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 is happiest when her resolution is set at 800 x 600.

Change your screen's resolution: 

1. Go to Start, Setting, and Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel window, click the Display icon.
3. Click the Settings tab. 
4. In the Screen Area, adjust the knob higher or lower with your mouse. When you’ve reached the setting you want, click Apply. 
5. The Display Properties Dialog Box will appear and explain that your monitor may flicker. You must click OK in order to proceed. 
6. 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.