In this article by Ashley Chiasson, author of the book Articulate Storyline Essentials, we will see how to preview your story.

(For more resources related to this topic, see here.)

Previewing your story

Previewing a story might sound like a straightforward concept, and it is, but Storyline gives you a ton of different previewing options, and you can pick and choose what works best for you!

There are two main ways for you to preview an entire story. The most straightforward way of previewing a story is to select the Preview button from the Home tab.

The other way to preview an entire story is to select the Preview icon on the bottom pane of the Storyline interface.

You can also use the shortcut key F12 to preview an entire story.

Once you choose to preview the full story, the Preview menu will appear. Here you can go through the story as your audience would and make any necessary adjustments prior to publishing the story.

Within the Preview menu, you can close the preview; select individual slides; replay a particular slide, scene, or the entire project; and edit an individual slide.

Maybe you only want to preview a particular slide or scene. In this instance, you'll want to select the drop-down icon on the Preview button on the Home tab, and then select whether you want to preview This Slide or This Scene.

To preview the selected slide, you can use the shortcut key Ctrl + F12. To preview the selected scene, you can use the shortcut key Shift + F12.

These options are fantastic and will save you a lot of preview-generating time, particularly when you have a slide- or scene-heavy story and don't want to go through the motions of previewing the entire story each and every time you wish to see a certain piece of the story.

It is important to note that not all content within Storyline is available during preview. These items include hyperlinks, imported interactions (for example, from Articulate Engage), web objects, videos from external websites, and course completion/tracking status.

Once you have selected Preview, you will be provided with the Preview menu. This menu allows you to do several things:

• Close the preview
• Select a different slide (if previewing the entire story or a scene)
• Replay the slide, scene, or entire course
• Edit the selected slide within Slide View

Once you have previewed your story and have determined that everything is as you want it to be, you're ready to customize your Storyline player and publish!

Summary

This article explained how to preview your story. Storyline makes it easy to customize your learners' experience and share your story.

Previewing your story allows you to streamline your development; without a preview feature, you would have to publish every single time you wanted to see a slide—no one has time for that! You should now feel comfortable working with the player customization options, so let your imagination flow and create a custom player for your story!

If you're looking to dig a bit deeper into Articulate Storyline's capabilities, please check out Learning Articulate Storyline by Stephanie Harnett, and stay tuned for Mastering Articulate Storyline by Ashley Chiasson (slated for release in mid 2015), where you'll learn all about pushing Storyline's features and functionality to the absolute limits!

Resources for Article:

Further resources on this subject:

• Creating Your Course with Presenter [article]
• Rapid Development [article]
• Moodle for Online Communities [article]