Change story size without scaling objects

That's what I thought, thank you.  Just a note, even if you use Fill Background, it will still scale up your text to a larger size :(

The "Change Story Size" feature seems completely un-intuitive to me. It actually seems useless if you try to apply it to an existing project, as some objects are moved, others are stretched, fonts sizes are changes, and layers are affected differently that the base layer. And all of this is with the "fill background" option selected.

I'd like to do away with the built in SL menu and add my own menu to the left-hand side of my course. Is there any way to simple add space to the left of all of my slide elements without distorting existing elements?

Hi Mike,

We don't recommend changing the story size after you've started a project, as things will move, shift or scale to fit the new sizing.  If you use "fill background" and choose a location, you'll see the elements are shifted in that direction, so depending that may give you some space on the left hand side and place your custom menu content there. 

Ashley, I am working with support on this at the moment, but I feel that there really won't be a resolution, mainly because this feature needs some more work.

I would think that when using the "fill background" option, that ONLY the canvas size would be changed, but this does not appear to be the case. This makes the feature almost useless unless one is starting a completely new project.

I was even going to try to copy and paste the content of each of my slides into a project of the correct size, but ran into the "multiple choice cannot be copied error".

Thanks Mike for letting me know you're working with support as well. Perhaps instead of copying and pasting you could look at importing it into a new file that is already set up with the story size as you'd like to use?  If you have your case number to share here I can follow along in what our support team determines as well.

Ashley, I did try importing into a larger canvas, but the result was actually worse than just resizing the canvas. My case number is 00692668. Thanks.

Hi Mike, 

Thanks for sharing that - I took a look at the file you shared with Jonathan, and as he mentioned the slide master elements won't be moving no matter what as they're a part of the overall background. When I changed your width from what you had it set at to about 1000 and selected fill background, middle right - it did shift everything (with the exception of the slide master) and that looked like it would allow for space on the left hand side to add in the menu. It may not be what you're looking for in terms of how items shifted or the slide master, but it does look to be working as designed. 

I'll keep an eye on your case in the event that Jonathan finds anything else. 

I can fix the Slide Master objects pretty easily because they're in one spot, but look at the text of my "Instructions" slide and all of my quizzes. Some of the quizzes now have scroll bars. It looks like all of my font sizes have been increased by 2 points, which throws off all formatting. Why is it doing that?

I see the issue with the font change, and I've asked Jonathan to test that further. As for the scroll bars, it's likely connected to the font change and how those are set up to wrap the text and keeps the same size/set up in regards to the answer choice box original dimensions and adds the scroll for all the choices. I'll continue to follow along. 

On a related note: I've just discovered that I can't even just replace my Slide Master elements with elements from my original project. If I resize my project, delete my Slide Master elements, open a backup copy of my project, and try to copy elements from the backup Slide Master into the resized project, all of the font sizes are changed. This is very odd.

Thanks Mike and I had this on my list to follow up with you today. It looks like Jonathan saw the same thing and has reported it to our QA team for additional investigation. It looks like you've also shared another example file with him to do a bit more investigation - was that file connected to what you've described here? Did you try just a brand new project set at the size you wish and copying/pasting those elements in? Does that also show the font behavior? 

I just copied and pasted a 16pt font text box from my current project into a new story file. The font size was automatically changed to a 10pt font.

Hi Mike,

I just tried the same - off the slide master and off the main slide, and both times it kept the font and the size. Did you try in a brand new project into a new project? I'm just wondering if there is something specific in this particular file? 

I just opened two new projects. In project 1, I created a text box with some 20pt text.

I copied and pasted the text box into project 2 and the text size remained the same.

I deleted the box from project 2, increased the horizontal size to 1120 (did not lock aspect ratio), chose fill background, pasted the box and the text size remained the same.

I deleted the box from project 2 again, increased the vertical size to 740, chose fill background, pasted the box and now the font size is 31.

Hopefully that will be easy to replicate on your end. I hope there is a fix for this, as we are upgrading the template for about 25 of our courses, and I think we'll lose our minds if we have to correct the text sizes on all of the slides, feedback layers, etc.

Thanks Mike for sharing those steps - and sorry to have to keep going back and forth about it. With your previous message I thought you were seeing this no matter what, not that it was still connected to a change in story size. I can clearly replicate that now with your detailed steps. I'm going to share the steps here as a part of the report that Jonathan already filed with our Quality Assurance team. 

Thanks very much, Ashley.

Hi Ashley and Mike - I was wondering if you'd come up with a solution for this issue. We've got a Storyline course set up at a certain story size, and would like to enlarge the story size with Fill Background and adjusting the Story Position so that we can add some additional branding elements to the screen. We're finding in our initial tests that the graphic and video objects are maintaining their positions, but fonts are all resizing. Is there a way to keep the fonts from resizing and maintain the screen elements? Thanks!

Hi Michael!

The issue filed related to Mike's case is still open with our QA Team so I do not have an update to provide at this time. This thread is attached for update when applicable.

Hello, HS.  This behavior is still the same in Storyline 2, and after testing Storyline 360, I'm seeing the same there, too.  I know that's disappointing for our users.  I'm going to advise our QA folks about this issue persisting in 360 as well and see if I can grab an update from them.  

Thanks for adding your voice!

Is there any news about this issue? We just upgraded to 360 and now we need to add 20 px to the height of our storys. To have room for breadcrums to guide the users on iPad and mobilephones. We need to be able to just move the scenes down to the button without resizing. and without the text changing size. The story size tools does not work as intended.

We have more than 60 storys so it is of great importans that you fix this now!

Another voice added to the choir here. Need to be able to adjust the story size and not have the text increase, too. Have submitted a feature request.