How to Create a DVD Menu in DVDStyler

The menu is the first thing anyone sees when your disc starts, and DVDStyler gives you more control over it than most free authoring tools: more than 20 built-in templates, a fully custom design mode with your own background images, and an SVG-based menu system that lets you place buttons, text and graphics anywhere on the frame. This tutorial covers all three approaches. If you have never made a disc at all, work through burn an MP4 to DVD first — this page assumes a project with at least one video title already added.

Start from a template

1. Open your project. The menu editor is the main canvas in the DVDStyler window.
2. In the left panel, switch to the backgrounds/templates view and browse the built-in templates. Double-click one to apply it.
3. DVDStyler creates buttons for your titles automatically. Drag the buttons to where you want them, and double-click each one to confirm its action — a title button should be set to play that title.
4. Click a text label to rename it. “Movie” is clearer than a raw filename like VID_20240914.mp4.

Templates are the fastest route to a disc that looks intentional: background, button style and layout are already coordinated. You can still change the background image afterwards (see below) without losing the button layout.

Design your own menu from scratch

Set a background

Right-click the menu canvas and open the menu properties, or drag an image from the file browser onto the background. A still frame from your video, a family photo, or a simple dark texture all work well. Two practical rules:

• Match the aspect ratio. In a 16:9 project, use a widescreen image; a 4:3 photo will be stretched or cropped to fit.
• Mind the contrast. Buttons and text sit on top of the background. A busy, bright photo makes labels hard to read on a TV across the room — pick a calmer image or darken it in an image editor first.

Add and arrange objects

From the object palette you can add three kinds of elements:

• Buttons — the interactive elements. DVDStyler offers several button styles (text buttons, thumbnail buttons that show a video frame, and graphical buttons). Every button needs an action: play a title, jump to a chapter, or open another menu.
• Text — titles, instructions (“Press play to start”), or credits. Set the font, size and color in the object’s properties; prefer large sizes and strong contrast for TV viewing.
• Graphics — frames, lines and shapes to structure the layout.

All objects can be moved by dragging and resized by their handles. Keep everything important — button labels especially — away from the very edges of the frame, because many TVs crop a small margin around the picture (overscan). A layout that looks fine edge-to-edge in the editor can lose its outermost text on a real television.

Set what each button does

Double-click any button to open its properties. The action is the part that matters most:

• Play a title (and optionally start at a specific chapter).
• Open another menu — for example a chapter menu or a subtitle/audio setup menu.
• Resume or return actions for multi-menu projects.

A button whose action is not set looks fine on screen but does nothing in the player — the single most common menu problem we see. If you have a finished disc with dead buttons, see menu buttons not working for the diagnosis path.

Copy a menu

Making a second menu that matches the first — a chapter menu that looks like the main menu, for instance — does not mean rebuilding it. Right-click the menu in the menu strip at the bottom of the window and choose the copy/duplicate option: the whole menu, including background and objects, is duplicated, and you can then change what its buttons point to. This keeps fonts, colors and layout consistent across the disc.

How the SVG menu system works

Under the hood, DVDStyler menus are built on SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). In practice this means three things for you as an author: objects are resolution-independent and stay sharp; positions and sizes are precise rather than pixel-guessed; and advanced users can fine-tune a menu’s underlying description for effects the palette does not expose directly. You never have to touch the SVG itself to make a good menu — but it is why DVDStyler menus can be freely rearranged and rescaled without the blur you get from bitmap-based tools.

Preview like a viewer

Use the preview before you generate the disc, and navigate with the on-screen remote: move the highlight between buttons with the arrow keys and confirm the selection changes color or outline visibly. If two buttons are so close that the highlight jumps unpredictably, space them further apart. Then check the actual playback path — menu, button, video, and the return-to-menu behavior at the end of the title.

Related tutorials: add chapters (including chapter menus) and add subtitles (including a menu page where viewers choose a subtitle language). All tutorials are listed in the tutorials hub, and the program itself is on the download page.