Text box gets bigger when grouped

Nov 06, 2015

Hello,

When I group a text box with another object the text box gets bigger. How can I stop this from happening?

- what it looks like ungrouped: http://www.screencast.com/t/gn6TcpEuf6L

- bigger text box with grouping: http://www.screencast.com/t/SlUSyv7No7K5

As you can see there is now a gap between the box and the arrow compared to when the text box and arrow are ungrouped. I'd like them to be grouped so I can apply an animation.

Thanks.

9 Replies
Tim Nixon

Hi,

Please see file attached. 

Can you also tell me why the colour of the text changes to black when the object is copied and why when I delete an image or text box from the stage it's replaced by some kind of default object asking for new text or a new image instead of simply being removed from the stage?

Tim Nixon

Hi,

Not sure if this is part of same transparency issue, but please see attached files where part of the transparent part of the .wmf is no longer transparent. When I imported the first version of this file it was perfect with full transparency around the circles. I then made an update to the file, re-exported and imported and now it has a white block on the last circle. I tried exporting and importing a number of times, even recreating the source file in Illustrator, but still imported with a white block.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Tim,

I didn't see any of the text you had set up changing to Black - the first item labeled "header" was white to begin with and the other elements were already black. I copied and duplicated the "header" item and the text remained white.

As for deleting a box and seeing another placeholder box show up, it seems that those are coming from your slide master. If you delete the box you'll be presented with a placeholder text box to be able to add your text into that section again but if you preview it, you'll also see that it's not visible on the preview - just while on the stage. For more information on working with slide masters you may want to review the information here. 

In regards to the transparency I see that it's all one image, so I'm not certain if you've combined them outside of Storyline and then inserted into Storyline?

Tim Nixon

Hi,

Thanks for input around text changing colour but I think I'll start a new discussion about that as I don't want to hijack this tread as the grouping/transparency is a bigger issue for me.

So I have two transparency issues:

  1. When I group two native SL objects the transparency that was there when they were ungrouped becomes solid white (area on the outside of a circle to the edge of the circle object bounding box for example). This issue is the same for objects or text boxes - in the case if the text box when you group something the bounding box seems to get bigger for some reason and this bounding box is then filled with solid white.
  2. When I import a .wmf that has full transparency in some areas of the asset into SL, some of the transparency is lost and again replaced by solid white. If you open that 'key-icons-Nt-An-Xr3.wmf' file in Illustrator you'll see there is no solid white block.

WRT No.1:

Here you can see two ungrouped objects: http://www.screencast.com/t/ZHGg63eF

Here you can see solid white replacing transparency when grouped: http://www.screencast.com/t/ssB45OQh

Either I'm doing something wrong or this is a bug.

WRT No.2

I have figured this one out: it seems that SL did not like the Illustrator clipping path when wrapped as .wmf. That's a pity as as clipping paths are at the heart of Illustrator. I guess I'll have to use .png instead but will then loose benefits of vector.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Tim,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

I took a look at item 1, adding in two blue circles from Storyline and changing the background to a dark blue, and then grouped the two circles together. I didn't see the white bounding box filled in as you mentioned. I've attached an image to show you what I'm seeing.  Perhaps you could tell me a bit more about how you're seeing this occur or the exact steps you go through? Are you also working locally and using the latest update of Storyline 2, update 7? 

Glad you were able to figure out the other one, as stuff in Illustrator is a bit outside my wheelhouse. If you'd like to see a change in how we handle images though, please always feel free to share your thoughts here in the form of a feature request. 

Tim Nixon

Hi,

Thanks for your efforts. I can't repeat the issue in a new file either so not sure what's causing it in the file I'm using. I have noticed that the white replacing the transparency is only on the canvas/stage and not there when published (on the SL native objects). It is there when published on the .wmf but I now know that is a SL/Illustrator handling issue. Hopefully I don't get the white bounding box issue on any more files as even though doesn't publish it's still annoying to work with when you can't see through the bounding box.

Stage: http://www.screencast.com/t/RM3Z0bG8Lu

Published: http://www.screencast.com/t/9gGMBJUaQ9uB

Thanks.

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