How to get rid of these text expanstion boxes-CP 2017

Report · Jun 22, 2017

I don't know what these are called, but is there a way to get rid of them? I understand that use of them, but they obviously are appearing when not needed. There is plenty of space around my text and they are still appearing. Is there an option for them not to appear?

TIA

Tanya

Report · Jun 23, 2017

At this point I believe this to be a bug that needs to be fixed unless someone can tell me how to get it to stop doing this when it's not needed. See below....the box is huge compared to the text, so why is it putting that text expansion box there? This is going to be very annoying to the learner if they think they need to click these boxes when they don't need to. Help??? Or where do I submit this as a possible improvement that needs to be made?

Report · Jun 23, 2017

I never did see them myself unless the text couldn't flow into the available space and had attained the minimum font size. What is the minimum font size? Did you check the option 'Enable Uniform Text Rescaling' or not?

You told that you did clear the cache, but did you already try to clear the Preferences?

Report · Jun 23, 2017

I can't find that option you indicated in your comment - I don't see it in the preferences. Here is another example, but this time I screen printed the text in CP, instead of in preview so you can see just how big the text box is compared to the font. The font is 20 in this example. This is just strange; I don't understand why it's happening. The thing is, I can't find any consistency to make me understand it.

Regarding the preferences, when this first happened, I hadn't touched the preferences at all after downloading CP2017. I tried to check "autosize captions" to see if that would help; it didn't, and it's not a good way to work as you have to go back and check every single one of your captions to see how they look.

Report · Jun 23, 2017

This is a responsive project, right? Those expansion icons only appear on those projects in the situation I described. The minimum font size is not in the Preferences, but in the Slide Properties panel:

Clearing the Preferences can restore corrupt items in the Preferences.

Report · Jun 23, 2017

Yes these are responsive projects. None of my text is smaller than minimum size, if that's what you're asking. When I go into my project I don't see what you have screenshot (the minimum font size - this does not appear in my properties panel).

I tried changing fonts, hoping that would help. It did not. I'm only using those web safe fonts. I tried putting margins, thinking the text was too close to the box; that didn't help either.

Report · Jun 23, 2017

Are you perhaps developing with Breakpoint views instead of with Fluid Boxes? Is this an upgraded project, because in that case it always will be with the Breakpoint work flow. I don't think so, because those expansion icons are typical for Fluid Box development. Did you look in the SLIDE properties panel (which means none of the objects may be selected).

Report · Jun 23, 2017

I'm not using fluid boxes; this is a converted project from CP9. Here is a screenshot of my properties panel.. I have the text box selected. Does yours look different because you are using fluid boxes? (on a side note, I have yet to see any benefit of using fluid boxes...perhaps in time, but they seem so very cumbersome and inflexible. I use a lot of click boxes and from what I can tell, those can't be used in fluid boxes...they seems like they have a lot of limitations).

Report · Jun 23, 2017

Mine looks different because I showed you the SLIDE Properties panel, you are showing the Properties panel for a caption.

You cannot have overlapping objects in normal Fluid boxes, you can have them in Static fluid boxes. That is the reason why you canot have click boxes in a normal FB. But in your case that click box (I almost never use click boxes) could easily have been replaced by a hyperlink on the text 'Close Window'.

I suspect the problem is due to upgrading and/or to not having deleted certain folders (and cleaned the Preferences) when installing the new version on a system that had or has also Captivate 9 installed.

Another possibility: with breakpoint views in Captivate 9 the minimum font size was 10p, in CP2017 it is 14p as you could see in the screenshot I posted.

I do not agree with your statement that Fluid Boxes are cumbersome and inflexible, compared with Breakpoint view development which can be a real pain and takes a lot more work. There are some limitations, agree, and you'll have to accept some loss of control over design. However for text-heavy projects (like yours looks to be) I can assure you that they save a lot of time over Breakpoints workflow where you have to define a fixed font size for each breakpoint view in the object styles for text containers, where the font size will not change in between breakpoint views (they do automatically with Fluid Boxes), and you have to leave more space because the view on the stage is not totally WYSYWIG. Just a few comments...

I cannot reproduce your problem, makes it difficult to offer a solution.

Report · Jun 23, 2017

Thank you for taking the time to help me. Right now I'm on a trial version before I upgrade, and I've instructed my IT team to read the installation notes carefully when they install my upgraded version, so who knows, it could be an issue as you've described above.

Fluid boxes are new, so they will take time to learn and get used to but for now I just can't see past the limitations. When I have time, I will play around with them so that I can at least understand how they work and then I'll know when they are appropriate to use.

I'll keep trying to figure out what the issue is with the text boxes, but I think I'll have to contact CP and see if they have any ideas.

Thanks again!

Report · Jun 26, 2017

It is probably due to upgrading a CP9 project. Which theme did you use? I hope you didn't use a template because they cause a lot of problems since a couple of versions.

Report · Jun 26, 2017

The majority of my projects are templates from the eLearning Brothers. I have converted a bunch of them, and so far this is the only issue I'm having. Everything else seems to be working perfectly fine.

Report · Jun 26, 2017

The eLearning Brothers never give templates in the Captivate meaning: they do not have cptl-files AFAIK, they put everything in cptx files. That means you are just saving the cptx under another name, not using a template.

What's in a Theme - a Template? - Captivate blog

Report · Jun 28, 2017

I figured it out literally 5 minutes after posting this! Not to say it's not a glitch but I figured out how to avoid it. It's the effects! Every example I posted here has entrance effects, and when I removed the effects the box went away.

Does you know how I can send this issue to Adobe? I've looked and looked and can't find anything. Everything seems to bring me back to this forum. I've fooled around with this for days, and there just seems to be no logic to it. I get one fixed, so I apply the exact same settings to another one, and it still happens, so nothing makes sense. This issue would stop me from upgrading as I can't have these little boxes all over my courses.

Thank you.

Report · Jun 24, 2017

Did you copy and paste the text from a word processor such as Microsoft Word? I wonder if the text captions or shapes contain some hidden formatting that is impacting the amount of text that Captivate believes is in each text caption or shape with text.

I use a little program called PureText that strips out all formatting from the text before I paste it into Captivate (it's one extra mouse click in my system tray). I'm not experiencing these problems. Alternatively, you can manually type out all your text instead.

Paul Wilson, CTDP

Report · Jun 26, 2017

It's a good thought but all of my text was written in Captivate.

Report · Jun 26, 2017

I'm often accused of being an Adobe apologist but I will say that this forum wouldn't exist if Adobe's documentation was complete and easy to use. Just keep experimenting. That's what I and many others have done. The stuff I'm designing now using fluid boxes is night and day different from the first week I picked up Cp2017. Also, take a look at your margins. Maybe if you reduced those by a little it might be just enough to have the text pop out icons not show up.

Paul Wilson, CTDP

Report · Jun 28, 2017

Try selecting the text in one of the known culprits by right clicking and selecting all text. See if there are any extra line breaks or unnecessary spaces after your text. I've run into this a couple of times but I really haven't had this problem at all.

Paul Wilson, CTDP

Report · Jul 05, 2017

Hi Tanya,

If you are still having trouble you can drop an e-mail to mdas@adobe.com and send us a copy of the slide as well, so we can look it over.

Thanks,

Mohana

Report · Aug 02, 2017

we are having this issue as well. I am going to ask a colleague to send one of our slides to you as well, if that's ok @Mohanadas.

Report · Aug 02, 2017

FYI, I'm not sure if you saw my post where I figured out the problem. Every instance where I had those strange boxes was on a text box that I had applied timing effects to it. Once I removed the effects, the boxes disappeared. Still a glitch in my opinion, but just so you know that solved the issue for me. I pretty much had to go take out the effects out of all my courses.

Tanya

Report · Oct 19, 2017

I am experiencing the same issue with text effects and it is really frustrating! I was hoping to find a workaround, but in all of the research I have done the past couple of days, this is the only post I came across related to it. Hopefully it will get fixed. I recently got Captivate 2017 at work and tried experimenting with fluid boxes but found that it was easier to work with breakpoints when it comes to developing a course that has a lot of effects and interactivity.

Holly