How Storyline's built-in translation works
Articulate documents a four-step workflow for Storyline 360: export the original text, translate it, import the translated text, and localize the player. The export lives under File > Translation and produces either an XLIFF file (version 1.2 or 2.0) or a Word document.
- Open the .story file in Storyline 360 and export the text to XLIFF or Word.
- Send the file to a translator or a CAT tool and get the translated file back.
- Make a copy of the project for the new language and import the translated file into it.
- Fix layout where the new language runs longer, localize the player text labels, and republish to SCORM.
Articulate recommends XLIFF over Word when the course has bulleted or numbered lists or custom paragraph spacing, because the Word round trip can break that formatting.
Where the export workflow gets expensive
- You need the .story file and a Storyline licence. Courses from a vendor, or old courses whose source is lost, often exist only as a published zip.
- Every language becomes another .story file. The next content change has to be made once per language.
- Narration is not part of the text export. Translated audio has to be recorded or generated elsewhere and imported slide by slide.
- Text baked into images and screenshots is not in the export. It has to be redrawn by hand.
- Each language is republished and re-tested in the LMS as a new package.
Translating the published SCORM zip instead
A published Storyline package already contains everything the learner sees: slide text and quiz feedback in the slide data files, the player strings for buttons like Next, Back and Submit, the narration audio, and the images. SCORM Packager reads those files directly, machine-translates the text, re-voices the narration, translates text in images, and writes everything back into a copy of the zip. The SCORM driver files and folder layout stay as they were, so tracking behaves the same in the LMS.
| Storyline XLIFF/Word export | Translate the published zip | |
|---|---|---|
| Needs the .story file | Yes | No |
| Needs a Storyline licence | Yes | No |
| Slide text and quiz feedback | Yes | Yes |
| Player labels (Next, Back, Submit) | Localized separately in the player | Yes, from the player string tables |
| Narration | Re-record and import per slide | Transcribed, translated and re-voiced |
| Text inside images | Redraw by hand | OCR and redraw, or upload your own image |
| Output | A new .story file to republish | A translated SCORM zip |
When to use which
Use Storyline's export when the course is still under active development in Storyline, you own the source, and the translator should work in a CAT tool. Translate the published zip when the course is finished, the source is missing or owned by someone else, or the course has narration and screenshots that also need to change language.