If you’ve ever spent time formatting text in an Articulate Storyline 360 project, you know how quickly things can get tedious. You change a heading’s font, adjust its size, select a color, and move on to the next slide. Then you do it again. And again.
But what happens when your client decides that every heading in the course needs to be a different color or font?
If you’ve been formatting everything manually, you’re in for a long afternoon. Fortunately, Storyline 360 has a feature that can save you a tremendous amount of time: Text Styles.
What Are Text Styles in Storyline 360?
Text styles allow you to define and apply consistent formatting throughout your Storyline project. Instead of manually formatting each heading or paragraph, you can apply a predefined style with just a couple of clicks.
Storyline includes several built-in styles, including:
- Normal Text
- Heading 1
- Heading 2
- Heading 3
- Heading 4
- Hyperlink
You can also create custom styles to suit your organization’s branding or the specific needs of your project.
You can quickly apply Styles to slide text by selecting slide text and, from the Home tab on the Ribbon, Font group, selecting the style from the Styles gallery drop-down menu.
Why Should You Use Text Styles?
Imagine developing a 75-slide Storyline course with multiple lessons, headings, subheadings, and paragraphs.
Without styles, it’s easy for formatting inconsistencies to creep in. One heading might be 32 points, another 34 points. Some might be bold, while others aren’t.
Using styles helps ensure that similar content looks the same throughout your course.
The result? A more polished, professional learning experience.
Make Global Formatting Changes in Seconds
This is where styles really shine.
Suppose you’ve developed an entire course using Open Sans for your headings. During the final review, your client requests that all Heading 1 text use a different font and color.
Without styles, you could spend a significant amount of time tracking down and reformatting each heading.
With styles, simply:
- Select some text that uses the Heading 1 style.
- Apply the font required formatting.
- Open the Styles gallery on the Home tab.
- From the Heading 1 submenu, choose Update style from selection.
Every instance using that style updates instantly. That’s a huge time-saver, particularly when working on larger projects.
Improve Accessibility
Here’s a benefit that’s even more important than saving time.
Text styles aren’t just about appearance. They can also help establish a meaningful heading structure for learners who use screen readers.
When you use Storyline’s built-in heading styles appropriately, you’re providing semantic information that helps assistive technologies distinguish headings from ordinary paragraphs.
For example:
- Heading 1: Main lesson title
- Heading 2: Major section
- Heading 3: Subsection
- Normal Text: Body content
This hierarchy makes it easier for learners using assistive technology to understand how information is organized.
Important: Simply making text large and bold doesn’t necessarily make it a heading for accessibility purposes. Applying an actual heading style is what gives the text its semantic meaning.
Create Your Own Custom Styles
You’re not limited to Storyline’s built-in styles.
You can create custom styles for content that appears repeatedly throughout your course, such as:
- Important instructions
- Definitions
- Callouts
- Special notes
- Recurring content labels
To create a custom style, open the Styles gallery and select Add Style.
Give the style a meaningful name and click OK.
Custom styles are especially useful when working with established brand guidelines or developing courses that share a common visual identity.
Keep in mind that custom styles are primarily a formatting convenience. For accessible heading structure, use Storyline’s semantic heading styles.
A Few Best Practices
When I’m teaching Storyline 360, I encourage students to think about styles before they get too far into course development.
Here are a few recommendations:
Plan your heading hierarchy. Decide how you’ll use Heading 1, Heading 2, and other heading levels before building dozens of slides.
Use styles instead of manual formatting. Resist the temptation to select text and change its font size or color individually every time.
Avoid skipping heading levels. A logical heading hierarchy helps learners understand your content’s organization.
Don’t use headings just to make text look bigger. A heading should identify a section of content, not simply serve as a decorative formatting option.
Test accessibility. Use Storyline’s accessibility tools and test your published course with assistive technology when possible.
The Bottom Line
Text styles might not be the flashiest feature in Articulate Storyline 360, but they’re among the most practical.
They help you work faster, maintain consistency, simplify revisions, and create a more meaningful structure for learners using assistive technology.
And if you’ve ever had a client request a last-minute formatting change across an entire course, you’ll appreciate just how valuable styles can be.
My advice? Start using styles at the beginning of your next Storyline project. Your future self will thank you.
Want to Learn More About Storyline 360?
In my live, instructor-led Articulate Storyline 360 training classes, we go beyond simply learning where the buttons are. We explore practical techniques for building professional, interactive, and accessible eLearning courses.
From text styles and slide masters to triggers, variables, accessibility, and publishing, you’ll learn techniques you can put to work immediately.
