8. Time-Saving Tips for Storyline Designers

You’ve learned the basics, now let’s talk about some ways to streamline your development processes. Creating interactive e-learning takes time — but Storyline has loads of tricks to help you work smarter without cutting corners. Here are some of my favorite time-saving techniques.

Use Slide Masters & Templates

One of my biggest tips is to save your layouts as templates (.storytemplate). This allows you to customize a design with reusable button sets, standard feedback layers, and branded colors, fonts, and styles.

Utilize the Content Library

The Content Library is your best friend! Find characters, icons, illustrations, photos, and videos — all free for you to use in your Storyline courses. These are often the same images you'd find from popular stock providers online, but they’re accessible directly within Storyline for instant use in your course.

Freely Use Copy, Paste, & Format Painter

It might sound simple, but copy and paste is a huge time-saver in Storyline, just as in other content development programs. I find it particularly useful for duplicating layers and triggers between slides.

Use Format Painter to quickly apply styles to objects in your course. A single click on Format Painter will capture the style for one use, while double-clicking allows you to apply the style repeatedly until you exit the tool (click Format Painter again or press ESC when you're done).

Familiarize Yourself with Align, Distribute, & Grid Tools

To keep your course slides neat, use tools like snap-to-grid, alignment, and distribution for pixel-perfect placement. Enable Snap to Grid by going to the View tab, clicking Grid and Guides, and checking the Snap to grid box.

Use alignment tools to align objects within a slide (e.g., Align Top, Align Left). Use distribution tools to evenly space objects (e.g., Distribute Horizontally). You’ll find these options in the Home tab under Arrange.

Use Cue Points and Timeline Features to Sync Actions

Use cue points (press “c” on your keyboard while playing audio from the timeline) to mark exactly when an animation should sync with your audio. You can then drag timeline items to align with those cue points.

You can also reference cue points in triggers (for example, “Show layer 1 when the timeline reaches Cue Point 1”). Right-click timeline objects to access options like Align to Playhead or Align Playhead to Object.

Set Custom Shortcuts

You can customize the Quick Access Toolbar for the tools you use most often. Right-click on the main toolbar to choose whether to show the Quick Access Toolbar above or below it. Then, right-click on any feature (like Animation) and select Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

I have Animation, Media Library, and Slide Master saved on my Quick Access Toolbar — saving me a few clicks when working on course builds.

I hope you found this list of my favorite shortcuts helpful! As you get more familiar with the tool, you’ll likely discover other tricks to make your course development quicker and easier.