topic Re: Frame backgound in ArcGIS StoryMaps Questions

Frame backgound

CatherineCarter1 — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 23:34:22 GMT

I am finally getting back to working with Frames and I have been mostly successful. I would like know how to change the color and width of the background for the basic embedded frame and also for the video/pdf. I would like the background to be much less wide, perhaps only to the size of the Frame itself.

Thanks for the help,

Catherine

Re: Frame backgound

JosephMayfield — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 21:13:38 GMT

@CatherineCarter1 - I'm glad to hear that you have been finding success in working with frames. There are a couple of places where backgrounds are used in frames. There is the slide background color which is displayed on each of the slides in a frame. There is also frame viewer background that is displayed when a frame is viewed on a screen in landscape orientation. Both of these background colors are set by the theme, so you can change the background colors by changing the theme. You also noted that you would like to change the width of embedded frames. Can you share some more information about where you are embedding frames and what you would like to see when you embed them?

Re: Frame backgound

CatherineCarter1 — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:19:52 GMT

Thank you for the information. I understand the difference in backgrounds .. it is the frame viewer background that I want to change. Take a look here — www.catherinecarter.media/photo-stories/FramesTest. I don’t want to see any of the gray background.

I have been able to download the video and pdf versions of the file. However, I cannot use these in social media because they are connected to a url. In order to add this to instagram I need to be able to get them from my computer, not from a web browser. I cannot even add the video to my website because my website builder requires that it be in Vimeo, not on a url. If there is another solution I would be grateful to know it.

Thank you for your help,
Catherine

Re: Frame backgound

JosephMayfield — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:22:13 GMT

@CatherineCarter1 - Thank you for elaborating on this topic. I cannot access the web page via the link provided, but I think you're describing the frame viewer background that is displayed when a frame is embedded in a website. If that is the case, then you can minimize the background displayed by modifying the width property in the embed code to a value around 30% to 38%. For example:

<iframe src="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/frames/[ITEM_ID]" width="33%" height="500px" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="></iframe>

As you noted, the frame's download files open in new browser tab with the resource URL. If you would like to save the file, you can use the browser's download button to download the video or PDF file to your local machine. Most social platforms support uploading MP4 video files into a post.

Re: Frame backgound

CatherineCarter1 — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 14:30:44 GMT

Hi Joseph .. I have been working on this and I have changed the width parameter to 30%. That narrows the background but does not remove. Further, the frame still takes up the full width of the page so that I cannot put anything else beside the Frame (text, another image, etc). Also, the frame itself is up against the very top of the background and the background extends below the frame. So .. this isn't going to work for my website, which is too bad.

The video seems to work on instagram although I have to add another cover image .. otherwise I just get a black frame with a play button as the first frame.

I appreciate all your help. I know that Frames is in Beta and it seems to need quite a bit of work. I like using the original StoryMap very much so for now I will stick with that.

Thanks so much,
Catherine