Making text copyable during course

Thanks, Kelly, Mick is great, but still no solution. We've been trying multiple things, and nothing helps. 

Hi everyone, 

I'm new to the community and also to Storyline. 

I've been trying to make a software developer course out of a PowerPoint presentation course by importing it into Storyline. The solution here by Tracy worked great for the first module! But then suddenly I found myself cannot paste the codes into the variable "default text" box. It just won't paste it. Sometimes it only pastes half, sometimes just one line.

I need the code text on the slides to be copyable for the students to study coding.

Any suggestions or ideas as to why that happens?

I know this is old but I also found a roundabout way to do this: 

1. Create a text entry box to hold the text you want to be copy-able (let's call it 'TextEntry').

2. Create a text variable with the text you want to be copy-able as the default value (let's call this variable 'CopyText' with the default text as 'DefaultText').

3. Create the following trigger: 

Action: Adjust variable

Variable: Set TextEntry to variable CopyText

When: When the timeline starts on 

Object: This slide

Doing these things will make the text copy-able, but will also allow users to edit and delete it on accident, which is not ideal. To remedy this, I created this additional trigger, which ensures that even if they delete/edit the text on accident, once they click out of the box, the default text will appear again. 

4. Create the following trigger: 

Action: Adjust variable

Variable: Set TextEntry to variable CopyText

When: When the variable changes

Variable: TextEntry

Conditions: If TextEntry doesn't equal variable CopyText 

I hope this is helpful!

Yay! So happy to hear this older thread helped you, Julie. I also wanted to pop in to welcome you to E-Learning Heroes 😊

Seth's reply above is amazing!!  I know it's an old post, but OMG I am grateful that I found it!

Many thanks for stopping in to share your discovery here for others who may benefit, Seth! :)

I'm not the Seth from above, but I was searching for answers to this same question. After reading this thread I came up with a different method that works well for me. It's a little wonky, and I am still using SL1, but is saves me the step of creating anything anywhere else (i.e., using flash, etc.). Here's what I did:

I have a spot where the user types their response to an open ended question. It's a data entry field; I'll call it textEntry01.

Later on in the course I have a button for the learner to "save" their answer(s)... However, since I cannot reliably count on email from the browser, etc., I opted to make the button show a layer/sub-screen that prompts the learner and allows them to copy/paste their answers.

To allow that copy/paste on that layer/sub-screen I created a second data entry field, which I'll call textEntry02 and created a trigger so that when the timeline for that screen/layer starts it sets the variable for the textEntry02 = to the variable for textEntry01, and viola, copiable text.

I also realized I could also simply set the textEntry02 variable equal to the same variable I used for textEntry01 (meaning with the default trigger for the data entry boxes) and then I wouldn't have to use the additional trigger, but for some reason I like the idea of the second one not being able to overwrite the first.

Like I said, a little cloogey, but it seems to work for what I need, so I thought I'd share in case it helps anyone else.

Hi David,

I don't know if he's still subscribed to the thread, but you may want to use the "contact me" button on his profile to reach out directly to Seth. 

Hey David! If you do not hear from Seth soon, you are welcome to utilize the 'Contact Me' option on the user profile as he may not be subscribed to this particular forum thread any longer :)