Master the Basics: Monitor Settings

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You may have noticed that your monitor or laptop screen can be set to different screen resolutions and to display different numbers of colors. For optimum viewing of web pages, we recommend that you use a monitor setting of at least 800 X 600 pixels with thousands of colors. Here's why: Screen Resolution Most people think of resolution in terms of photography or analog television. In those media, resolution indicates picture sharpness. In the computer world however, screen resolution refers to the dimensions of the pixels displayed on a screen. Your computer probably came preset to a resolution of 800 X 600 pixels. That means that your monitor will display a screen that is 800 pixels wide and 600 pixels high regardless of whether you have a 15-inch, 19-inch or larger monitor. The size of the monitor does not determine the screen resolution. But the bigger the monitor, the larger the screen resolution you can use. Try it for yourself. If you have a 14 or 15-inch monitor, switch the resolution from 800 X 600 to 1024 X 768 if your video card supports it. You will quickly see that everything gets smaller as the resolution increases. That's because the monitor is displaying a larger number of pixels in the same screen space. For many people, text and images are too small at 1024 X 768 on a 15-inch monitor, but will look fine on a 17-inch or larger monitor.. Using this higher setting also gives you additional screen real estate. Ideally, when viewing web pages, you want as high a resolution as you can get. The larger the screen resolution, the more of a web page that will fit on the screen. Since some web pages are too large to fit on one screen, a larger resolution allows you to see more of the page without scrolling. We recommend using a resolution of 800 X 600 if you have a 14 or 15-inch monitor, 1024 X 768 for 17-inch monitors and 1280 X 1024 for larger ones. Next Page  Learn the Net (www.learnthenet.com) is Copyright 1996-2009. Michael Lerner Productions. All Rights Reserved.