Resizing my screen record to match my story size

Hey Ian, 

Thanks for posting your question here in the forums. This is quite timely as I'm actually writing an article about this exact topic right now, re: how to set your recording size for creating software sims in Storyline. 

So  here's what you need to know: You want your recording area (which you set when you launch the recording tool) to be BIGGER than your slide size (as big as your monitor will allow you to record) but always keep the same aspect ratio as your slide.

In this case it seems your recording area (1280 x 720) is smaller than your slide size (1920 x 1150) which is why the recording is being centered in the middle like it is, and not filling up the entire slide. 

In this case it also looks like you want to leave room at the top for a header bar to appear.... that will be tricky to accomplish because in Storyline if the recording doesn't fill the slide entirely Storyline automatically adds bars of space on each side (either top and bottom, or on both sides, depending if the recording is wider or taller than the slide size) and you can't reposition the software simulation on the slide to make the bar appear entirely at the top.

Here's how it looks when the screen recording doesn't fill an entire slide, it adds bars at the top and bottom like this image shows... see the white at the top and the bottom? This is because the recording area had a different aspect ratio than my slide. 

Your best bet will be to create your recording so it fills the entire slide. Or, when you record you could leave an empty blank space at the top of your recording area and then cover that with a rectangle shape after to use as your black bar across the top of your slide. 

Here's a series that has all the articles I've written about creating software sims with the Storyline screen recorder: https://community.articulate.com/series/everything-you-need-to-know-about-creating-software-simulations-with-storyline 

And remember, the key takeaway here is: You want your recording area (which you set when you launch the recording tool) to be BIGGER than your slide size (as big as your monitor will allow you to record) but always keep the same aspect ratio as your slide.

PS You need to record on a bigger monitor; you can't stretch a smaller recording to fit a bigger slide. 1) it's not possible to do it as far as I know and 2) even if you could it would make your recording completely pixelated and fuzzy and unusable. 

PPS do you have a big screen TV with an HDMI plug in? If so, consider connecting to that and recording your sim on your TV screen if you need a bigger monitor. :) 

That actually makes sense - thank you! The largest I can get my monitor is 1680 x 1050, but I do have a big screen TV at home, so could give that a whirl. Not sure why we've picked 1920 x 1150 as our story size, but we have. Oh well.

Why do people reduce the size, then increase it again then? I don't understand what that does to the whole process.

PS I'll be looking forward to that article now!

Hi Ian! Glad this was helpful and made sense for you :) I'm not sure I understand your question: 

Why do people reduce the size, then increase it again then? I don't understand what that does to the whole process.

Can you elaborate what you mean by reduce the size and then increase it again? I'm not sure what you're referring to there sorry :( And yes I'll make sure to post a link to that article in here for you when it comes out :)

I read some posts where people were reducing the size of their story, only to increase it again while having the aspect ratio unticked. Or something like that. Or maybe I misunderstood what they meant, which led me here!