How To Change Your Monitor Screen Resolution

Monitor screen resolution is the amount of pixels in the width and height of your screen. Having a higher resolution results in sharper images, but things will appear smaller. This allows you to fit more things on the screen at a time. A monitor pixel is a little colored dot of light that goes together to make up what you see in the computer monitor, which is the monitor display. When changing monitor resolutions, you should consider the size of the monitor. Monitors that are smaller than 17" may not want to set the resolution above 800x600. The monitor won't be able to keep up with the resolution and images will flicker.

Here's how to change your monitor resolutions:

For PC users with Windows 95/98/Me/2000

1. Select Settings from Start Menu.
2. Click Control Panel option from the Settings Menu.
3. Choose the Display option from Control Panel.
4. Click Settings tab.
5. In the Screen/Desktop area, move the lever until it reaches 800x600 pixels, or a higher setting you desire, then click OK.
6. A message will appear indicating that Windows resized the desktop. It might take a few seconds. Click OK.
7. After changing the monitor resolution, a dialog box will appear and ask if you want to keep the modified setting.
8. Click yes to save the setting.

For PC users with Windows XP

1. Select Control Panel from Start Menu.
2. Click Appearance and Themes.
3. Then choose, Change the screen resolution.
4. In the Display or Properties area, move the lever under Screen Resolution until it reaches 800x600 or a higher setting you desire.
5. After changing the screen resolution, a dialog box will appear and ask you if you want to keep the modified setting.
6. Click yes to save the setting.

For Apple or Macintosh users

1. Go to Apple Menu then Control Panels, and click Monitors.
2. Click the Monitor icon on top of the control panel, then choose either 800x600 or a high setting you desire for monitor resolution.

For older Mac operating systems

1. Go to Apple Menu then Control Panels, and click Monitors.
2. Click Options, and then choose the 800x600 or a higher setting you desire for monitor resolution.

Aspect ratio is also important to repair monitor resolutions. The computer user needs to select a monitor resolution setting with the same aspect ratio, which should be similar to the aspect radio of the monitor. Monitors with a 4:3 aspect ratio should have resolutions with the same ratio—800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864 and 1600x1200. Monitors with a 5:4 aspect ratio should also have resolution with the similar ratio—1280x1024 and 1600x1280.

Monitor resolution is important to consider when creating and viewing Web pages. It is the Web designer's challenge to create a Web site that can look good no matter what the monitor specifications are. When moving to a higher resolution, objects on the desktop might appear small. But when you go back to a lower resolution, objects on the desktop will seem huge.