Hyperlink Hijinks

Those of us who develop our courses with the Microsoft PowerPoint/Articulate Suite combo are familiar with a host of buggy little problems. Don’t get me wrong…I like the programs just fine, and, ultimately, I feel they get the job done pretty well…but sometimes it’s a frustrating ride.

I recently had a course in which I had to create a number of hyperlinks, leading from particular slides to corresponding PDF documents. Having accomplished this task once before, I thought I knew how to do it. However, once I’d published this course…all of the links were broken.

After stubbornly trying a number of tactics that I’ll loosely call “fixes,” I finally conceded failure. Once I climbed in off the ledge, I contacted a colleague who straightened it out for me. I thought that her advice would be worth sharing.

Step 1: Prepare the PDF file you plan to hyperlink by removing capital letters, and spaces from between words, in the file’s title. If this step is overlooked, the links will not function once the course is published. For example “Meditations on a Crimson Shadow.pdf” would need to be represented as “meditationsonacrimsonshadow.pfd”.

Step 2: Upload the PDF document to the “Attachments” area of the PowerPoint (located on the “Articulate” menu-tab).

Step 3: Highlight the text or object to which you will hyperlink the document and click “Hyperlink” (located on the “Insert” menu-tab).

Step 4: Browse for the appropriate PDF title from your files and select it.

Step 5: Entirely remove the displayed pathway, EXCEPT for the pdf title (e.g., “meditationsonacrimsonshadow.pfd”) and save.

Step 6: Publish.

Step 7: Open the published file’s root folder, open the “data” folder, and open the “downloads” folder. Copy the appropriate PDF file and past it into the published root file. This is a critical step. If the appropriate PDF file is not copied into the published course root folder, it will not open when the link is clicked.

Admittedly, this process may not be only one which will establish functioning hyperlinks within an Articulate course—and, maybe it’s not even the best one. However it is simple, fast, and (best of all) it works! And it never hurts to find a way to make the PowerPoint/Articulate development process a little less frustrating.

Little Things Mean a Lot...of Aggravation

It’s usually it is the little things that will drive one to brink of madness. By their very nature, though, little things are…little. That makes them a bit less threatening than a giant SNAFU…but infinitely harder to find. For example, I recently had a little problem with an Articulate interaction I created to add some zazz to the course I was animating.

The interaction seemed to come together pretty well. The settings, color scheme, fonts, tabs, controls, and whatnot were all aligned with my organization’s specifications. A little slice of heaven.

Much to my chagrin, when I previewed the interaction, I discovered that the audio file would begin to play when it should…and then start over for a second time at about 5 seconds in. Basically, it sounded like a slightly delayed echo from the bottom of a garbage can.

Naturally, I was a little irritated because I’d have to redo the audio. So, I opened the interaction file once more and re-installed the audio file. I saved and republished the interaction—same problem.

Hmmmm…OK, now it was ratcheting up my frustration level. I mean, I’ve created HOW many of these in the past? What was the problem? One more time…

After repeating the process again, and finding the same echoing double-audio, I tried the program’s “Help” option. The information in “Help” rarely holds any answers for me, and this time was no different. So, I started looking for answers online. I tried a few message boards, including the Articulate site’s posting areas. I found nothing.

I’m guessing that, at this point, you as the reader are getting as frustrated with me as I was with Articulate…so I’ll cut the chase!

I finally found an obscure post on a site that had little to do with Articulate or e-learning. I had wasted time, effort, and my last iota of self control—but I had finally found an answer I hadn’t read before. It said that the problem of double-audio in an interaction could be the result of having punctuation symbols in the file's save-name. What? This solution seemed SO disconnected from the actual problem, and everything else I’d read or experienced, that I assumed it was a sham.

Since it was such a simple little fix I thought I’d give it a try. I found the Articulate interaction file in the course material, and I removed the em-dash from the save-name…and I’ll be darned if it didn’t work like a charm! That was it! All that messing around, swearing, stomping to-and-fro like a toddler in a poo poo diaper…just one TINY edit to the file name and my problem was solved.

I know…bizarre.

At any rate, the point of this wandering little reverie is that sometimes, when things aren’t working out, it’s just a little tweak that makes a big difference. Next time I have a little issue with a job, I plan to take a little break, do a little research, and maybe save the last little sliver of my mind…

Consistently Designing

Instructional designers (IDs) are, by necessity, a creative breed. As a result, like many other folks of an artistic nature--we often have our idiosyncrasies. My personal curse is an obsession with consistency.

My background is in school district public relations, and the district I worked for was a leader in the field. One major factor of our success was very strict adherence to the department's style guide. Documents were checked and double-checked before publication and distribution, to ensure that they conformed to the guide; a veritable tome containing the carious rules and regulations that governed the creation of district communications.

Evidently, old habits really do die hard.

I've found it difficult, but critical, to accept that in the field of instructional design, it is often necessary to modify my stringency regarding consistency. Oh, don't get me wrong--the organization I work for has a style guide, and we do follow it. We use standardized templates for our courses; there are required formats for the various components that go into a course, and we use established color schemes and so on.

For me the challenge comes not so much from those mechanical issues, but from the fact that I'm creating material for a global audience, and no longer for a local one. The subject matter experts who write our courses come from all corners of the Earth--from Holland to England to the Middle East. As such, it is the practice of our organization to preserve the geographical flavor of each writer's background. This means that, one week, I'm spelling "organization" with an "s", and the next week with a "z". It means that one day "financials" is visually represented with a dollar sign, and the next day with the euro. In some cases we even mix these in a single course. Occasionally, regarding topics such as sustainability, I find myself touting the merits of a socialistic United Nations program; where the day before I was waving Old Glory for American industrial achievements and trusty capitalism.

Variety, though, is the spice of life. So, instead of choking myself on the cayenne pepper of inconsistency in my courses; I relish the saffron goodness that is the freedom I have to creatively help people learn to succeed in their chosen professions.

One idiosyncrasy down...10,000 to go...