Vista guide for DPI (Dots per inch) Scalings
Although these options might create some confusion it won’t take you long to get used to the new configurations for DPI scalings in Vista. You can open the Control Panel and open the Appearance and Personalization options (then select Personalize), or you can right-click in the middle of your screen and select Personalize. These settings allow you to configure most aspects of the Windows UI, including your screen background (wallpaper), screensavers, window color schemes, sounds, mouse pointers, themes, and display settings. In addition, here is where you configure your Windows Aero settings if your display adapter (video card) supports it. One of the more useful settings you can change is the Font DPI settings. If you type Adjust font size in the Search box, you will see the link for the DPI Scaling utility shown in Figure 1.6. The default scale is 96 DPI, which might be too small. The second option is 120 DPI, which many users find to be too large. If you click the Custom DPI option, however, you can use the slider to change the font size to something that suits your specific needs.
As anyone who uses an ultra-portable laptop would know, reading ultra-minimalistic weblogs with 9px-sized fonts on a high-resolution 1400×1050 display panel spanning an entire 12× is like an everyday blessing for eye-care companies. Now’s a good time to invest in the laser eye surgery business. Whilst desktop monitors have always maintained the adequately readable 96 DPI standard with LCD displays, pixel-density on laptops has reached as high as 144 DPI, and that means smaller interfaces and fonts. But who doesn’t want more pixels? The more pixels, the clearer the image. Windows Vista aims to reduce the negative effects of high-DPI displays by introducing an updated DPI-scaling engine for the desktop compositor. This allows icons, interfaces and text to be scaled bigger to compensate for the extra pixels. In theory, everything should look just as crisp and detailed compared to the default 96 DPI. But in practice, due to lack of vectorized interface elements and icons, it’s not perfect.
When you go to change the percentage of DPI the drop down button only allows you to select up to 200%. However, if you move the slider you can go as high as 500% (not recommended, but fun to see).
