Windows8 Changing the Width of the Ribbon

The width of the ribbon depends on the horizontal space available to it, which depends on these three factors.

▪    ThE wIDTh of ThE PRogRAm wInDow  Maximizing the program window provides the most space for ribbon elements. You can resize the program window by clicking the button in its upper-right corner or by dragging the border of a window

that isn’t maximized.

TIP On a computer running Windows 8, you can maximize the program window by dragging its title bar to the top of the screen.

▪    youR sCREEn REsoluTIon  Screen resolution is the size of your screen display expressed as pixels wide by pixels high. The greater the screen resolution, the greater the amount of information that will fit on one screen. Your screen resolution options

depend on your monitor. At the time of writing, the lowest possible screen resolution was 800 × 600. The highest resolution depends on your monitor and your computer’s display capabilities. In the case of the ribbon, the greater the number of pixels wide (the first number), the greater the number of buttons that can be shown on the rib- bon and the larger those buttons can be.

On a computer running Windows 8, you can change your screen resolution from the Screen Resolution window of Control Panel. You set the resolution by dragging the pointer on the slider.

▪    ThE DEnsITy of youR sCREEn DIsPlAy  You might not be aware that you can change the magnification of everything that appears on your screen by changing the screen magnification setting in Windows. Setting your screen magnification to 125

percent makes text and user interface elements larger on screen. This increases the legibility of information, but less fits on each screen.

On a computer running Windows 8, you can change the screen magnification from the Display window of Control Panel. You can choose one of the standard display magnification options or create another by setting a custom text size.

zThe screen magnification is directly related to the density of the text elements on screen, which is expressed in dots per inch (dpi) or points per inch (ppi). (The terms are interchangeable and, in fact, are both used in the Windows dialog box in which you change the setting.) The greater the dpi, the larger the text and user interface elements appear on screen. By default, Windows displays text and screen elements at 96 dpi. Choosing the Medium—125 percent—display setting changes the dpi of text and screen elements to 120. Likewise, choosing Larger increases the dpi even more.