Articulate Review Font issues in IE vs. Chrome

Aug 28, 2017

Hello,

I published a Storyline course to Articulate 360 for review. I noticed that when the course is reviewed in IE11 the font changes to Times New Roman. When the course is opened in Chrome the font stays the same (Arial).

When I publish the course as a standalone, .zip, course, and view it on our LMS it works fine in IE11.

Is there a fix for this or a setting I need to know about?

Published format is HTML5 with Flash fallback. 

39 Replies
John Morris

I am having this same issue.  My story is created entirely using Arial ad then when I preview it in Review, all of the fonts are some type of serif font, like Courier.  This occurs in IE11, but not IE12.

Published stories look fine in my LMS.

The last time I used review, which was December 21, all of my projects looked fine in Review.

I have Storyline 360 v3.813087.0.

Tom Preskett

I have experienced a similar issue.  I was using Articulate Review on a 360 trial to convince my boss that it was a good thing to buy.  I was using the Articulate font and when published in Review, I got feedback that the font doesn't look like Articulate.  I then redid in Arial and the font seemed to change again.  My trial has now run out so I can't show screenshots. 

It is good to know that when published on an LMS, the font doesn't change but it has caused much confusion in the feedback process.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Tom, 

If you need to reactivate your trial to confirm that this is no longer occurring, please reach out to our team here. As for the font issues, we've seen some oddness when viewing courses in Internet Explorer and the option to download fonts isn't enabled. If you're also viewing the courses in IE, take a look at these two workarounds: 

  • Enable "Font download" option in Internet Explorer when viewing HTML5 output.
  • Add your website to the “Trusted Sites” in Internet Explorer. Go to Internet options > Security tab > Trusted sites.

This is also something that our team is investigating, so we'll let you know here once there is an update! 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Tom, John, and Eric! 

A quick update on this issue where learners may see the wrong font or missing letters in published content when all these conditions are true:

  • They’re viewing HTML5 output from Storyline 360, Studio 360, or Storyline 3.
  • They’re using Internet Explorer.
  • The font download setting is disabled in Internet Explorer.

Our team confirmed that this was specific to a IE setting for fonts with HTML5 output, and as such you'll want to take a look at these methods to overcome this issue:

Let us know if you have any other questions! 

Tom Preskett

Although there are work arounds, this issue is really annoying and has had negative consequences for me in our company.  Although I hate IE, it is our company browser and most people use it because they think they have to.  Also, many staff are not very IT literate so adding as a trusted site is not easy.  For the amount this software cost, it is pretty shoddy for there to be this issue and for it not to be addressed in recent updates.

Joshua Gantz

Below is a screenshot of the jumbled text with the suggested fixes. Articulate's response is those are the only solutions they have and don't appear to be actively trying to fix it. 

-------------

Me (3/16/2018, 10:45:06 AM): I've used multiple fonts and it happens each time. What I need to know is if this is the only solution Articulate is going to provide or if it's being actively worked on?
XXXXX (3/16/2018, 10:47:06 AM): As of the moment, these are the solutions that we have for this issue.
Me (3/16/2018, 10:47:18 AM): Thank you.

--------------

Storyline_JumbledText

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi all, 

Thanks for your patience while our team continued to keep an eye on this one and investigate. My colleague Mike shared an update on this issue early this AM, and I wanted to also share it here:

Hi all,
The way we currently handle Storyline HTML5 fonts with ligatures makes it so the font quality matches in Storyline and in the published output. While this works well for the majority of use cases, we know that it causes problems in Internet Explorer when a security setting is enabled that prohibits web fonts from being downloaded. We hear you that this is painful. And we’ve come up with a solution to address it. It’s not going to be an easy fix, so we can’t give an ETA just yet, but it is definitely at the top of the priority list.
Brenda Flores

Hi all, I seem to be having the reverse issue.  My courses are published to an LMS via .zip file.  SCORM2004, 4th edition, Flash/HTML5.  The original course uses Arial.  It's fine if a learner launches the LMS through IE11.  If they launch the LMS through Chrome and open the course, please see attachment.

We have 3000+ learners who do not have the admin ability to configure the browser.  Any suggestions?

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Brenda,

The issue discussed above is only for Internet Explorer, so even though it sounds and looks similar to what you're seeing in Chrome I'd say it's a separate issue. Could you tell us a bit more about your course:

  • what LMS are you using?
  • What version and update of Storyline did you publish with?
  • What Chrome version are you using? The latest I have is ver. 65. 
  • Can you share a copy of the .story file with us so that we can take a look as well? 

Thanks so much - and we'll get to the bottom of this! 

Brenda Flores

Good afternoon Ashley, I have Abel from the Support Team currently working with me on this. I don't want to duplicate efforts on your end, but here is the information you requested:

LMS - NetDimensions Build 11

Storyline 360 - Build 3.13.15006.0

Chrome - Version 63.0.3239.132

As of this morning's communication with Abel, we will put in a ticket with our LMS to determine whether or not they need to re-configure something.

Thank you for your help.

Brenda

 

 

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Brenda,

I appreciate you sharing the information that you are working with Abel on.

I'd advise that you continue doing so within your support case as that will be your best continuity of service.

It looks like your email signature came through when you replied via email. You can remove that if needed by clicking ‘Edit’ beneath your response. Here’s a quick Peek video if you need help.

Peter Moore

There are so many posts in the forum reporting font problems.  Regrettably - I have to report finding one as well.  I have storyline 360.  Build  3.15.15581.0 updated yesterday.  Started a new project this morning, created the opening splash screen and then previewed and published it just to check if all is well - It features the 'Bryant" font.  Here's what's going wrong:

  1. Authoring view:  All fonts render correctly
  2. Preview:  (preview > this slide) - Bryant has become a drunkenly spaced (mixed kerning) serif style font - like times.
  3. Publish to web:  (preview > publish) - Different things happening on different browsers - all running locally at this time - not on a web server or LMS
    1. IE 11: Is perfect - a big surprise!
    2. MS Edge:  Also perfect
    3. Firefox:  Broken - Same as preview - messed up kerning with a Times like face
    4. Chrome:  Broken - Same as preview - messed up kerning with a Times like face

I didn't really see a resolution to this in the posts I read - some had tried changing text resolution settings in windows but mine seems already set to 100%. 

Is there any further advice or updates on how to fix this?

Regards

Katie Riggio

Hi there, Peter. Really sorry you're seeing those font issues in Preview, Firefox, and Chrome.

Your details are very helpful, in which I'd like to get more eyes to review your experience. I've submitted this to our Support Engineers to have a closer look, and they'll reach out to you via email shortly. Keep an eye out for an email from the team! I'll follow along as well.

In the meantime, perhaps the solution offered in this article can help with the wrong font issue in Firefox and Chrome.

Peter Moore

Hi Katie.  I hope your experts are able to come up with a solution for this.  Problem now is how to tell my customer that their corporate font is not going to be usable in this course.  ouch!  I'll have to either substitute it for something close that works in Storyline and for the very noticeable large headings, perhaps turn those in to .png images and place them as graphics....a far from optimal solution though.

I also had previously read that link to the article you posted earlier.  The advice there doesn't apply here as we're not at the stage of attempting to host this on a server as yet so MIME types don't yet apply.  And I'm not seeing a problem with IE at this stage.  - In saying this I have tested this on scormcloud as a scorm 1.2 package,  just to check if a server delivery has any impact.  Result:  Same faults as reported in previous post. 

I have also received the confirmation email for the support case you opened on my behalf.  Thank you for that.  Regards

 

 

 

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