How to Fix Visual Quality Issues in Storyline and Rise

Overview

This category covers how a course looks rather than what it says: images that got stretched out of proportion, objects that overlap or sit outside the visible slide area, buttons that don't match each other, and text that's too close to an edge or gets cut off. None of these break functionality, but they're the kind of thing a learner notices immediately and that makes a course feel unpolished.

Step-by-step instructions

1. 1

   Check every image against its original file. If the width-to-height ratio on the slide doesn't match the source file, the image has been stretched or squashed, resize it back to its natural proportions or crop it deliberately instead.

2. 2

   Look for pixelated or blurry images, this usually means a small source image was scaled up too far. Replace it with a higher-resolution version.

3. 3

   Check the Timeline (Storyline) or block order (Rise) for objects that visually overlap each other, especially interactive elements sitting on top of background images or text.

4. 4

   Look for any object positioned outside the visible slide canvas, sometimes left there intentionally as a staging area, but it can accidentally become visible if the layout shifts.

5. 5

   Check text boxes sitting very close to a slide edge, especially on a specific screen size, they can get clipped when the course is viewed at a different resolution.

6. 6

   Turn on 'Resize shape to fit text' (Storyline: Format Shape > Text Box) or check that Rise blocks aren't manually height-constrained, so text doesn't clip when a learner zooms or uses a larger font.

7. 7

   Compare buttons and interactive elements that should look the same, size, corner radius, color, and confirm they're actually styled consistently, ideally by referencing a shared Slide Master (Storyline) or the course Theme settings (Rise).

8. 8

   Check font usage across the whole course. More than one or two font families usually looks unintentional rather than designed.

9. 9

   Re-check alt text on images purely for descriptive quality, not just presence, "image123.png" or a one-word description technically exists but doesn't actually describe what the image shows.

Screenshots

Tips

• Check visual quality at more than one screen size, a layout that looks fine at your desktop resolution can clip or overlap at a smaller one.
• A shared Slide Master or Theme is the fastest way to keep buttons and typography consistent without manually re-checking every slide.
• When in doubt about whether an image is stretched, compare its on-slide proportions to the original file dimensions directly rather than eyeballing it.

Common mistakes

• Resizing an image by dragging a single corner handle without holding the aspect-ratio-lock modifier, which stretches it unevenly.
• Building custom-styled buttons slide by slide instead of from a shared master, so small inconsistencies creep in over time.
• Never previewing the course at a zoomed-in or smaller screen size, where clipping and edge issues only show up.