Why do my text boxes have scrollbars?

Feb 19, 2021

I'm fiddling with building a template and I've bumped into text boxes that aren't resizing as I would expect. The footnote in the attached is an example. The text box is set to resize shape to fit text, wrap text in shape, and has internal margins of 5px left and right, 2px top and 5px bottom. 

14 Replies
Lauren Connelly

Hello Kat!

By default, a scroll bar will appear if you have the Accessible Text control on. If you want to avoid scroll bars in default accessible text, you can increase the text box's height to account for differences in spacing across browsers.

I'm happy to look at your project if you'd like to attach the .story file to this discussion.

ID 1

@Lauren

 

Hi,

I upgraded to 3.52.25247.0 which caused a project that used a lot of animation paths to stop working as it did before.

I went back to the previous version and now am unable to open projects created in the new version due to the feature 'Text Scrollbars' not being available.

So, using the new version, I have removed every text box (included those in the feedback and master slides as they now had scrollbars - i'm using a custom sized slide). I still am not able to open the project in the older version of Storyline.

I'd really like one of these issues to be fixed so that I don't have to keep switching from one version to another ...

Do have a private channel where I can share the project?

 

Lauren Connelly

Hi Julia!

The Text Autofit enhancements were built to make it easier to control how text fits in its bounding box and make it accessible. You can read the additional benefits here.

I'll share your feedback with my team and notify you if changes are made to this feature that will provide an option to opt out. 

Julia Phelan

Hi,

I have to respectfully say that the "feature" makes using the program
almost untenable. Previously, you just opened a box, put in your text and
resized as you liked. Now, you have to keep clicking and moving things and
making sure there isn't an extra space, or row otherwise there is a scroll
bar. It is slowing me down so much. I tried to revert to an old version but
the project I'm working on wouldn't open in the old version b/c it was
created in the new. It is AWFUL.

Julia

Ren Gomez

Hi Christophe and Julia,

I replied in this discussion here but wanted to relay that we appreciate you taking the time to express the troubles you've experienced, and we're looking into them. Here's a recap of what we've seen so far:

When a project is upgraded to use text autofit enhancements, unexpected scroll bars sometimes appear. These scrollbars are due to text areas having extra lines, text, or other elements that overflow the bounds or margins of the shape.

These tips will help avoid these issues:

  • Remove blank lines at the end of the text box: Check that the end of your text is indeed the end; otherwise, Storyline will assume that an extra line needs to be read, and a scroll bar will appear.
  • Remove extra margin space in the text within shapes: Extra margin space can cause text to overflow the bounds of the shape. Remove that extra margin space by right-clicking on the shape and formatting the Text Box to remove unnecessary margins.

If there are any other troubled spots we can review, please let us know. You can connect with our Support Team here.

Julia Phelan

Thanks for the note. The issue here is that this all takes a LOT of time. I
am having to go through all my projects and make sure that numbers in
shapes, for example, don't have tiny little scroll bars next to them. And
adding a textbox now requires me to do a bunch of extra clicks. This, in my
opinion, is a terrible "upgrade".

Ren Gomez

Hi everyone,

I wanted to follow up and relay some updates regarding the Text Autofit feature.

Our Product Manager, Simon, shared in the discussion below some actions we're taking to help alleviate the pain points you're experiencing. Over the coming weeks, we’ll release an update that temporarily disables the default autofit feature while we make more improvements. 

Update on Recent Text Autofit Enhancements in Storyline 360

We appreciate the time you all have taken to share your concerns, and we'll let you know when there's more news to share.

Ren Gomez

Hi Christophe and Julia,

We just released another update for Articulate 360, and thanks to your feedback, Text Autofit Improvements are no longer enabled by default.

This means, starting with this update, all new and existing projects that haven’t upgraded project text will remain with the legacy settings. If you have a project with text autofit enabled, you can update Storyline 360, then import the slides into a new project as they will not have the text autofit settings enabled.

Then, when you're ready, you can upgrade project text at any time to make the text more accessible to all learners. You can read more about this and all the new features and fixes below!