formatting of text within variables

Hi Pat,

You can format the text within a variable in Storyline as you would format any other text, but that formatting may not keep if you set it up originally within a Word document that you then copy and paste into Storyline. Additionally, if you'll be referring to the variable later, you'll want to set the formatting within the reference too - it won't pull the formatting from the initial text entry. 

Occasionally if you click back in the text box, it will reset the formatting. So the best way to keep it is to lock the text box on the timeline. 

You can apply the attributes in the tool bar to the text field of variable text, but not individual letters of text because it's a dynamic field populated by the %variable%.  So you can add bold, italicize, underline, etc to the field.  Also note that special fonts, such as a handwriting font, won't render; it will default to a default system/web sans font.

This is similar to having to embed fonts in Flash to use special fonts for dynamic fields, but there's no way to embed in SL.  Not that I've found yet.

Thanks Bill for that reminder - all the text within the variable needs to be the same formatting.

My advice is to keep your variable text in its own text box and not nested within the body of some other text. I've gotten some very odd behavior when mixing the variable within the body of a general text box. Sometimes it works but other times I've had it change the apparent size of the font or not be WYSIWYG with different line breaks in SL vs the published output (something similar to what happens when you don't view at 100%). I find it pretty finicky.

thanks for the replies everyone

Ashley, you state that you can "format the text within a variable in Storyline as you would format any other text". How do you actually do that? If I type in the Variable dialog dox and am entering text in the Value field, I dont have the ability to use the formatting comands on the interface. If I copy say bolded text in, the bold is removed so how do you do it?

Just to give some background I have created a tool that allows the user to copy and paste text into another application. It works perfectly except that I cant get formatting to work.

thanks again

Pat

You can format the text when it is displayed as a reference but not the text that is stored in the variable

ok, thanks for that

maybe something you might look at in a future release

Hi Pat,

You're always welcome to submit ideas or features that you'd like to see in a future release here. 

Thanks Ashley,

tried that link and couldn't get past the first screen - is there any other way to submit improvements?

regards

Pat

Hi Pat,

Were you able to try a different web browser to see if there was something within the internet browser itself? If you'd like to detail the feature request here or send to me as a private message I can submit it on your behalf as well. 

This thread is the top search result when searching how to format variable text, so just thought I'd help point people in the right direction. This feature was added in May 2019!

https://articulate.com/support/article/Storyline-360-Using-HTML-Formatting-Tags-in-Text-Variables

Thanks so much for providing that link, Kyle!  That is a completely awesome feature and exactly what I needed!

4 years later, same thing.

Someone please mark this post as solved by Kyle's comment!

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for calling this out and I'm glad Kyle's comment was helpful!

If anyone in the community would like to learn more about how to format variable text, please see this article:

• Storyline 360: Using HTML Formatting Tags in Text Variables