French landscape painter Georges Seurat
was ahead of his time. His paintings made whole landscapes spring
out of tiny, individual dots. More than 100 years later, computer
monitors follow the same principle. Everything on your monitor is
made up of thousands of small dots of shade and color known as pixels.
It takes thousands of pixels to make
everything you see on your screen: your clock, application icons,
colors—even error messages. The size of text, graphics and the like
are all determined by the number of pixels you select for your
monitor, which is also known as the resolution. Your monitor’s
resolution measures the number of pixels across your screen by the
number of pixels down—640 x 480, 800 x 600, or even 1024 x
768. The higher you set the resolution, the smaller things
will appear on your screen. Conversely, the lower you set the
resolution, the larger things will appear on your screen. Once
you know how to do it, it’s easy to find the resolution that’s right
for you.
Reaching a resolution
When you buy a new computer—or a new
monitor—it’s a good time to try out different resolutions rather
than automatically using the resolution that comes as the default.
How do you know if you have your monitor set to the right
resolution?
People who have small monitors typically use
a 640 x 480 setting because smaller monitors make
smaller text and graphics even more difficult to see. People
with larger monitors often use 1024 x 768 because they have more
room. If you’re comfortable when you look at your screen, your
monitor's resolution is right for you. If, however, you
have a hard time seeing words or icons on the screen, you might be
more comfortable setting your desktop to a lower resolution, which
will make everything larger. Conversely, if you feel like you’ve
landed back in nursery school when you look at your computer, you
might feel more at home switching to a higher resolution to shrink
things down to their normal size. Want to try out a different
resolution? It's easy--just follow the instructions in the
sidebar.
![Susan Hutton](../../../images/edtSusan.gif)
Susan Hutton is
happiest when her resolution is set at 800 x 600.
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Change your screen's
resolution:
- Go to Start, Setting, and Control Panel.
- In the Control Panel window, click the
Display icon.
- Click the Settings tab.
- In the Screen Area, adjust the knob
higher or lower with your mouse. When you’ve reached the setting
you want, click Apply.
- The Display Properties Dialog Box will
appear and explain that your monitor may flicker. You must click
OK in order to
proceed.
- If you like the new settings, click
Yes to keep your new
settings. If you don’t, click No and your old settings will
return.
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