States lose formatting when a change is made to text

Aug 27, 2015

Hi,

I'm using states to change the appearance of text within a text block at specific times during voiceover. I have for example 5 lines, and each one gets bolded at different times. It works fine until I need to make any sort of change to the text block (fix a typo). Then I lose the formatting in all of my different states (except for the initial state) for that text block. I'm wondering if this approach is simply not going to work because Storyline can't keep the formatting when you make a text change?

7 Replies
Paul Giguere

Hi Ashley,

So I have text box with two lines. I select the text box and click "Edit States". I create a new state called "Bold1" and I bold the first line. Then I create a second new state and call it "Bold2" and I then bold the second line. Then I click "Done Editing States". Now if I make a change to the text box by adding a word or letter I lose all the formatting in my Bold1 and Bold 2 states. It doesn't matter if I edit the text box by clicking "edit states" or if I simply edit text regularly. I can recreate this over and over again.

Yoyo Gee

Hi,

I'm having this issue as well and it looks like a bug to me. There is a weird workaround where if I edit one of the states (not the normal state) first, then it will let me edit the normal state without losing all of the formatting. 

In order to recreate this bug, follow these steps:

  1. Create a text box with some text in it
  2. Select the text box and go to Edit States
  3. Create a new state called Bold1 and make an obvious change to the text like making it red and bold.
  4. Click Done Editing States
  5. Now make a change to the text in the text box.
  6. Look at the Bold1 state now and see if you have retained any of the formatting. In mine I lose all the formatting in Bold1.

To make it work using the workaround - at step 5 instead of changing the text in the main text box, go to Edit States and make a change to the Bold1 version of the text, then go to the Normal version and make the same change there. Then click Done Editing States and it will retain formatting. 

If anyone else can replicate this bug please post here so we can officially report it as a bug if that is what's going on.

Thanks!

 

Kristen Llobrera

I just tried doing exactly what Yoyo Gee did, and had the same problem. When I made a change to the normal state, it removed the formatting (bolding some of the text) that I had added to the other 2 states I had created. I found the workaround worked for me as well. If I made a change to a state other than the normal state, it no longer removed formatting if I changed anything in the normal state. Very strange! Sounds like a bug to me.

Christie Pollick

Hi, Yoyo and Kristen -- 

Thanks for your input. I just ran through the steps outlined, and I experienced the same issue you are both seeing. I will submit a ticket with our QA team for further exploration of this issue. Please continue to use the workaround you have discovered, and although I cannot provide a timeframe for resolution, I will update this thread with any information I receive. Your patience is appreciated. 

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