Forum Discussion
New in Storyline 360: Text Autofit Enhancements
We know how important it is for all learners to easily access and read the text in your courses, which is why we’re excited about the improvements we’ve made to the text-authoring experience in Storyline 360. With the text autofit improvements we’ve just released, you have new ways to manage text elements, more control over your text, and easier ways to make your text accessible. Here’s a quick summary of these improvements.
Greater control over text
Three new text autofit options help you preserve your preferred font size and prevent text from automatically shrinking. Now you can choose from “expand width,” “expand height,” and “fixed size” options. Read more about each of these autofit options and see the difference between the old and new approaches in this article.
More precision over the size of your text box
Before, when you tried to resize a text box to your preferred size, it would automatically default to the height of the first line of text. With the new text autofit enhancements, you can now easily set the precise size of your text box regardless of the amount of text.
Having more precision also means you have a more accurate view of how your text will appear in the published output.
Faster workflow for a smoother experience
Now, with a single click, you can quickly toggle between different autofit options to accomplish more in less time.
Improved readability across browsers
Since accessible text is HTML text, it can display differently across browsers. With text autofit improvements, now you can easily adjust the text elements and remove scroll bars before learners see them.
We hope you’ll love the enhanced authoring speed and flexibility and greater control that comes with these new text autofit improvements. To learn even more, check out Storyline 360: Text Autofit Improvements and Accessible Text Features in Storyline 360.
I like what I'm seeing with the Auto Fit settings at least in authoring mode; haven't tested out published view yet. But am wondering if this then replaces need to manually add scrolling text boxes if working with large text items that will need to scroll? aka on the published size are the two approaches identical as far as how extended scrolling text is handled if bounded inside a text box?
Hi Darrin and Julia,
Darrin - Thanks for sharing your feedback on the text autofit feature! To confirm, this wouldn't replace a scrolling panel but solely focuses on text-based elements to help make them readable and accessible to all learners. Plus, there are fewer steps needed if all you want is a text panel!
If you need other items, such as data entry boxes or images, included with the text, it'll make more sense to use a scrolling panel and use the Expand Height option on the text box to avoid having two scroll bars.
Julia - As Simon just shared, we’ll also release an update that temporarily disables the default autofit feature while we make more improvements.
Since you're not experiencing the same issues with extra lines or margins, I'd love to have our engineers take a closer look at your file and do some testing to help us improve the text autofit feature. Be on the lookout for an email from me with next steps, as we'd really appreciate the help!
Thank you both!
Thank you for the quick response! I'm happy to help within my bandwidth, if I can. I appreciate your acknowledge of both the frustration and the need for the option to turn the feature off. I'm sure there is value in the new auto fit function and I'll look forward to exploring it more once It's under user control.
happy to share the file. Along with the file I'll likely ask for clarification if, in the example file I share, should I be using a scrolling text panel, as the auto fit setting seems to be working the same way.
MAJOR BUG! 2 months after the complaints started and still no fix. I have a large project. Several menu option were completed, tested and ready to go last APRIL 2021.
I imported these options into the final project for delivery yesterday. I did a final run through expecting smooth sailing and WHAM! Text resizing all over the place. Major disaster!
Client URGENTLY needs this delivery. 388MB in size so if I have to manually resize and retest the whole project I will not be delivering for quite some time.
ARTICULATE TEAM: What is the progress on fixing this disaster? I note complaints from 2 MONTHS ago. Why is there no response from you guys with a FIX not a band-aid requiring time that we users do not have.
Attached is a screen shot of one of the screens that was previously developed back in April.
Previously I could type in my text at Articulate 12 black, the white background box would automatically resize to accomodate the text. Easy peasy. It all worked very well.
Now I have run that April version and this is what I got (refer attachment), complete mess! Note that now the text is enlarged, it is white and it isn't in the text box!
Where do I begin to start fixing this?
ALSO, my clients are testing previously delivered modules, what happens if they want changes? I assume that these entire modules will screw up as soon as I open them with the "newly enhanced" storyline 360. What is the solution for maintaining modules delivered prior to April?
ARTICULATE TEAM: I need a solution and fast. Can I disable this "enhancement"?
Sylvia, before you open any more files, roll back to the April 27 version. Anything not opened in the new updated version will function as before. At least you can save that work. Back those files up, so you have emergency copies. You'll have to roll forward to manually correct the ruined files opened in the newer version. And then roll back again.
We kept one subscription rolled forward until we had manually "fixed" the scroll bars on the files we unwittingly opened. Then we rolled it back to April 27th and we will stay there until Articulate gets its act together.
Hi Sylvia,
Thanks for lining out what experiences you're running into as well. Julia shared a good tip on reverting to a previous version, and I've also started a case on your behalf to connect you with a support engineer.
You'll see an upload link in the email I'm sending you so our team can take a look at your files and provide some quick help!
As Simon just recently shared in this discussion, we’ll also be releasing an update that temporarily disables the default autofit feature while we make more improvements. We'll let you know as soon as this rolls out!
Joseph, Agreed. This has the hallmarks of a hot-shot code-slinger showing off with "look what I can do." The other coders are like, "oh wow." and this gets slipped into a new build without much thought.
Hi all
Is there not a way to remove the scrolling autofit on specific boxes please?
I am simply adding a circle with a + inside.
Where previously I could choose the size of the + inside the shape, it is now forcing me to a smaller size or it will put in the scrollbar!
As it is being treated similar to a marker, it doesn't work well as a grouped shape and separate text box due to state changes.
It also is much easier to work with state changes on shapes rather than importing as different pictures, especially if they need to be resized, moved or replicated at any point.Any advice please?
Lisa,
Adding my penny to your two cents: Nothing can make everyone happy. I often add fill and/or a border to text boxes, making the default margins one less step, which would not be the case if they had margins of zero.
Sounds like an argument for one more setting, giving the option of in or out of having default margins on text boxes. Which would not make happy those who think there are so many settings already that it is confusing and there should not be any more.
HELP! I have version 3.50.246688.0. My colleague has 3.52.25247.0 and she is unable to view my raw SL files. The error received is "This project won't open because it uses features that aren't available in this version of Storyline The features in use are:
Text Scrollbars
How can this be? Articulate making something incompatible within the same 3.5 versions?? These two version show the same in the root files, so IT doesn't have any way to update. What do we do?
Hello Melanie!
We are here to help! Storyline 360 (Build 3.50.24668.0) and Storyline 360 (Build 3.52.25156.0) are two separate versions, and text scrollbars were released in Update 52, which is why you see this error message on your end. No worries! To fix this, make sure both of you are on the latest version of Storyline 360, which is Storyline 360 (Build 3.57.26407.0).
If you are still running into similar issues, don't hesitate to reach out to our team directly by submitting a support case.
When I use the autofit feature for a text box I don't know how to allow the tet to auto size to the height of the text box. I can set it to auto fit bit when I select that option I have to then select Overflow Handling which is add scroll bars or allow text to overflow. I don't want either. I want the text to be resized based on the height of my text box. If I select autofit and choose expand height, my text box height defaults back to a single line and then when I add text to this box it simply resizes to the signle line height. I tried changing the hieght of my text box once I have the text box set to autofit, but whenever I change the height of the text box the box changes to Fixed size. Not sure what to do here. Please let me know if anyone has solved this or if I am doing something incorrectly.
Auto sizing of text has been removed. You can set it to either expand which will increase the size of the box, use scroll panels or to overflow.
So there is now no way to have the text in my text box auto size based on the fixed height of the text box? My only choice is to have scroll bars added if the text overflows, or have the text remain the same size and overflow the height of the text box, which maay cause overlap with a text box below it?
I've got a related issue with this update - I'm not creating e-learning, but I'm reviewing e-learning created by others. I have both SL3 and SL360, and have tried to update to the latest version, but I'm unable to open project files getting this message:
When I attempt to "update" SL360, it says, "Articulate 360 has already been installed." So now what? It just sends me in circles, and I'm unable to view project files.
