Variable text shrinking on the slide

Hello, I have this same issue. When I resize the variable textbox, it adds a scroll bar- even if they only key in one line of text. Any suggestions or solutions?

Thank you in advance!

Hi Aileen, 

Without seeing your .story file, it's hard to say - but have you looked at the textbox properties in terms of not resizing to fit, wrapping text, etc.? 

Hi Ashley, 

I did format the text box and I added a scrollbar box so if the text exceeds the area provided it will display the scrollbar. The issue is even though the scrollbar is added, the text still shrinks. I am adding an example below. When you preview, key many rows of text in the text-entry field, and then click Next. All the text shrinks. I am not sure why it does this.

Thanks!

Aileen

Hi Aileen

the rectangle behind your text box is set to shrink text...

Hi Wendy, I changed that is my more recent ones and it still did not work. I changed it in the attached .story example. I also attached a screenshot. Any other suggestions? 

Thanks!

Hi Aileen

I think it might be a bug.

If I only type one line of text - its retains the correct font size but once you go over that first line it shrinks to illegible.  I have tweaked all the text box options and its always the same. 

Sorry I can't be any more help.

I am just downloading Update 8 for SL1 to see if there is any difference with that one (I doubt it - I think they only concentrated on getting the Flash 16 error fixed) - but fingers crossed.

Thanks so much, Wendy! That is the same result as I was getting. Some of the questions require the students to key in a fair amount of text, so that worries me that they wont be able to read it on the Expert Answer pages in order to compare it. I will look into other ways of presenting the questions. 

Thanks again, I really appreciate your help!

Hi Aileen,

Thanks for sharing the file - and my apologies for the delay in getting back here. I could type more than one line of text, and while I'm typing I see the scroll bar if I go beyond the confines of the normal box. When viewing the variable reference the text will shrink, as we don't dynamically change the box size for the reference. If you want to show multiple lines of text without it shrinking, you'll need to adjust the box accordingly. 

Hi Aileen

this has been driving me crazy because I have to do it for my project.  I think I have a work around.  Instead of creating a text box with the scrolling panel - make it a transparent shape - see if that works for you unless you have another workaround to share

Spoke too soon...gave you a bum steer - damn it ...means I am going to have to have a layer for each slide of notes in the module - arrggghhhhhh

Hi Ashley

I tried having the box the height of the slide just as an example to accommodate and it still shrinks the text, that's why I tried the shape instead of the text box to see if that might make a difference but it doesn't.  This behaviour is different to SL1 - if you look at Stephanie Harnett's notes story she does this and the text doesn't shrink in the text box holding the variable reference.

Mmmm...could I create the slide in SL1 and import it in - wonder if it would hold correct settings then.

Hi Wendy,

I looked at a report that was filed with our team in regards to this issue, and they did note it was the same in SL1 - but that it's as designed as we don't dynamically update the box to fit the text. You'll need to resize the box, and ensure you're using the "do not autofit" option. 

Thanks for all your responses! This was such a great format for what we were  trying to accomplish in our courses. I am still trying to find ways to make it work or another approach that wont cause issues for the students. 

Thanks!

Has this issue been resolved for Storyline 360?  This seems like a very poor bug and something that should be addressed as a priority if not.  We have many occasions where students type reflective text, and thus, no control over the amount of text they will enter.  If we wish to show the students a review of what they typed along side feedback, this bug makes it next impossible.

Further more, when displaying the value of a variable in a text box, the text does not wrap whatsoever despite having the text box set to 'Do not auto fit' and 'Wrap text in shape'.

Hi there Jonathan,

I put together a quick sample file in Storyline 360 for you to test. In this file, I used the settings 'Do not auto fit' and 'Wrap text in shape' on the variable reference text box. 

Does this match what you're seeing?

Try placing the variable text onto a shape (no fill, no line) rather than a text box. 

Hey Bryan,

This thread is a bit dated, but I appreciate you chiming in to share your advice as well :)

Hello J and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :)

I am glad that this thread was able to help you out here and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts as well.

I agree! We realize that the older threads continue to help customers, which is why we like to keep them around, and we do not 'close commenting' as you may see in other forums.

What you're seeing, here, for example, is me letting the user know that we appreciate them chiming in and sharing an additional solution. Bryan's advice was able to help you in the future vs. assisting Jonathan 9 months after his original question. 

I apologize if that was misunderstood :)

Thanks for your excellent solution Bryan. Such a simple solution - turning a shape into a textbox by typing %variablename% into it works a treat. 

The inability of textboxes to resize to fit multi-line variable text for feedback was a big problem for me. 

Hi, this is an old post, but I still see this being an issue in SL360.

My solution is to

1. change the text box to Autofit: Do not autofit.
2. Increase the height of the textbox that contains the variable (and any other text), so that there is a generous amount of space between the last sentance and the bottom border of the textbox.

The fix doesn't make sense, but it works.

This seems to be an ongoing bug. If the textbox fits snug with the text, it will shrink the font size to about 1pt.

Thanks for chiming in and sharing what you are seeing as well, Sam. 

Do you know what version of Storyline you're using?

You can check by going to:
Help > About Articulate Storyline

We are currently on Build 3.30.19518.0 of Storyline 360. You can read all of the details here.

It looks like we've been unable to replicate recently, so if you have an example, we'd be happy to take a look.

How recent was this? I received an update yesterday. 

Which patch was the issue fixed in, as I had the issue about 3 days ago, but ran an update yesterday.

Hey Sam,

Thanks for following up. It sounds like you may be on the latest update then and we've been unable to replicate in this environment.

With your permission, I'd like to take a look at your project file to investigate what's happening. You can share it publicly here, or send it to me privately by uploading it here. I'll delete it when I'm done troubleshooting.