New Rise Feature: Export as PDF

I’ve made the PDF available to learners by simply adding a block lesson “download course” and inserting the PDF as a “multimedia” file attachment.  

Helpful, but less so since collaborators still cannot export ANYTHING...only the Rise course owner can currently perform an export. We need more granular control so the course owner can authorize collaborators (globally and/or individual course) to do certain tasks (e.g., export to LMS, web, PDF; post to Review, send Share link, etc.). Let the course owner (rather than Articulate) decide how course workflow should be handled! 

Really pleased you've introduced this feature. Thanks so much! One suggestion for future improvement is to include the feedback for any multiple choice / multiple response questions, as the PDF version doesn't appear to give an indication of the correct answer(s) nor the feedback given. But otherwise, it's great.

Thanks for clarifying, Ashley. I can see why the correct answers and feedback aren't included if the target audience is the learner. But sometimes our stakeholders want a printed copy as part of the development process, and so it would be helpful if we could choose to include the feedback answers when exporting to PDF. 

Hi Ann and Christine,

When you export a Rise to PDF, there are certain changes we have to make for interactivity. They're detailed here:

Here’s how the interactive parts of your Rise course appear in the PDF file:

• Hyperlinks work as expected and launch in your default web browser.
• Audio clips, videos, and web objects become static placeholder images.
• Interactions, such as labeled graphics and tabs, become a series of screenshots, one for each item in the interaction. (Each flashcard becomes two screenshots, one for the front and another for the back.)
• A Storyline block becomes a screenshot of the first slide in the project.
• Quiz lessons and knowledge check blocks display questions and answer choices. They don’t show correct/incorrect responses or feedback statements.

The issue that Sumi mentioned was something our team also spotted last night where the Next function to another lesson was missing, and it was fixed up! Let us know if you're still spotting it! 

Great stuff ! - one suggestion though - pagination, particularly recognising where page breaks will occur when generating a pdf is a challenge you might want to solve...

I'm exporting to PDF and getting a 1 page blank file. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

I'm so glad this feature was added at last!  I have one client who didn't want any more courses built in Rise until this feature was available, for compliance reasons.  Sorry I'm late to the game, but thanks for making this a priority!  However...

In trying a couple of PDFs, and reading this thread, I agree with some suggestions, and have other comments to add:

• For a tabbed interaction, because you're grabbing a screen cap of the tabs, if there are more tabs than can be shown without clicking the right arrow, then the additional tabs are of course simply cut off.  The actual body text content on the tab is included in the PDF, but not seeing the appropriately-titled tab header with it is problematic.
• Similarly, because you're currently using screencaps for flash cards, if the text on the card is longer, it fades away into nothingness--which is a real issue for a compliance course.  I'm hoping you are working on a way to grab the actual text from these items, so none of the course content is lost?
• Page breaks are sometimes awkward.  Not the end of the world.  But if you can add a "no widow/orphan" aspect, that would be great.
• As others have noted, being able to choose whether or not to include question feedback would be very useful.  Sometimes a client wants everything verbatim for compliance reasons; other times for accessibility reasons they want to supply the basic content as the learner would experience it online, but with the questions left unanswered (to prevent a learner from circulating the PDF as an "answer key.")

Thanks again for adding this essential feature (along with other great Rise enhancement), but I do hope you are committed to improving this PDF export as soon as possible?  From a compliance perspective, either every word of the course is present in the PDF, or it's not.  If it's not, it will not satisfy most clients' compliance requirements.

Hi Libby,

You should be able to edit items like text size, images, and page break issues by editing the exported course in Adobe Acrobat Pro. I know there are also some free PDF editors available, so you may want to test a few of those if you don't have access to Adobe's version. 

I appreciate your feedback, James! 

Right now, the PDF export will not show correct/incorrect answers on knowledge check or quiz questions. 

Also, I'd recommend publishing the Storyline 360 content to Word to reveal all the layers within the Storyline block.