Why does the Storyline application display so small?

Oct 01, 2014

Hi I just downloaded the trial version yesterday, When I open Storyline everything that displays in the window is so small - icons, fonts, menus etc. I've tried changing the resolution on my laptop and my second monitor but it doesn't change. Is there a way to make it larger.

thanks,

Jeanette

96 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Sri, 

I don't know enough about the market right now to weigh in on specific systems you could purchase, but it may be worth reaching out to your local computer store or searching Amazon based on those screen sizes. Similarly depending on the system you may be able to change the screen resolution to work with Storyline 2 or 1 using the DPI setting needed. 

Jack,

I'm sorry to hear that's your take on why this hasn't been fixed, but our team did investigate this issue within Storyline 2 and determined there was a lot of risk and time involved in implementing a fix within Storyline 2. At that point they looked toward what we were doing with Articulate 360 (when it was still in development) and made changes to ensure that it would provide a better experience on those high resolution monitors. We reached out to a number of users in the community to have them beta test it as well, and all shared positive feedback on the new behavior. If you'd like to discuss your specific questions or concerns on the upgrade cost, our Success team is more than happy to do so. You can reach out to them here to have a one on one conversation. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Elvia,

I know that this issue has plagued users for some time and it's something that our team really took a lot of time and effort in investigating and then implementing the fix in Storyline 360. I shared earlier in this discussion the current position that it wasn't a fix we'd be able to port back to Storyline 2 at this moment based on time, effort and risk involved in the change and how Storyline 2 was initially designed. I know that answer doesn't help you today and I can understand the continued frustration as well. I'm sorry I don't have a better solution for you at this time, but if you'd like to discuss it with our Success team they'd be more than happy to talk through the options with you. Please feel free to reach out to them here. 

Leslie McKerchie

Hello Rebecca - This thread is specific to Storyline, but the same solution holds for Studio.

It sounds like you are adhering to our advice as displayed below:

You may find that user interface elements in Articulate Studio are small and difficult to read on high resolution monitors—generally, monitors that display more than 2,000 pixels in width. We're working to improve performance on HD monitors. In the meantime, you may need to reduce your screen resolution while working in Studio. 

So, that being said, I would reach out to our support engineers here to see if there is something we could further assist with.

Leslie McKerchie

Hello Dawn - Thanks for sharing that image, that certainly is an extreme example of the behavior. I've opened up a support case (01044817) on your behalf so that one of our support engineers can take a look and gather some additional information from you regarding your set-up. You should be hearing from someone soon.

Kyle Buckel

Hi Leslie,

I did exactly that. Storyline 3 does adjust for high-DPI displays but the graphics and text become pixelated in the process. I've seen this with other programs as well. 

I went into the program properties and temporarily disabled scaling on high DPI devices to compare. The graphics and text were no longer pixelated, and some display at a "good" (I know that's subjective) size, while others are far too small, as they are in Storyline 2. 

I have attached 2 images, one showing what it looks like when automatically scaling, the other showing what it looks like when scaling is disabled. These unaltered screenshots are the same size/resolution (2880x1620, 192 pixels/inch). 

I'll happy upgrade SL2 to SL3 if this can be fixed. For now, small-but-crisp text and buttons are preferable to larger-but-pixelated text and buttons. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Thanks Kyle for the images, as those examples are helpful. Our team did change to allow for scaling in Storyline 3 as a part of the high-dpi fix, and as such if you are using that scaling then you'll begin to see it may get a bit less crisp or blurry. Knowing that Storyline 2 was unusable for some users on a high resolution monitor because it was way too tiny, it was important that we provide an alternative to that in Storyline 3 and Storyline 360. We're continuing to monitor the impact and customer feedback on this to figure out our next steps. Certainly will keep you updated here with any changes on that and sorry if this is causing you additional headaches (literally and figuratively!) while designing courses in Storyline. 

Greg Mason

It's pretty amazing that this issue still seems to be around. It's 2017 now and I looks like this issue with the display has been occuring since 2014. I can't use anything besides 1280x720 on my laptop or it shrinks everything down. In any case, I don't feel like users should have to adjust their entire resolution setting for Articulate. I did submit a case for this and was told "

I'm sorry to hear that. Please follow the troubleshooting steps in this article to fix unexpected or erratic behavior in Articulate Studio '13:

 https://www.articulate.com/support/article/unexpected-or-erratic-behavior-in-articulate-studio-13

This seems like a pretty generic response and what's more, the issue isn't unexpected or erratic. It seems like a bug that Articulate needs to fix.

 Can anyone offer any solutions more helpful than this?

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Greg, 

It looks like you're using Studio '13 based on your case? This discussion has gotten a bit longer so it's hard to keep track of the updates we shared - but with the release of Articulate 360 (which included Storyline and Studio 360) we implemented a fix based on the feedback we heard. Sadly, it wasn't something we were able to port back to Storyline 2 or Studio '13, and I know that's beyond frustrating to hear. 

I found your case as well, and if you'd like to talk through this further with my Support team feel free to let me know here or respond to your support case. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Liz,

We changed how Storyline scaled with high resolution machines in Storyline 360 (and Storyline 3) so the UI should appear better there than with Storyline 2. We know that there is still some work to do on this front (it can appear blurry depending on your screen resolution) so our team is continuing to test and look at other areas for improvement. 

We'll keep folks posted here on any changes or updates! 

Rebecca Poling

Hi,
Thanks for the feedback about the resolution of Storyline/Articulate Studio
producing such a small image that was not readable. The many problems I had
were due to using Windows 10. I ended up loading Windows 8.1 on all of my
computers after 4 crashes in a 2 month period of Windows 10 last year. So
far, no crashes and no display problems!
Rebecca

Christa Cole

Hi Ashley, I just converted to Windows 10. You say you haven't run into problems with it. What have you used on Windows 10 to increase the size of your task bars and tool bars. I have no problem making my project larger, but anything else is tiny. If I increase resolution, this results in no change to Storyline, but every other program on my computer is massive, which is unusable.

Thanks, Christa