I have a 22" Acer AL-2216 LCD monitor running at 1680 x 1050, which is the default native resolution for this unit.

I am quite happy with this monitor, it was inexpensive and provides good viewing. I suppose someone doing professional graphics work would want something higher-end.

However, Windows Help files are virtually unreadable. I don't know if it is a problem with the monitor or a problem with Vista or some basic incompatibility between the two. Or perhaps I don't have something set up correctly.

I am attaching a screenshot of a Microsoft Word help file, and Help files from other Windows program are the same. (Expand it to full screen to get the actual effect)

Is this normal? If not, is it something I am doing wrong?

tanstaafl.

It certainly isn't normal, though I have no idea what is causing it.

Perhaps you could define "virtually unreadable." The font seems strangely small compared to the rest of the fonts on your screen, but it's perfectly readable to me.

Check the font size you've got set in Internet Explorer. The help pages are rendered using the IE engine.

The font size is set too small. It's nonstandard.

On my help window, I've got an option to change the font size. But I'm using a different version of the help screen than you are, so I don't know whether or not you have this option.

That was going to be my next suggestion.

In Internet Explorer, the keyboard shortcuts to reduce and increase the zoom are Ctrl+ and Ctrl-. Try those. There may be other keyboard shortcuts but I can't find them.

Nah, that's it [edit]oh, and there's also Ctrl 0, which returns it to normal[/edit]. There's also Ctrl and moving the mouse wheel. Frequently it happens without the person noticing it.

OHMYGOD that's awesome!
I use NoSquint and Image Zoom in Firefox, but that trick just made my day.
Thanks!

I can't stand web browsers that zoom only the size of the text. Glad Firefox and Safari (Webkit as a whole?) now zoom the whole page. Not glad that Safari's zoom still causes splits and tears between adjoining graphic elements though.

Does IE support a setting to limit the size of the smallest text it will display? Such as being able to set 10pt as the smallest? That would be a nice fix as well in case small sizes cause problems on your systems.

Is it just me, or does the latest Firefox now really "remember" the page zoom settings per website or something? Seems to for me..

Yep, it does. Pretty handy.

I was doing my tests in IE 8 (so as not to mess stuff up on my Firefox installation), and it zooms the entire page now.

I did that, giganticized the default font size in Internet Explorer, but it made no difference to my Help menus in Word or Excel.

Now what?

tanstaafl.

What about setting the font size in the system?
That would boost everything, though, and generally breaks more things that it fixes.

It's modified/stored on a per domain name basis. Open a link (same site) in a second tab and it too will be zoomed.

Also I just tried ctrl+two finger drag and it caused the entire screen of my MBP to zoom.

In Vista, right-click on the desktop, choose "Personalize", choose "Adjust Font Size", and then you can run a slider bar to increase/decrease font size. Unfortunately, this increases font sizes in a lot of places, including (strangely enough) this bbs and the desktop icons. Increasing the font size enough to make the help menus readable changes enough other things that I can't live with it. So I increased it just a little bit (from the original 100%, defined as Normal) to 106%. The help menus have gone from near-illegible to semi-readable now, and I can live with the other size increases. Maybe. I'll give it a few days to see.

tanstaafl.

edit: One troubling side effect of this font-size increase... the text in the non-resizable window that comes up when you click on the "Start" button at the bottom left of the screen is now large enough that the button for the "Restart" "Sleep" "Shut Down" etc. subwindow is moved past the right edge of the window, so I now have no way of turning off my computer.

db

Another edit: I'm back to the default "normal" font size. It turns out that some of my software won't even work with fonts larger than the standard size. (My scanner software shows up as a blank screen unless I set it to Full Screen mode, which makes it unusable.) So why if my settings are all default and normal are my help menus unreadable?

db