What defines default font size for text/shape boxes?

Hi Diarmaid!

The standard font size for Headings is 24pt and 12pt for Body Text. This is a standard set up for any story size.

If you're hoping to customize these settings for a cohesive look throughout all of your courses, then I'd recommend saving the Storyline project as a template. 

We have detailed steps on how to customize a Storyline template for a quicker workflow! Here's the link. 

Let me know if you have additional questions!

Thanks, Lauren.

If 24pt and 12pt is the standard for "ANY story size", why is it that the fonts change to 25pt and 21.5pt when a new size is specified, even without scaling?

Even if the scaling was to be consistent, 12 scales to 21.5 then 24 should scale to 42.5.

I do save templates at the start of each series of projects (thanks for the link btw) but it would be great if we were able to be given, say, a control panel after clicking New Project whereby we can input some basic info, such as height and width, sizes for Headings and Body text, margin guides and a grid system (columns and gutter widths, etc) and voila, the hard work of prepping ANY new project is done in an instant, rather than laboriously tailor-making each new build as it comes. Or being clever enough to have prepped individual templates that cover all clients vagaries! :)

Hi Diarmaid,

To help clarify, I wanted to direct you to a discussion where a similar question was asked about a year ago and covers how Storyline calculates font size when the slide size changes:

Font size is determined as a ratio of the default slide size (720x540) to the current slide size (1920x980 in your file). 

The ratio is 2.666x in the X dimension and 1.8x in the Y dimension. Our font scaling chooses the larger of those two numbers, so that's why your font size 10 become 26.5 (fonts have discrete sizes at every half point).

Feel free to take a look for more insight!

Thank Ren. That's very interesting but it still doesn't really help the issue.

So it seems that Articulate has 'baked in' the 720x540 size as the default and that all the calculations regarding sizing stem from that.

I have never built a module in that size. I wonder how many current users utilise that size - it'd be interesting to research that. Every module has been bigger and lately, I am finding clients specifying increasingly larger sizes. 

What it means is that every module that is non-default has to be tweaked.

And for some reason, a simple resize of slide dimensions (to a normal more modern web size) results in font sizes being scaled. But then they are scaled by the larger of the two possible percentages.

And, once one has gone into the Master Slides and imposed a 'normal' font size (11pt is still my preference and most of my clients) onto these larger sized projects, and saved that as a template for future work, etc, etc, etc... if one alters or removes or replaces a master slide text box, then the fonts in any related text box within the module flips out and warps to some new, weird size (16.5 or 64.5 or 24.5 or whatever) and this is an annoying occurrence.

Sandy mentions above that "The standard font size for Headings is 24pt and 12pt for Body Text. This is a standard set up for any story size" which would imply that changing the module to ANY story size would leave the font sizes as is.

But, clearly, from your link above, that is not the case - the font size will ALWAYS scale up. 

So that's two conflicting messages. And neither really explain the 'why' of the matter. Why can't we have 1280x720 modules (or whatever crazy size) with 12 and 24 pt text as default? Or any desired default point size?

Hello Diarmaid,

I apologize for the conflicting information.

Right now, Storyline's default story size is 720x540. We're tracking requests for the ability to specify a preferred story size, and it sounds like you would benefit from that feature. I will circle back if we make any changes that will help!

As for the scaling changes you’re seeing, that’s similar to what you’d experience in Powerpoint where adjusting the slide size and maximizing the content or text to fit. 

As always, thank you for your insightful contributions.

Thanks Ren. 

I don't use Powerpoint so I wouldn't have any idea. I do however use a lot of design-based software and none of them scale font sizes when one changes the dimensions of the slide.

My point is that, according to the dialogue box that pops up offering the Change Story Size options, there is the option NOT TO SCALE. But it clearly does. I know this is a reference to images but one would imagine it should apply to all the slide content.

And it would be such a great place to be able to insert design specific options, as mentioned earlier, such as font sizes, grid options, columns, etc...