their default web browser.

You can rename this file as desired. However, don't rename the folders. If you need to copy, move, or upload your presentation, be sure to move the entire folder, including the subfolders and the player file. Otherwise, your flash presentation will not work.

Adding a background theme

Artistic design is an important part of creating a presentation. You want people's eyes to be attracted to your presentation, and even more importantly, you want it to hold their attention. That's pretty much impossible to do if your presentation isn't attractive.

You also want your presentation to provide some identity with the subject matter and/or your company's brand. Whether designing a presentation for a training session, corporate proposal, or sales, you need to be able to tie the whole thing together, providing visual continuity so that the viewer understands that it is all part of one continuous theme.

At this point, the theme we are creating only deals with the presentation and not the skin. That will be done at another time. For the best possible results, you want your presentation theme and your skin theme to go together. It is helpful to keep your skin theme colors in mind while creating your presentation theme.

There are actually several ingredients in creating this visual theme, such as the background image, the placement of objects on the slides, and the text size, style, and color. For this reason, it is very useful to start the creation of your presentation by applying a theme to the slides in the presentation. Microsoft PowerPoint has this capability built-in along with a number of themes that are available for its use.

How to do it…

Themes are created using PowerPoint's capability rather than Articulate's. However, the skin theme is created in Articulate:

To access these themes, you need to click on the Design tab at the top of the PowerPoint screen. Your ribbon should change to show the following screenshot:
Selecting from PowerPoint's installed themes only requires clicking on the theme's thumbnail on the ribbon.
Note
Please note that not all the themes are visible at once. Clicking on the scroll bar to the right-hand side of the shown themes allows you to scroll through all the themes you have installed on your system. The arrow with the line at the bottom of the scroll bar is for opening the drop-down that shows all the installed themes at once.

How it works…

Selecting a theme for a presentation gives us the following:

Background options
Text styles
Color pallets

There's more…

The themes themselves are fully customizable. There are three buttons located to the right-hand side of the shown themes, which provide for the customization of the colors, fonts, and effects in the theme.

Changing theme colors

By clicking on the Colors button in the Themes section of the ribbon, a drop-down appears that allows the selection of the existing color themes. This may be divided into two separate areas depending upon the selected theme, the upper section showing the color themes that are available for that particular theme, and the lower section listing all of the color themes that are built-in to Microsoft Office.

For most themes, selecting a color theme doesn't affect the background color; it affects the text and bullet point colors. However, there are a few themes that change to match the color scheme selected. You'll have to play with the theme you are using to see what changes it allows you to make. If none of the included color themes satisfy your need, you can modify them by selecting Create New Theme Colors… from the bottom of the drop-down list. This opens a dialog box for creating a new color theme.

By selecting one of the existing color themes, you can use it as your starting point for creating your new color theme. The theme shown in the screenshot of the dialog box is the "Text" theme. Each type of Text, Accent, and Hyperlink theme can be individually changed. Your new color theme can then be saved under whatever name you choose.

To change the background color, one would need to select Background Styles in the Background section of the ribbon. Since in many cases the backgrounds are pictures, you are somewhat limited to the amount of color change that you can make. However, there are some themes that are not images, but rather are designs that are appropriate for being used as the background. In these cases, you can change colors, add a texture, or change from a solid fill to a gradient. This varies from theme to theme, depending upon what is built in to that theme.

Changing theme fonts

Selecting Fonts from the Themes section on the ribbon allows you to select any of the standard Microsoft Office font style sets. These are the same font style sets that are used in Microsoft Word and other office applications.

Just as with the color themes, the font themes are fully customizable. Selecting Create New Theme Fonts… at the bottom of the Fonts drop-down opens a dialog box for selecting the heading and body fonts that you want to use in your theme. These can then be saved as a new font theme.

Note

The reason that you can only select the heading and body fonts rather than select a variety of different fonts is that, artistically speaking, it is not recommended to use more than two fonts in a document. You still have the availability to individually change the font of a specific word, line, or page of text if you so desire, but that would not be a part of the font theme.

Changing theme effects

The final area of customization available for your theme is the effects, selectable by clicking on the Effects button in the Themes section of the ribbon. The Effects drop-down provides a selection of the different effects that can be used in the theme. These effects are automatically applied to buttons and other objects in the presentation as a part of the theme.

Saving your changed theme

Once you make changes to a theme, you can save that modified theme under a new name. This would be especially useful if you needed to create a series of presentations and wanted to maintain branding throughout the series.

To save your new theme, open the Themes dropbox by clicking on the button at the bottom of the scroll bar to the right-hand side of the theme thumbnails. At the bottom of the dropbox it will say Save Current Theme…. Clicking on this opens the standard, Windows Save As… dialog box, which will be open to the themes folder on your computer.

Adding a theme from Microsoft.com or third-party websites

Although Microsoft PowerPoint comes with a number of themes preinstalled, it may not have the theme that you want for the presentation you are trying to produce. Never fear, that has already been considered, and the ability to add themes has been built right into PowerPoint.

You can find themes on Microsoft's website and a large number of third-party websites who produce them both for free and for sale. Both of these sources can be used and added to your personal copy of PowerPoint.

To search for and add themes from Microsoft, click on the button at the bottom of the scroll bar to the right-hand side of the themes thumbnails to open the themes drop-down list. On the bottom of this drop-down, you will see the words More Themes on Microsoft Office Online.... Clicking on that legend will take you to the themes page on the Microsoft website.

The web page will show you a variety of themes for all of the Microsoft Office products. Since we are working in PowerPoint, you will want to select the PowerPoint themes by using the button on the left-hand side of the screen.

Selecting a theme allows you to download it to your computer. This is essentially the same procedure you would use to select and download a theme from a third-party website. While the details will vary with the website, the idea is the same.

Themes consist of several files, so they are downloaded as a .zip file. You will need to unzip the file to a location on your hard drive in order to input it into a PowerPoint or Articulate presentation. Once the theme is downloaded and unzipped, you will need to find the theme, bring it into PowerPoint, and click on the legend Browse for Themes… on the themes drop-down list. This will open a standard Windows dialog box, allowing you to search for and select the theme and follow the prompts to install the new theme. It will show up immediately in PowerPoint without restarting.

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Lauren Feb 28, 2013

My first interest in this text was to review it for a course we're developing on rapid development. The text itself is thorough and clearly written. The writing style is informal, comfortable to the eye and inner ear. Even though I've worked with Studio since 2005, I found myself muttering "I didn't know that" more than a few times. The author and manuscript reviewers obviously know their tool well and in depth.The color screenshots are clear, well placed, and very well explained in clear language; text offsets point out what's important, potential pitfalls, and the "why" of doing something a certain way.If you're looking for a good reference as a newbie to Studio, or if you're instructing newbies, this is a great place to start.They've done a great job on this book!

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ana Jul 16, 2013

I really enjoyed this book, because is not only for articulate beginners, it also helps power point users.it's really helpful!

Helene Geiger, Prometheus Training Dec 20, 2012

This book is the perfect recipe for anyone getting started with Articulate Studio elearning software.The problem for most newbies is that elearning software can be overwhelming at first. You get so wrapped up in all the functionality that you lose sight of when or why you might use any particular function.The "Cookbook" helps you step back from the functionality and think about the big picture first. It doesn't overwhelm you with theory - but is explains clearly and simply, what your development process needs to be, and why.Then the book walks you through building a course, in small digestible chunks. It's all laid out logically and painlessly for you, by people who have clearly been there and understand the in's and out's of this software.The book holds your hand as you build a course in each of Studio's sub-programs individually: Articulate Presenter, Engage and Quizmaker. You'll quickly learn what each sub-program can do, and how to use each function.Then the book shows you how to combine elements created in Presenter, Engage and Quizmaker into a single elearning course. This is an important piece of the puzzle that is neglected in some of the other Studio training books.If you want to create elearning using Articulate Studio, this book will get you off to just the right start!

Rich Miller Jan 29, 2013

This book is a perfect starter for anyone interested in using Articulate Studio 09(and experienced users). Robert starts with the basics about the product and how it functions then gets into the design features with themes, templates fonts, and colors. He discusses the importance of slide masters(very). Once the design is set, he then takes the reader through all of the features in a very easy to read fashion. He goes through Presenter, Engage and Quizmaker with some step by step instructions and then explains how to combine these into a cohesive e-learning course. I highly recommend this book to both beginners to the software and advanced users who will undoubtedly find these spots in the book where you say "I didn't know that"

Meric Jan 14, 2013

This is a great book for anyone that is new to the world of Articulate. For most e-learning developer, we do not read the manuals or there is not a good book to out there on the specific program. This book will help any newbie to the program and is a good desk reference for the experienced user. Robert takes you through each of the programs separately then brings them all together to show you how to build a course.Throughout the book Robert explains step by step on the process and then adds some tit-bits about additional information at the specific step. As an experienced Articulate user I am always looking for information on how to perform different steps or understand different functions within Articulate and I even learned a few interesting things with using YouTube and Vimeo from this book.Robert's book is easy to read and does not get bogged down in any technical mumbo jumbo, but gets to the points so you understand the programs.

Articulate Studio Cookbook: Go from Studio newbie to Studio guru

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