is there a way to increase the font size of closed captions? The import went well, the timing is perfect and the position of closed captions box works just fine, but the font size seems pretty small. Changing or creating theme font doesn't effect the closed captions. So... I am stuck (for the moment)
Thank you very much, Matthew! Obvisously I need to visit an ophthalmologist, because I took a close look at the player options but simply overlooked the second font list for captions. There is no font size percentage as with the player font size, but my question is answered and 51% of the problem is solved... Hermann
Hi Hermann! Just to circle back... the Player font size window will also control the captions font size. In this way, the caption text is like an extension of the rest of the Player text.
I'm thinking you were hoping to modify the caption font size independently of the rest of the Player text. The range of size for the captions font was limited as an effort to stay within accessibility standards.
But let us know if you think we can improve or if your learners have different needs! Thanks for reaching out.
that's of course a good point: "to stay within accessibility standards". That's what we are looking at right now in case there might be differences between countries. Here (Germany) we were asked by a customer if we can increase the font size dramatically... and that triggered my post. If the accessability standards are met everything is ok - and I think you know what you do :)
Hermann, I am glad you brought this up, but I think that the implementation of CC in storyline 360 is not that good. I can't tell how the american standards are, but where I am from, the nordic countries, there is a long running tradition of subtitling foreign films and television shows (not by voice dubbing like is common in Germany). Subtitles are rather large, taking up the lower third of the screen (not entirely blocking it out) but we're more like a size 24-to 28 font.
It was invented also to aid the hearing impaired, not just to allow danes to watch films in foreign languages.
Crystal, we have the same request. Open Captions, or as we europeans call them: subtitles. Like you'll see in a film if you go to fancy cinema that shows foreign films that aren't dubbed. These letters are MUCH larger than the tiny, player based Storyline 360 captions .
Accessibility standards for subtitles in this part of the world dictates that text should be legible on screen. I have a hard time understanding how these tiny-font sized captions Articulate have decided to go with can be within standards. I think they are very small even with normal vision. If the person has to squint to read the tiny-fonts, isn't that the exact opposite you're achieving than make it accessible?
Can we have adjustable Captions font size on the player menu, allow to independently specify Captions font size so it is not tied to player font size in general?
I for one mirror that request! Here at the (DoD-DEOMI) people are asking us to increases the font on closed captions, like now! A "can't do it" will out's Storyline 3 here quickly! And please fix this WITH 360/SL3 as an update, if we need to spend another $1,100 or more for SL4 (which has this update) it will surly sink the ship and use of Articulate Storyline going forward.
I'm also having trouble with the size of the captions. It's a great feature, but I don't understand how they can be so small and meet standards. If you are working on large slide size that doesn't allow for much expansion, they look really tiny on the screen. I have clients asking for these to be larger as well. Really hoping that caption size options get added soon.
Thanks Matthew. I have mine set to 200%. My slide size (determined by client template) is quite large, and can't expand much and the captions still look small. I'm used to doing captions in Camtasia which has a larger font size by default. Thanks for the response!
I'm interested in the hack, but the particular project I'm on now is big and not simple, and can't be broken (deadline is too soon). I'd like to know if there is a workaround though. I have had clients who publish only to HTML5 and it could be useful in those cases.
Hi Matthew can you share the hack with me too :-) I need to increase the size of the captions independently of the rest of the font sizes in the player
Thanks for sharing that hack, Matthew. Unfortunately, we publish in Flash with HTML5 fall back, so it won't work for me.
Traci P mentioned captions in Camtasia. They have the captions set up a certain way that by default are apparently ADA compliant e.g. Arial, 24pt, left justified, and more. If you change any of the defaults, it will tell you you're no longer compliant.
Making the player font bigger does make the captions bigger but even at 140% it doesn't come close to 24 pt. Also, there are some side effects to making the player font bigger e.g. the lines that separate the Player Tab titles on the topbar do not increase in size and are not middle-aligned with the titles, so they are higher up toward the top of the player than the titles are.
Leslie mentioned that Soren submitted a feature request but I see he deleted a couple of posts so...could you please confirm that the request was submitted?
I put a feature request in for adjustable font size for suntitles in same day I made this post I think. That is not the same as it winning the attention battle for time and ressources. There are marketing wars to be won out there, and since the ‘Closed Captions’ tick box have been ticked (halfway useless or not) focus must be on the next ‘differentiating’ sexy feature to put on the comparisson charts.
New version landed yesterday, I didn’t test it but I saw no mention of adjustable font size for subtitles in the patch notes.
Unfair? We've paid 7200$ for this software so far. And we're going to pay another 3600$ end of year. I am excited for new features, but I want the existing ones to work properly.
Ive lived with Adobes Creative Cloud subscription hell for 5 years now and I am not at all happy with where it has taken their development focus. This recurring revenue thing puts a lot of focus on new stuff, having the proper tick boxes ticked so you come up great in the comparison charts. Existing features linger, because they are not "important" (but why did you then make them in the first place?)
I don't know who decides what is important development (and not important) in the Articulate company, but why is it important to introduce a feature, but not do it properly?
We need subtitles in our projects. Our users want them and they are unhappy with the small size of it. We do spend a lot of time on it, and anyone who uses or works with subtitles professionally know that the size of the letters on screen matters quite a lot. What works fine on a 32 incher might not be working well on a 14 incher. And if the only way to remedy this oversight is to hack with javascript, I don't think the feature is well done, or finished.
Though I do sound like sour grapes right now, and it is, I want to thank you for that tip, mr. Bibby. Your posts on how to hack courses with javascript are great and I just now realised it was you who responded
Anyways, when implementing a feature, do it right. Or wait until you can. Or live with the moaning from customers users that find it unsatisfactory.
Thanks for the open and honest conversation about this feature. We agree that it should be possible to adjust the font size of closed captions independently, for all the reasons you've mentioned above.
This is on our list, alongside a number of other planned accessibility improvements in the near future. I don't have a firm release date as of now, but I'll make sure this thread gets an update once we're ready to share more.
Thank you Simon, I hope this is done soon. Unfortunately it will be too late for my client's deadline - I only realised the subtitles were so small after I had told the client it was possible to add them. The irony is that I'm creating a module on Accessibility - with captions so tiny that I can't read them.
Same story. We just rolled out our first courses and this was the first comment we got: "please encrease font size of closed captions!". Very much looking forward to the release :-)!
Hi I would like to add my voice to the requests. Our clients are amazed that we cannot easily increase the size of the closed captions. Please make this a feature as soon as you can.
We now sit at the end of 2019, and Close Captions / Subtitle fonts are still locked at Ludicrously Small in the player. I still get complaints from course takers that the subtitles are uncomfortably small and that is a shame, but overall Articulate Storyline 360 feels more robust than it did a year ago.
34 Replies
Thank you very much, Matthew! Obvisously I need to visit an ophthalmologist, because I took a close look at the player options but simply overlooked the second font list for captions. There is no font size percentage as with the player font size, but my question is answered and 51% of the problem is solved... Hermann
Hi Hermann! Just to circle back... the Player font size window will also control the captions font size. In this way, the caption text is like an extension of the rest of the Player text.
I'm thinking you were hoping to modify the caption font size independently of the rest of the Player text. The range of size for the captions font was limited as an effort to stay within accessibility standards.
But let us know if you think we can improve or if your learners have different needs! Thanks for reaching out.
Thank you Crystal,
that's of course a good point: "to stay within accessibility standards". That's what we are looking at right now in case there might be differences between countries. Here (Germany) we were asked by a customer if we can increase the font size dramatically... and that triggered my post. If the accessability standards are met everything is ok - and I think you know what you do :)
Hermann
Thanks for the context, Hermann. It's a great conversation to have, especially when it comes to international standards and how they might differ.
We're happy to help where we can! 🇩🇪
Hermann, I am glad you brought this up, but I think that the implementation of CC in storyline 360 is not that good. I can't tell how the american standards are, but where I am from, the nordic countries, there is a long running tradition of subtitling foreign films and television shows (not by voice dubbing like is common in Germany). Subtitles are rather large, taking up the lower third of the screen (not entirely blocking it out) but we're more like a size 24-to 28 font.
It was invented also to aid the hearing impaired, not just to allow danes to watch films in foreign languages.
Crystal, we have the same request. Open Captions, or as we europeans call them: subtitles. Like you'll see in a film if you go to fancy cinema that shows foreign films that aren't dubbed. These letters are MUCH larger than the tiny, player based Storyline 360 captions .
Accessibility standards for subtitles in this part of the world dictates that text should be legible on screen. I have a hard time understanding how these tiny-font sized captions Articulate have decided to go with can be within standards. I think they are very small even with normal vision. If the person has to squint to read the tiny-fonts, isn't that the exact opposite you're achieving than make it accessible?
Can we have adjustable Captions font size on the player menu, allow to independently specify Captions font size so it is not tied to player font size in general?
This post was removed by the author
Hi Soren!
I see that you submitted this as a feature request as well, so thank you. That's the best way to share your ideas and concerns with our team.
This post was removed by the author
I for one mirror that request! Here at the (DoD-DEOMI) people are asking us to increases the font on closed captions, like now! A "can't do it" will out's Storyline 3 here quickly! And please fix this WITH 360/SL3 as an update, if we need to spend another $1,100 or more for SL4 (which has this update) it will surly sink the ship and use of Articulate Storyline going forward.
I'm also having trouble with the size of the captions. It's a great feature, but I don't understand how they can be so small and meet standards. If you are working on large slide size that doesn't allow for much expansion, they look really tiny on the screen. I have clients asking for these to be larger as well. Really hoping that caption size options get added soon.
Thanks Matthew. I have mine set to 200%. My slide size (determined by client template) is quite large, and can't expand much and the captions still look small. I'm used to doing captions in Camtasia which has a larger font size by default. Thanks for the response!
I'm interested in the hack, but the particular project I'm on now is big and not simple, and can't be broken (deadline is too soon). I'd like to know if there is a workaround though. I have had clients who publish only to HTML5 and it could be useful in those cases.
Hi Matthew can you share the hack with me too :-) I need to increase the size of the captions independently of the rest of the font sizes in the player
Since this discussion Matthew has done what he seems to do quite a lot: he made a nice tutorial and posted a link to it in these forums: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/building-better-courses/change-the-closed-caption-font-size
Thanks for sharing that hack, Matthew. Unfortunately, we publish in Flash with HTML5 fall back, so it won't work for me.
Traci P mentioned captions in Camtasia. They have the captions set up a certain way that by default are apparently ADA compliant e.g. Arial, 24pt, left justified, and more. If you change any of the defaults, it will tell you you're no longer compliant.
Making the player font bigger does make the captions bigger but even at 140% it doesn't come close to 24 pt. Also, there are some side effects to making the player font bigger e.g. the lines that separate the Player Tab titles on the topbar do not increase in size and are not middle-aligned with the titles, so they are higher up toward the top of the player than the titles are.
Leslie mentioned that Soren submitted a feature request but I see he deleted a couple of posts so...could you please confirm that the request was submitted?
I put a feature request in for adjustable font size for suntitles in same day I made this post I think. That is not the same as it winning the attention battle for time and ressources. There are marketing wars to be won out there, and since the ‘Closed Captions’ tick box have been ticked (halfway useless or not) focus must be on the next ‘differentiating’ sexy feature to put on the comparisson charts.
New version landed yesterday, I didn’t test it but I saw no mention of adjustable font size for subtitles in the patch notes.
Unfair? We've paid 7200$ for this software so far. And we're going to pay another 3600$ end of year. I am excited for new features, but I want the existing ones to work properly.
Ive lived with Adobes Creative Cloud subscription hell for 5 years now and I am not at all happy with where it has taken their development focus. This recurring revenue thing puts a lot of focus on new stuff, having the proper tick boxes ticked so you come up great in the comparison charts. Existing features linger, because they are not "important" (but why did you then make them in the first place?)
I don't know who decides what is important development (and not important) in the Articulate company, but why is it important to introduce a feature, but not do it properly?
We need subtitles in our projects. Our users want them and they are unhappy with the small size of it. We do spend a lot of time on it, and anyone who uses or works with subtitles professionally know that the size of the letters on screen matters quite a lot. What works fine on a 32 incher might not be working well on a 14 incher. And if the only way to remedy this oversight is to hack with javascript, I don't think the feature is well done, or finished.
Though I do sound like sour grapes right now, and it is, I want to thank you for that tip, mr. Bibby. Your posts on how to hack courses with javascript are great and I just now realised it was you who responded
Anyways, when implementing a feature, do it right. Or wait until you can. Or live with the moaning from customers users that find it unsatisfactory.
Thanks for the great discussion. As I work for a company that produce software, I feel Articulate's pain.
It took me a while to find the feature request link, so for those interested, here it is: https://articulate.com/support/contact/feature-request
Hi folks,
Thanks for the open and honest conversation about this feature. We agree that it should be possible to adjust the font size of closed captions independently, for all the reasons you've mentioned above.
This is on our list, alongside a number of other planned accessibility improvements in the near future. I don't have a firm release date as of now, but I'll make sure this thread gets an update once we're ready to share more.
Thank you Simon, I hope this is done soon. Unfortunately it will be too late for my client's deadline - I only realised the subtitles were so small after I had told the client it was possible to add them. The irony is that I'm creating a module on Accessibility - with captions so tiny that I can't read them.
Same story. We just rolled out our first courses and this was the first comment we got: "please encrease font size of closed captions!". Very much looking forward to the release :-)!
Hi I would like to add my voice to the requests. Our clients are amazed that we cannot easily increase the size of the closed captions. Please make this a feature as soon as you can.
9 months later...
2 years later still not possible to style subtitles?
We now sit at the end of 2019, and Close Captions / Subtitle fonts are still locked at Ludicrously Small in the player. I still get complaints from course takers that the subtitles are uncomfortably small and that is a shame, but overall Articulate Storyline 360 feels more robust than it did a year ago.