Posted by Dieter Blancquaert on 19/06/2012.

About a month ago, a new e-learning authoring tool emerged. Articulate, known for Presenter, Engage and Quizmaker, launched Storyline.

At Xylos, we use Adobe Captivate for most of our course development. Can Storyline replace Captivate?

The short answer is no.
Let me elaborate on that. One of the most important features of Captivate is the relatively easy workflow there is for creating translations of a course. This is for the most part done via text export and import. In the maiden version of Storyline, this is not possible.
Second, Captivate allows you to use styles to format your content. This means you can easily have a consistent use of formatting throughout a course, especially if you are working with more than one developer.

Is there no use for Storyline then? Of course there is. It is a fairly easy to use PowerPoint like interface, that allows you to quickly create stunning interactions. It comes with a large library of graphical assets, a large amount of test questions and the ability to export to HTML5.

Sounds great, and is great, for the moment. As with all first releases, there is a big 'waw' effect. Let's see how we think about Storyline in, say, six months.

Will we not use Storyline? As with a lot of things, it would be ideal to have both the tools at your disposal. So, I will not choose. I will install and use both of them.