Text boxes resize in Storyline 3

Jun 14, 2017

HI, I am just wondering if anyone else has encountered this and if so if there is a way to prevent it.

I have created a story by importing PowerPoint slides. I size the box and corresponding font size to the slide, save and close the story. The next time I go in to edit the text box has expanded to way wider than the slide (I have attached a screen shot).

This is very frustrating as it also happens when I send the file for review, embarassing! Also, it takes a lot of time to fix sometimes a large number of slides.

Any insight is much appreciated!

 

Jane

15 Replies
Ali Goulet

Hey Jane,

That does sound strange, and really inconvenient! Let's figure out what's happening here. 

First, I have a few questions to help dig a bit deeper:

  1. Are you on the latest update for Storyline 3? You can download it over here if needed. 
  2. Are you working locally on your computer (from your desktop or C:Drive) or are you working from a network drive?
  3. How are you sending the file?

You're also welcome to share your project file here as an attachment to a comment. I'd be happy to do some testing with it! 

Keep me posted ☺️

Jane Smart

Hi and thanks for responding.

I am using Storyline 360 is that the same as Storyline 3? I have updated 360 whenever prompted.

I am working locally from my C drive

I am mostly not sending the file anywhere except saving it to my C drive - it has happened when I published it to Articulate Review as well. Attached is my file - still not completed and in need of audio but sent for final approval of look and feel. The slide is near the end 

Ali Goulet

Thanks for those details, Jane! 

Storyline 3 is the latest perpetual version of Storyline, whereas Storyline 360 is part of the Articulate 360 suite. Thanks for letting me know which you're using and that you're working from your C:Drive.

I opened your course in  Storyline 360 and everything appears to be lined up correctly, I'm not seeing any strangeness with the text boxes. I uploaded it to Articulate Review so you can take a look at what I'm seeing too. Take a look at it here and let me know if I've missed something!

If it looks normal, I'm thinking it may be an issue with the software itself. Try running this repair and see if that does the trick here.

Let me know how that goes! 

Jim DeRosa

This is and continues to be an issue from SL2, SL3, and 360. I have found no pattern. Seemingly randomly, when you reopen a file you've worked on previously, one or more text boxes have become thousands of pixels wide. I don't have a file where I can absolutely reproduce it, but as often as it happens, I can't believe this is the only thread that I've found mentioning the issue.

Vincent Scoma

Hey Jim,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your experience. I am sorry that you are encountering this issue. 

Does this appear to happen often to your courses? Which version of Storyline are you using at the moment? If you continue to notice these strange occurrences, I would reccommend going through these steps to see if this helps: Storyline 360: How to Fix Unexpected or Erratic Behavior

If you need our help to take a look at a file that this is happening in, we're always more than happy to help! You can share files in this thread here or you’re always welcome to share privately with our Support Engineers. We'll let you know our findings and will delete it after having a closer look.

Jim DeRosa

It's hard to quantify, but it happens often. It has happened to me in every version of Storyline. I currently work mostly in 360, so it happens there.

I have just completed those steps for other reasons, but this is not something that is specific to a single machine or project, it just happens in Storyline. Everyone I know who uses it has experienced it many times. I'm shocked it's not mentioned more often in the community. While it's a frequent error, it is relatively low impact, just drag the box back to the right size. But it does cause review issues when you send a course for review and one of the boxes has magically expanded off the screen. It makes the developer look dumb, but is easily fixed.

I don't have any courses where it is more likely to happen. I'm happy to send a file next time it happens, but it will just appear as a text box that's 2000px wide. Not sure what they'll be able to glean from that.

Katie Riggio

Hi, Jim. Thank you for all these clues!

We'll take you up on the offer of having a thorough look at an affected file. When the behavior strikes, you can share the file by using the links Vincent provides above.

In the meantime, this issue sounds frustrating, so I'll try my best to help you get to the bottom of it. A few more clarifying questions:

  • What is the autofit property setting for the affected courses? I'm curious if there may be a pattern with the option type: Do not Autofit, Shrink text on overflow, Resize shape to fit text.
  • The post's author mentions she imported PowerPoint slides: Are you seeing this happen on your end, or are the courses initially created within Storyline 360?
Jim DeRosa

Hi, thank you for the followup. 

I'm not sure I can set the autofit for an entire course vs per object. But my assumption would be that the specific objects are set to resize shape to fit text. I'm going to say that it happens more often (although not exclusively) on a page with a content box in the slide master that I have made smaller. For example, the box is normally set to 800px wide and I drag it down to 400px wide. Later, when reopening the file, it will magically be 2000px wide.

I almost never import from PowerPoint, so that isn't part of the equation for me.

Kim Lang

Hello.

I was wondering if there was ever a resolution to this issue. This just started happening in my latest course in Storyline 3. (I'm upgraded to the latest version.)

The issue is as described above. I save the course with the text boxes looking fine. When I reopen the course, some of the text boxes have randomly stretched beyond the course page to 2000px+ wide. I did not import from PowerPoint and have the text boxes set to Do Not Autofit.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!

Katie Riggio

Hi Sarah,

So sorry that the resizing with textboxes has been happening for this long. The cause has been difficult for us to identify, but we are determined to help!

  • Is this happening with slides imported from PowerPoint or slides created within Storyline?
  • How about textboxes — does the resizing occur on all of them or certain ones?

And if the problem resurfaces, let's get you connected with our Support team so we can pull a few logs. Any insight we can gather would be greatly appreciated!

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