New in Storyline 360: Text Autofit Enhancements
May 26, 2021
We know how important it is for all learners to easily access and read the text in your courses, which is why we’re excited about the improvements we’ve made to the text-authoring experience in Storyline 360. With the text autofit improvements we’ve just released, you have new ways to manage text elements, more control over your text, and easier ways to make your text accessible. Here’s a quick summary of these improvements.
Greater control over text
Three new text autofit options help you preserve your preferred font size and prevent text from automatically shrinking. Now you can choose from “expand width,” “expand height,” and “fixed size” options. Read more about each of these autofit options and see the difference between the old and new approaches in this article.
More precision over the size of your text box
Before, when you tried to resize a text box to your preferred size, it would automatically default to the height of the first line of text. With the new text autofit enhancements, you can now easily set the precise size of your text box regardless of the amount of text.
Having more precision also means you have a more accurate view of how your text will appear in the published output.
Faster workflow for a smoother experience
Now, with a single click, you can quickly toggle between different autofit options to accomplish more in less time.
Improved readability across browsers
Since accessible text is HTML text, it can display differently across browsers. With text autofit improvements, now you can easily adjust the text elements and remove scroll bars before learners see them.
We hope you’ll love the enhanced authoring speed and flexibility and greater control that comes with these new text autofit improvements. To learn even more, check out Storyline 360: Text Autofit Improvements and Accessible Text Features in Storyline 360.
73 Replies
Agree with the other Julia 1000000%. Huge time waster and I am glad to hear that we will be able to switch this "feature" off.
Thank you! Happy to see that I will be able to disable this. It truly is causing a huge amount of wasted time. I appreciate you and the team working on this.
I've been having the *exact same issues Scott. Super frustrating. I tried reverting back too, but then was not able to open the file I had started with the "new version".
happy to share the file. Along with the file I'll likely ask for clarification if, in the example file I share, should I be using a scrolling text panel, as the auto fit setting seems to be working the same way.
Please, give us the ability to turn-off the New Auto-fit feature as it greatly impacts all of our projects. We would never want to have any scrollbars appearing anywhere in our courses, unless we put them in there! Plus the scroll feature is absolutely uncontrollable and untriggerable in Storyline 360 - no way to asses the actual position in the scroll unless you use outside Java scripts. I'm sure there may be teams out there that would find some use of it, but, please, make it optional!!!
MAJOR BUG! 2 months after the complaints started and still no fix. I have a large project. Several menu option were completed, tested and ready to go last APRIL 2021.
I imported these options into the final project for delivery yesterday. I did a final run through expecting smooth sailing and WHAM! Text resizing all over the place. Major disaster!
Client URGENTLY needs this delivery. 388MB in size so if I have to manually resize and retest the whole project I will not be delivering for quite some time.
ARTICULATE TEAM: What is the progress on fixing this disaster? I note complaints from 2 MONTHS ago. Why is there no response from you guys with a FIX not a band-aid requiring time that we users do not have.
Attached is a screen shot of one of the screens that was previously developed back in April.
Previously I could type in my text at Articulate 12 black, the white background box would automatically resize to accomodate the text. Easy peasy. It all worked very well.
Now I have run that April version and this is what I got (refer attachment), complete mess! Note that now the text is enlarged, it is white and it isn't in the text box!
Where do I begin to start fixing this?
ALSO, my clients are testing previously delivered modules, what happens if they want changes? I assume that these entire modules will screw up as soon as I open them with the "newly enhanced" storyline 360. What is the solution for maintaining modules delivered prior to April?
ARTICULATE TEAM: I need a solution and fast. Can I disable this "enhancement"?
Sylvia, before you open any more files, roll back to the April 27 version. Anything not opened in the new updated version will function as before. At least you can save that work. Back those files up, so you have emergency copies. You'll have to roll forward to manually correct the ruined files opened in the newer version. And then roll back again.
We kept one subscription rolled forward until we had manually "fixed" the scroll bars on the files we unwittingly opened. Then we rolled it back to April 27th and we will stay there until Articulate gets its act together.
Hi Sylvia,
Thanks for lining out what experiences you're running into as well. Julia shared a good tip on reverting to a previous version, and I've also started a case on your behalf to connect you with a support engineer.
You'll see an upload link in the email I'm sending you so our team can take a look at your files and provide some quick help!
As Simon just recently shared in this discussion, we’ll also be releasing an update that temporarily disables the default autofit feature while we make more improvements. We'll let you know as soon as this rolls out!
Hey Articulate, here's a tip, from a +20-year Macromedia/Adobe/Apple/Radius/Supermac/Pixar/MicroNet/FWB/ and others beta tester: get yourself some REAL, in-the-industry, beta testers (who use the product every day) to really bug-hunt every aspect of a so-called improvement before unceremoniously dropping it on a user-base which hasn't (by the volume of "nay" messages here) been clamoring for it.
It's bad enough that you insist on calling this a "feature" when it has clearly created far more hassle than value. It's even worse that you seemingly didn't conduct a SWOT of this "enhancement" before deploying it. Telling the user-base to "just revert to the previous version" of Storyline and stating you will be releasing a version which will "temporarily" disable the so-called feature tends to prove that.
Joseph, Agreed. This has the hallmarks of a hot-shot code-slinger showing off with "look what I can do." The other coders are like, "oh wow." and this gets slipped into a new build without much thought.
Hi all
Is there not a way to remove the scrolling autofit on specific boxes please?
I am simply adding a circle with a + inside.
Where previously I could choose the size of the + inside the shape, it is now forcing me to a smaller size or it will put in the scrollbar!
As it is being treated similar to a marker, it doesn't work well as a grouped shape and separate text box due to state changes.
It also is much easier to work with state changes on shapes rather than importing as different pictures, especially if they need to be resized, moved or replicated at any point.
Any advice please?
Hi everyone,
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!
Hi Ren, a few months ago, you made this comment:
"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."
The extra margin space is a default that SL assigns to all text containers, so removing it is an added step for SL users. I can understand the need for a default text margin greater than zero for shapes and buttons, which default to visible boundaries. I don't advocate for making the default zero for those elements, but I'm not sure why a text margin greater than zero is necessary for text boxes, which have invisible boundaries. A margin causes text to be visually misaligned to other objects because the alignment is to the invisible boundary instead of the text itself. This forces SL users to take extra steps to remove unnecessary margins or live with imperfect alignment. I'd like to see Articulate make the default margins zero for new (invisible) text boxes.
I will note, however, that for objects with visible boundaries like shapes and buttons, the text margins are needed. The only way to avoid the scroll bars with accessible text, then, is to set autofit to Expand Height and use the margins to achieve the shape/button height and text centering that the user wants.
However, at the end of the day, there are still potential issues with accessible text and learners who need to zoom-in to read content. The crux of the problem is that Storyline slides have fixed dimensions and are fundamentally more akin to PowerPoint slides than web pages. When a user zooms in on a web page, it expands and adds vertical scroll bars to the entire page. A properly programmed web page rearranges the content to reflow at zoom levels up to 200% (WCAG's standard) so that horizontal scrolling is limited or non-existent, and vertical scrolling becomes necessary. By comparison, any attempt to expand the size of text and other content on a slide that does not, itself, expand or adjust accordingly will cause issues. I'm not saying that Storyline slides should become like web pages--if SL users want that, they should probably start using Rise (assuming it's fully accessible), which was designed for that kind of output. I'm just describing the limitation inherent in a tool that designs and outputs PowerPoint-like slides with fixed dimensions. I know Articulate feels strongly that accessible text is necessary for WCAG compliance, but in my opinion, this might not be achievable for Storyline output and, honestly, I'm not certain it's necessary for WCAG compliance when Storyline slides are intended to resemble PowerPoint slides and not web pages. An accessibility consultant would be best able to answer this.
In the meantime, SL users can strive to make their written content easier to read for low-vision users by ensuring font size aligns with the best practices for PowerPoint slides (e.g, depending on color contrast such as black text on white, many recommend 14 point or larger for bold text, or 18 points or larger for regular text). These are just a handful of sources on accessibility for PPT slides from Microsoft, HHS.gov, section508.gov.
Just my two cents, for what it's worth...
Thanks,
Lisa
Lisa,
Adding my penny to your two cents: Nothing can make everyone happy. I often add fill and/or a border to text boxes, making the default margins one less step, which would not be the case if they had margins of zero.
Sounds like an argument for one more setting, giving the option of in or out of having default margins on text boxes. Which would not make happy those who think there are so many settings already that it is confusing and there should not be any more.
HELP! I have version 3.50.246688.0. My colleague has 3.52.25247.0 and she is unable to view my raw SL files. The error received is "This project won't open because it uses features that aren't available in this version of Storyline The features in use are:
Text Scrollbars
How can this be? Articulate making something incompatible within the same 3.5 versions?? These two version show the same in the root files, so IT doesn't have any way to update. What do we do?
Hello Melanie!
We are here to help! Storyline 360 (Build 3.50.24668.0) and Storyline 360 (Build 3.52.25156.0) are two separate versions, and text scrollbars were released in Update 52, which is why you see this error message on your end. No worries! To fix this, make sure both of you are on the latest version of Storyline 360, which is Storyline 360 (Build 3.57.26407.0).
If you are still running into similar issues, don't hesitate to reach out to our team directly by submitting a support case.
When I use the autofit feature for a text box I don't know how to allow the tet to auto size to the height of the text box. I can set it to auto fit bit when I select that option I have to then select Overflow Handling which is add scroll bars or allow text to overflow. I don't want either. I want the text to be resized based on the height of my text box. If I select autofit and choose expand height, my text box height defaults back to a single line and then when I add text to this box it simply resizes to the signle line height. I tried changing the hieght of my text box once I have the text box set to autofit, but whenever I change the height of the text box the box changes to Fixed size. Not sure what to do here. Please let me know if anyone has solved this or if I am doing something incorrectly.
Auto sizing of text has been removed. You can set it to either expand which will increase the size of the box, use scroll panels or to overflow.
So there is now no way to have the text in my text box auto size based on the fixed height of the text box? My only choice is to have scroll bars added if the text overflows, or have the text remain the same size and overflow the height of the text box, which maay cause overlap with a text box below it?
No this was removed.
It was an odd feature as it resulted in an inconsistent font size across a project. The reported font size in a box using this feature was also incorrect.
This give a more consistent design across a project, but does mean the loss of a feature that people relied on.
Sent from my iPhone
I've got a related issue with this update - I'm not creating e-learning, but I'm reviewing e-learning created by others. I have both SL3 and SL360, and have tried to update to the latest version, but I'm unable to open project files getting this message:
When I attempt to "update" SL360, it says, "Articulate 360 has already been installed." So now what? It just sends me in circles, and I'm unable to view project files.
Hi, Suzanne.
Thank you for reaching out!
Which steps are you following when attempting to update Storyline 360?
Take a look at this article for the instructions:
Let me know if you have additional questions!
I could use some expletives to describe the handling of the Autofit issue in Storyline 360, but others have done a good job without being nasty.
This saga continues as the Articulate designers have managed to install a related issue into the latest update to Storyline 3. Users, including myself, have installed the latest update to Storyline 3 only to find ourselves facing the "can't open this file" problem after creating or editing work with the new update.
I am only using Storyline 3. How can I create a file that I can't open? This only happens with the latest upgrade. This autofit thingy is spreading worse than COVID.
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE CHARGE AND GET THESE ISSUES FIXED.
Hi, Victor.
Thank you for sharing the screenshot of what you're experiencing, and I’m so sorry for the trouble!
Our team is aware of this issue, and our engineers are currently working on a fix. We’ll update you with more information very soon.