Photoshop variables - text repositions itself

[lockhartgary]

I am creating some lower thirds for college basketball games; I thought using variables would save some time.  I've positioned all of the assets (names, position, height, etc) in a psd file and set up the variables and data sets.  The data and image successfully changes BUT the text fields don't maintain their positions.  For some reason the text fields are stacked on top of each other, which means I have to make adjustments to each individual file, which ends up taking more time than if I'd just done the lower thirds manually.  I hope this is explained clearly.  Any suggestions?

[Bojan Živković]

Data sets (variables) are an old functionality that has not changed for a long time; everything remains the same as it was. There may be a bug in the recent version(s), or resetting preferences might help, as it has often resolved strange issues. What version of Photoshop and which platform are you using so we can check on our end?

[Stephen Marsh]

When you preview the data sets, is it different to the final merged results?

Can you post screenshots showing the exact issue?

[lockhartgary]

The data sets and the merged results match perfectly; it's just the alignment that's off.

I have attached 2 images that show the issue.  The before image is before the merge; the after image shows the results of the merge.

[Bojan Živković]

Are you using multiple type layers for each line of text? Separate each line onto its own type layer. Perhaps you are experiencing an issue with what is known as leading?

[lockhartgary]

Yes, each line of text is on its own layer.

I'll look into leading, thank you.

[Stephen Marsh]

Leading would only be applicable to multi-line text. Separate text layers with single lines of text would be unaffected by leading.

[lockhartgary · Accepted solution]

Issue resolved!!  Thanks to your question about leading, I looked at each line of text again.  Turns out that I had some unnecessary carriage returns at the beginning of  some of the lines of text that I had to delete.  Thanks again!!

[Stephen Marsh]

Issue resolved!!  Thanks to your question about leading, I looked at each line of text again.  Turns out that I had some unnecessary carriage returns at the beginning of  some of the lines of text that I had to delete.  Thanks again!!

By @lockhartgary

Glad you sorted it out! With source data, it's all about GIGO: garbage in, garbage out!

[Stephen Marsh]

I would expect the data set and variable preview to match the output. It would help to have a copy of the PSD and a limited set of example CSV entries.