How to adjust Text Icons and Window Element Sizes

If you find the items on the screen difficult to read or see, you can either lower the screen resolution, which makes everything larger but blurrier, or ask Windows to make the elements themselves larger while keeping a crisper, high screen resolution.

There are two ways you can do this. Here's the first procedure:

1. Right-click the Desktop and select Properties.

2. Save the current screen settings so if you're unhappy with the results, you can back the changes out. Select the Themes tab, click Save As, and enter the name Original Display Settings. Click OK.

3. Select the Appearance tab, change the Font Size drop-down to Large Fonts, and click Apply to view the new text size. The text in the dialog won't change but the desktop and Start menu will. You can also try the Extra Large Fonts setting.

4. You can also click Advanced, select individual elements of the Windows display, and change their sizes, although this is more difficult to do and the results are less rewarding.

5. If want to back out all of the changes you made, go back to the Themes tab, open the Theme drop-down, select the entry that says Original Display Settings Without "(Modified)", and clickOK.

With this change, application programs won't necessarily know to make their displays more readable, but many have settings that will enlarge the display. You can Zoom the display in Microsoft Word, alter your email program's default font size, and so on.

There is another method you can use to make all Windows display appear larger; this involves lying to Windows to tell it that the dot-pitch (physical pixel spacing) of your monitor is greater than it really is, which will make Windows draw sized elements such as fonts larger than it would otherwise. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the Desktop and select Properties.

2. Select the Settings tab and click the Advanced button.

3. Select the General tab and make a note of the DPI setting. It's usually set to 96 DPI, although some monitors may cause Windows to use a larger or smaller value. Change the setting to the next higher value, or use Custom to enter a number about 1.2 times the original value. Click OK, and then restart Windows.

4. Experiment with the DPI setting at a higher value and the Font Size setting (discussed previously) at both the Normal and Large Fonts settings.