Is there a way to insert that longer dash? I've tried copying it over from text in an InDesign file, but it doesn't look like the elongated dash, just the normal sized one.
I've tried pressing ALT + 0150 for "en dash" and pressing ALT + 0151 for "em dash" but they look the same.
Hi Jesse! Unfortunately right now there isn't a turn-key way to insert an em dash into Storyline text. But here is a workaround you could try: Insert 2 or 3 blank spaces in your text, select the blank spaces you inserted, and apply the "strikethrough" formatting:
I'd also encourage you to submit a feature request for this or other text functionality you'd like to see in Storyline... our dev team reads every single feature request submitted, and the more voices the better. Thanks!
Hi Alexander! You mean like Alt+0151? Unfortunately that doesn't work in Storyline. In some situations you can use the idea that Blake mentions here, but my experience has been that it doesn't work well for all fonts.
I mean, open windows Character Map, select whatever character you want from the grid that includes all characters for the specified font, copy, paste into whatever application you have open.
Ah, right, Alexander! That's a good suggestion. Unfortunately the em dash character in the character maqp doesn't seem to be recognized in Storyline, although I did notice that there's a similar symbol called "horizontal bar" which works okay for some system fonts such as Arial, Tahoma, Times New Roman... it doesn't work well for most other fonts though.
Well who needs proper punctuation like em dashes and en dashes anyway?
Are there similar issues with foreign language character sets, for example accented characters and Spanish punctuation?
Working at a multinational and have no time for "workarounds" for basic typesetting... even if the package has very nice features.
Everything we do gets translated into Spanish, German, Chinese, Korean... need to use solutions that copy and paste characters accurately using the full font set.
Right now we're holding off Storyline because of these basic issues and the limited animation (no motion paths is a big one).
Hey Alexander! Typically Arial Unicode is the best font choice for non-English character sets. And yeah I hear you on the motion path request - I'm looking forward to broader animation options too.
Jeanette, this is slightly off-topic...Should I avoid Century Gothic as a font in Storyline? The kerning or spacing has an odd look. This is the client's official font. Thanks!
Hiya Jill! When I apply Century Gothic to some sample text, it seems to look fine - see below. If you're seeing something wonky, I'd definitely recommend submitting a case with a screenshot so that the support team can take a look.
hmmm, OK, I will submit a case. It could be that you have a True Type version of the font and I do not. This is what I see, and sometimes it is worse. Note the space between the v and i in "Activity", and also how close the i and r appear in both "Confirm" and "Redirect. "
Hi Jill - I see what you mean; thanks for submitting the issue to Support; it will help to log the issue so that the QA folks can isolate what might be going on. This doesn't happen with all OTFs; it's odd that Century Gothic OTF has some slight oddities. For now I'd recommend using the ttf version of the font for the best quality.
The problem with using the horizontal bar or any other workaround issue is that it isn't 508 compliant. All of our work has to be 508 compliant, so this is a big issue for us. I've submitted a feature request!
Actually if you go into the INSERT tab and click SYMBOL - you can choose a font that has an "em" dash in their library - like Tahoma, and then on the menu on the side, under general punctuation you will get three dashes, it is actually the THIRD one that is the em dash, even though the second one appears to be longer.
Thanks for sharing that here - when copying and pasting we often recommend to do so from Notepad and that way any odd additional formatting will be stripped out before it's in Storyline. Seems odd to do for just an EM Dash, but it seems in this scenario it did work for you.
One thing I noticed about copy pasting from Notepad is that it changes my font to Tahoma, even if I use the keep source formatting and have a font theme set at the master slide level. All good, it's still my preference to copy text in/out of Notepad when building courses with Storyline.
21 Replies
Hi Jesse! Unfortunately right now there isn't a turn-key way to insert an em dash into Storyline text. But here is a workaround you could try: Insert 2 or 3 blank spaces in your text, select the blank spaces you inserted, and apply the "strikethrough" formatting:
I'd also encourage you to submit a feature request for this or other text functionality you'd like to see in Storyline... our dev team reads every single feature request submitted, and the more voices the better. Thanks!
Awesome! Thanks Jeanette!
Glad to help!
Can you use Windows Character Map?
Hi Alexander! You mean like Alt+0151? Unfortunately that doesn't work in Storyline. In some situations you can use the idea that Blake mentions here, but my experience has been that it doesn't work well for all fonts.
I've submitted a feature request for this. Didn't think it was that serious of a problem, but would be a nice subtle fix.
I mean, open windows Character Map, select whatever character you want from the grid that includes all characters for the specified font, copy, paste into whatever application you have open.
Ah, right, Alexander! That's a good suggestion. Unfortunately the em dash character in the character maqp doesn't seem to be recognized in Storyline, although I did notice that there's a similar symbol called "horizontal bar" which works okay for some system fonts such as Arial, Tahoma, Times New Roman... it doesn't work well for most other fonts though.
Well who needs proper punctuation like em dashes and en dashes anyway?
Are there similar issues with foreign language character sets, for example accented characters and Spanish punctuation?
Working at a multinational and have no time for "workarounds" for basic typesetting... even if the package has very nice features.
Everything we do gets translated into Spanish, German, Chinese, Korean... need to use solutions that copy and paste characters accurately using the full font set.
Right now we're holding off Storyline because of these basic issues and the limited animation (no motion paths is a big one).
Hey Alexander! Typically Arial Unicode is the best font choice for non-English character sets. And yeah I hear you on the motion path request - I'm looking forward to broader animation options too.
Jeanette, this is slightly off-topic...Should I avoid Century Gothic as a font in Storyline? The kerning or spacing has an odd look. This is the client's official font. Thanks!
Hiya Jill! When I apply Century Gothic to some sample text, it seems to look fine - see below. If you're seeing something wonky, I'd definitely recommend submitting a case with a screenshot so that the support team can take a look.
hmmm, OK, I will submit a case. It could be that you have a True Type version of the font and I do not. This is what I see, and sometimes it is worse. Note the space between the v and i in "Activity", and also how close the i and r appear in both "Confirm" and "Redirect. "
Thanks, Jeannette.
Hi Jill - I see what you mean; thanks for submitting the issue to Support; it will help to log the issue so that the QA folks can isolate what might be going on. This doesn't happen with all OTFs; it's odd that Century Gothic OTF has some slight oddities. For now I'd recommend using the ttf version of the font for the best quality.
The problem with using the horizontal bar or any other workaround issue is that it isn't 508 compliant. All of our work has to be 508 compliant, so this is a big issue for us. I've submitted a feature request!
Actually if you go into the INSERT tab and click SYMBOL - you can choose a font that has an "em" dash in their library - like Tahoma, and then on the menu on the side, under general punctuation you will get three dashes, it is actually the THIRD one that is the em dash, even though the second one appears to be longer.
Guys, I am noticing that when I copy over an EM dash from Word, Storyline converts it into a hyphen.
BUT when I paste that text from Word into Notepad first, and then into Storyline, it remains a nice long EM dash.
So, I wonder if this is some kind of smart character in Word causing an issue in Storyline.
PS, I am using Storyline 2. No action required, just sharing my thoughts on the topic.
Hi Megan,
Thanks for sharing that here - when copying and pasting we often recommend to do so from Notepad and that way any odd additional formatting will be stripped out before it's in Storyline. Seems odd to do for just an EM Dash, but it seems in this scenario it did work for you.
One thing I noticed about copy pasting from Notepad is that it changes my font to Tahoma, even if I use the keep source formatting and have a font theme set at the master slide level. All good, it's still my preference to copy text in/out of Notepad when building courses with Storyline.
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