Hello.
I'd like to speak with you today about screen resolution and changing the screen resolution
in Windows 7.
Before I do that, however, I'd like to talk a little bit about how images are displayed
on your screen.
Imagine, if you will, that your screen is overlaid with a very finely meshed grid.
Now, in point of fact, the grid would be so fine that you would not be able to see the
individual squares.
Pretend that each square could be exactly one color: It could be yellow, or it could
be green, but it can't be yellow and green.
Each of those squares would be called a "picture element," or a pixel, and your monitor is
going to be a fixed, physical size -- you can't stretch your monitor or shrink your
actual monitor, but you can change how many pixels are displayed on your monitor: Pixels
going across for your horizontal resolution, and pixels going up and down for your vertical
resolution.
Now I 've got a Paint image here that is currently simulating a high resolution; lots and lots
of pixels going across, and lots and lots of pixels going down.
As I zoom in on this image, I am simulating having fewer and fewer pixels going across
and down.
If you are having fewer pixels being displayed on the monitor, and the monitor is a set size,
and the pixels are going to cover the entire monitor, each pixel will have to be larger.
That's what happens when you see the triangle.
The way Paint stores images, it stores colors within specific pixels, and as I zoom in,
I get to the point where the image is pixelated; I can actually see where the individual pixels
would be, so I can see that this little square here would be one pixel; this little square
here would be another pixel, and so on.
So how do you change your screen resolution?
You right-click on a blank part of the screen, and choose "Screen Resolution."
You should see "Resolution" with a drop-down list, and if you click on the drop-down arrow,
you can see different options available to you.
My monitor is currently set to have the highest resolution being displayed: 1680 across; 1050
pixels up and down.
Suppose I were interested in having a lower resolution.
Maybe my eyesight's not quite so good and I'd like to have things look a little bit
larger.
Let's make this a little bit more extreme.
I'd like to see how this looks, so I'll click on "Apply," and when I click on, "Apply,"
I am given the options: Do I want to keep these settings or do I want to revert back?
If I don't make any specification, it will automatically revert back to my original settings.
This is a failsafe mechanism, in case I wound up making changes such that I couldn't even
see what I was doing on the screen. It has since reverted back, and I'm going to cancel
out of here, and so you have now seen how you can change the resolution of your screen.
Thank you very much.