Exploit the full screen area of a widescreen monitor

Q I recently bought a new Acer AL2416WB widescreen monitor thinking it would make Corel Draw 11 easier to use.

Unfortunately, the reverse is true in that images are now stretched to the new format with circles appearing as ellipses and squares as rectangles.

How can I correct this?
Geoff Axford

A This distortion is happening because the computer thinks it’s connected to an older, and squarer, 4:3-shaped screen.

It is delivering a resolution designed to fit one of these older screens, such as 1,024x768 or 1,280x1,024 pixels.

Since these older screens are narrower than a widescreen monitor, the 4:3 image is being horizontally stretched to fill the new screen, which results in the distortion.

Alternatively, some widescreen monitors recognise 4:3 resolutions and display them without stretching, in which case there will be thick black bars running down either side of the image.

To properly exploit the full screen area of a widescreen monitor and avoid distortion, you need to send a widescreen signal from your computer.

For the best quality, always drive an LCD monitor at its native resolution, which you can find in the manufacturer’s specifications. According to Acer, your AL2416WB has a native resolution of 1,920x1,200 pixels, a common specification for a widescreen monitor.

So open your Windows display control panel and change the desktop area or resolution to 1,920x1,200 pixels; if this mode is not available, you’ll need to install a driver for your monitor.

Once set to a widescreen resolution, your desktop image will now fill the screen and there will be no distortion.

This aspect ratio is actually 16:10, so if you watch a 16:9 DVD or TV show on it, there will be very thin black bars running along the top and bottom of the image.