I am getting some really odd feedback for one of our Storyline 360 courses (published for HTML5 with Flash backup). Has anyone encountered this / knows what is going on? Unfortunately I haven't been able to replicate the issue. Here are some of the comments the course is getting:
"Why are all the t's and f's missing?"
"Most all T's and F's are missing"
When opened in Explorer there were missing letter so it was very hard to read.
"Some of the slides had letters missing"
"All the missing letters were very odd. Was there a point?"
"The content was difficult to read mostly because of there were letters missing throughout the slides. It seemed mainly all the "t's" and "f's"
Why are all the t's and f's missing? That was very strange and might be very hard for people with visual difficulties.
Yes, Storyline and Presenter are now based in the same player and publishing engine. Our team does track reported issues separately though for notification purposes and to ensure any fixes are tested in both just in case. 🙂
Thank you for forwarding my comments on Presenter 360 as well.
While this may be a browser specific setting, it's a setting that at many security-conscious corporations is locked down. We are bringing this to our IT group to see if it can be enabled, but if the decision is NO, then we may be forced to move away from the Articulate products. Others in this tread have indicated this possibility as well.
This is a shame, as I believe Articulate has some of the best eLearning tools on the market. I have personally advocated for Articulate across our companies learning community, but starting to backtrack due to this issue.
Is there documentation from Articulate specifically regarding how fonts are handled and safer fonts to use (those without ligatures).Â
This was all typed with a smile. Hoping Articulate finds a solution so we can continue using these great tools.
While this may be a browser specific setting, it's a setting that at many security-conscious corporations is locked down. We are bringing this to our IT group to see if it can be enabled, but if the decision is NO, then we may be forced to move away from the Articulate products. Others in this tread have indicated this possibility as well.
Agree as well. We are a retail company and due to PCI restrictions we are unable to modify the security settings in our stores. Thus we are having to look at transferring our on boarding programs we were working on to another tool at the moment. :(
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Thanks for sharing your file and allowing us to take a look. I published the file and did not notice any letters missing. Do you see the issue in my published file here? If so, what browser are you viewing the content in.
Rekha, Did you check to see if font downloads are disabled in the zone where the content is coming from? (This affects Internet Explorer but not Chrome).
My company just ran into the same thing. The user sent us a picture where the font was messed up and the letter f was missing. It also would not let the user move past a certain point (which might be a user issue depending on the course).Â
Is this still a cache issue on older computers? I believe the user is using IE11. I tried to replicate the issue but I could not on my computer.Â
I know this solution would not be practical for some, but has anyone tried rolling out the missing fonts to the users' desktops? I'm guessing this is something IT would have to approve and do themselves in a corporate environment.
Another option, for web users, would be to detect that fonts are being blocked and then provide a download link to the missing fonts, so that the user can install them locally.
I know that neither of these are great solutions, I'm just looking at possible work-arounds to the issue.
Thanks for your patience here as our team investigated this issue!
Just to recap the issue, 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:
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:
Could the output be configured in such a way so that it uses HTML5 everywhere except Internet Explorer, where it would then use Flash? I'm most concerned about LMS output. Is this a feature request that might get serious consideration?
Could the output be configured in such a way so that it uses HTML5 everywhere except Internet Explorer, where it would then use Flash? I'm most concerned about LMS output. Is this a feature request that might get serious consideration?
Not sure how this helps if IE doesn't have Flash installed.
Ashley - Thank you for your response and the linked information. Is Articulate still exploring a solution to the issue though? I view the suggestions as workarounds, but ones that not all companies (including many big Fortune 500 ones) may not be able to implement.
We are working with IT in our organization, however:
Font Download setting may not be able to be changed due to security
LMS vendor that hosts content is already whitelisted, and issue still occurs
Flash is not being installed on laptops anymore, as we migrate to Win10
Chrome is the default on our Win10 machines, however IE11 still needs to be supported.
I hope Articulate is still working towards a solution for this, as I'm sure many organizations are in the same situation.
Hi all! I’d like to provide some more detail on why the solutions we shared above are the way to go.
The Storyline player needs to be able to download font files to render fonts in HTML5 content correctly. When that setting is disabled in Internet Explorer, a core piece of the player functionality is disabled.
It’s not possible for the player to render fonts that it can’t download.
To make sure that your content renders correctly, you will need to do one of these things:
Is there any reason that the outputted storyline files can't fallback to serif or sans serif font like the rest of the entire internet using HTML5 does? This is a really poor solution. In many cases like on a publicly visited website there will be no interaction between the creators of the storyline file and the visitors website. I'd love to code only for Chrome every day but the fact is internet explorer does still exist and some settings are set by network administrators in a corporate setting that can't be changed.
It's ludicrous to tell someone - my website needs these special settings for it to work properly yet the rest of the entire will at least render a fallback font perfectly fine.
This seems like's an engineering issue with the way storyline maps font files to characters contrasted to a user issue. There is no valid reason using canvas or regular html5 in a typical real world scenario the fallback wouldn't work. There must be some reason the storyline files are rendered like this - is it for font licensing reasons? If that's the case at least an option to use typekit would be wonderful.
352 Replies
Hi Will,
Yes, Storyline and Presenter are now based in the same player and publishing engine. Our team does track reported issues separately though for notification purposes and to ensure any fixes are tested in both just in case. 🙂
I have seen it several times when publishing to Articulate Review. When I close everything, reopen and republish the problem is gone.
I am havin this issue and we have used all the trouble shooting tips provided - can Storyline please take a look at my module?
This is for a client who has been battling with this issue for awhile and the training needs to be rolled out asap due to changes in legislation.
Thank you.
Amy
Hi Amy!
Sorry you ran into difficulty, but it looks like you are working directly with Vevette :) Glad you got to the right place for the assistance needed.
Thank you for forwarding my comments on Presenter 360 as well.
While this may be a browser specific setting, it's a setting that at many security-conscious corporations is locked down. We are bringing this to our IT group to see if it can be enabled, but if the decision is NO, then we may be forced to move away from the Articulate products. Others in this tread have indicated this possibility as well.
This is a shame, as I believe Articulate has some of the best eLearning tools on the market. I have personally advocated for Articulate across our companies learning community, but starting to backtrack due to this issue.
Is there documentation from Articulate specifically regarding how fonts are handled and safer fonts to use (those without ligatures).Â
This was all typed with a smile. Hoping Articulate finds a solution so we can continue using these great tools.
100% agreed. Today's corporate environments keep employee desktops tight.Â
It seems developers and support personnel at Articulate do not understand this point. I hear suggestions in this forum to "change browser settings".Â
Sounds easy until your client has 50,000 employees scattered all over the continent and has no intention of changing their security settings anyhow.
Â
Agree as well. We are a retail company and due to PCI restrictions we are unable to modify the security settings in our stores. Thus we are having to look at transferring our on boarding programs we were working on to another tool at the moment. :(
The information contained in this transmission may contain West Marine proprietary, confidential and/or privileged
information. It is intended only for the use of the person(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are
hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or duplication of this communication is strictly prohibited.
If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original
message. To reply to our email administrator directly, please send an email to netadmin@westmarine.com.
I'm betting that Times New Roman should work. But of course nobody wants to use Times New Roman any more. :-)
Hi, We are facing issue with "t", "f" and "r" while publishing course. We are using PF Encore Sand Pro Font family. Attached is sample SL file.
Â
Please help.
Hi Rekha,
Thanks for sharing your file and allowing us to take a look. I published the file and did not notice any letters missing. Do you see the issue in my published file here? If so, what browser are you viewing the content in.
Hi Leslie,
We are using IE 11 and Version 63.0.3239.132.
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Please refer to attached screen shot. When we inspect the element in Google Chrome, we can see that characters are missing in code.
Rekha, Did you check to see if font downloads are disabled in the zone where the content is coming from? (This affects Internet Explorer but not Chrome).
See this image from this post earlier in the thread:
https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/letters-t-and-f-going-missing-in-storyline-360-for-small-population-of-users?page=3#reply-465303
Â
HI Will,
Thanks for your response. We did check the settings and both of these are enabled in IE. IS there any firm solution to this problem?
Hi Everyone,Â
My company just ran into the same thing. The user sent us a picture where the font was messed up and the letter f was missing. It also would not let the user move past a certain point (which might be a user issue depending on the course).Â
Is this still a cache issue on older computers? I believe the user is using IE11. I tried to replicate the issue but I could not on my computer.Â
Thanks!Â
--Jes
Hey Jessica,
We understand this issue to be due to a font download setting within IE11.
Check out this post for details.
I know this solution would not be practical for some, but has anyone tried rolling out the missing fonts to the users' desktops? I'm guessing this is something IT would have to approve and do themselves in a corporate environment.
Another option, for web users, would be to detect that fonts are being blocked and then provide a download link to the missing fonts, so that the user can install them locally.
I know that neither of these are great solutions, I'm just looking at possible work-arounds to the issue.
Hi all,
Thanks for your patience here as our team investigated this issue!
Just to recap the issue, learners may see the wrong font or missing letters in published content when all these conditions are true:
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!
Reading between the lines, this sounds like Articulate is saying there's nothing that can be done in Storyline to remedy the problem.
Did earlier comments indicate that other authoring products do not exhibit this issue?
Could the output be configured in such a way so that it uses HTML5 everywhere except Internet Explorer, where it would then use Flash? I'm most concerned about LMS output. Is this a feature request that might get serious consideration?
Not sure how this helps if IE doesn't have Flash installed.
Ashley - Thank you for your response and the linked information. Is Articulate still exploring a solution to the issue though? I view the suggestions as workarounds, but ones that not all companies (including many big Fortune 500 ones) may not be able to implement.
We are working with IT in our organization, however:
I hope Articulate is still working towards a solution for this, as I'm sure many organizations are in the same situation.
Yes, just chiming in to say that you are not the only one with this problem and I also hope Articulate is working on a solution.
Hi all! I’d like to provide some more detail on why the solutions we shared above are the way to go.
The Storyline player needs to be able to download font files to render fonts in HTML5 content correctly. When that setting is disabled in Internet Explorer, a core piece of the player functionality is disabled.
It’s not possible for the player to render fonts that it can’t download.
To make sure that your content renders correctly, you will need to do one of these things:
Hi Mike,
Is there any reason that the outputted storyline files can't fallback to serif or sans serif font like the rest of the entire internet using HTML5 does? This is a really poor solution. In many cases like on a publicly visited website there will be no interaction between the creators of the storyline file and the visitors website. I'd love to code only for Chrome every day but the fact is internet explorer does still exist and some settings are set by network administrators in a corporate setting that can't be changed.
It's ludicrous to tell someone - my website needs these special settings for it to work properly yet the rest of the entire will at least render a fallback font perfectly fine.
This seems like's an engineering issue with the way storyline maps font files to characters contrasted to a user issue. There is no valid reason using canvas or regular html5 in a typical real world scenario the fallback wouldn't work. There must be some reason the storyline files are rendered like this - is it for font licensing reasons? If that's the case at least an option to use typekit would be wonderful.