Orange County Register

The North Orange County Computer Club helps The Gadgetress tackle the multitude of readers’ cries for help. NOCCC group has experts in Windows, Word and all sorts of computer topics. The club, which meets monthly on various topics, has been in existence since 1976. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org. 

QUESTION: When I open the Internet, the picture is larger than my screen and I have to use scroll bars at the bottom and side to navigate the page. Is there some way to have the picture fit my screen?

PC Club: The usual cause is that your screen resolution is set too low. The screen resolution defines several things including the size of objects that are shown on your screen.

Technically, the screen resolution is the number of pixels along one of the dimensions of your screen. A popular screen resolution is 1024 by 768 which means that the screen can display 1024 pixels in the horizontal direction and 768 vertically. You can check the resolution of your screen by going to WhatIsMyScreenResolution.com.

Most Web pages are optimized around 1024 by 768 and if your screen resolution is lower than this, there is a good chance that you will have to use scroll bars to see the entire page.

To adjust your screen resolution to avoid scrolling, follow these steps:

1. Go anywhere on your screen where there isn’t an icon (i.e. your Desktop), right-click your mouse.
2. Select “Properties” from the menu that pops up (click image on right for larger view).
3. Next, select the “Settings” tab and look in the lower right corner for a slider labeled “Screen resolution.”
4. Drag the slider toward the right with your mouse to increase the screen resolution. You can then click Apply to make the change.
5. You may get asked if you want to make these changes – click “Yes” and try the new settings.

Be aware that your screen may go black for an instant, which is totally normal. You can repeat this process until you are happy with the results. Something to remember is that as you increase screen resolution, objects will become smaller. In other words, increasing screen resolution may prevent you from having to scroll but you may find the smaller objects more difficult to read. – Ed Schwartz, NOCCC member

Missed an answer? Get this delivered to your computer automatically, sign up for the e-mail update HERE. Recent PC Club questions: 

• PC Club: Creating slideshows on CD
• PC Club: Convert hundreds of color slides to digital
• PC Club: Fixing a computer that won’t sleep
• PC Club: Tips on removing ‘Antivirus 2009′ malware
• PC Club: How to put captions on photos

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.