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How to add HTML formatted text to an Articulate Presenter’s Bio

With Articulate Presenter, you are given the option to add and/or include a course presenter in the published player. This is a great way to personalize the presentation by providing viewers with the course presenter’s Name, Email, Photo and Bio. More on these settings are outlined here.

Because Articulate Presenter ’09 does not support HTML encoding in the presenter bio area,  hyperlinks and other text formatting just isn’t possible. HTML encoding is not for everyone and does require a bit of knowledge in this field. However, if you are confident your HTML skills are on par, please allow me to introduce the the bioToHTML_v1.0 widget.

What is the bioToHTML_v1.0 widget?

The bioToHTML_v1.0 widget is a Flash Movie that can be inserted into a presenter’s bio image. Therefore, allowing HTML formated text to be entered in the presenter’s bio area. Please watch the Screenr below to learn how to implement this widget in your Articulate Presenter projects.

Usage:

1. Download the bioToHTML_v1.0.zip file.
2. Extract the bioToHTML_v1.0.swf file.
3. From Articulate Presenter, select the Presentation Options –> Presenters Tab –> ‘Add…’ button.
4. From the New Presenter diloag, select the ‘Browse …’ button and locate the extracted ‘bioToHTML_v1.0.swf’ file from step 2 above.
5. Fill in all of the remaining fields as normal. HTML tags can now be used in the Presenter bio field. For a list of supported tags, please refer to this link.

NOTE: Since the bioToHTML widget is inserted into the Bio Photo field, a photo/image has to be inserted using the instructions below.

6. In the bio Email field, use the following format:

youremail@yoursite.com;bio_image.jpg

By placing a semicolon between the email and the image filename, the bioToHTML widget will know what image to load when played back. The filename can be whatever, as long as the file added to the published project (see below) has exactly the same name.

7. Publish the project locally and navigate to the published dataswf folder.
8. Copy and paste the image intended for the presenter into the published dataswf folder, making sure the filename is exactly how it was entered in the email field noted above.

Please note: Although this has been fully tested, this method is not supported by Articulate.

Download: bioToHTML_v1.0.zip

Adobe Help Document: About supported HTML tags
Articulate Help Document: Adding Presenters
Articulate Video Tutorial: Setting Presentation Options