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You may have already noticed that your monitor can
be set to different screen resolutions and set to display different numbers
of colors. The best monitor setting for viewing web pages is 800 X 600
pixels with thousands of colors. Here's why.
Screen ResolutionMost people think of resolution in terms of photographs
or television. In those media, resolution means sharpness. In the computer
world, screen resolution refers to the dimensions of the pixels displayed
on a monitor. Your computer may have come set to a resolution of 640 X
480 pixels. That means that your computer monitor will display a screen
of 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels high whether you have a 14, 15, or 17-inch
monitor. The size of the monitor does not determine the screen resolution.
But the bigger the monitor, the larger the screen resolution you can use.
Try it for yourself. If you have a 14 or 15-inch monitor, switch the resolution
from 640 X 480 to 800 X 600. and to 1024 X 768 if your video card supports
it. You will quickly see that everything gets smaller as the resolution
goes up. That's because the monitor is displaying a larger number of pixels
in the same screen space. Most people find everything is too small at 1024
X 768 on a 14-inch monitor, but on a 17-inch monitor you'll find you have
tons of screen real estate you can use.
On the Web you want as large a resolution as you can get. The larger the resolution, the more you can fit on the screen. Web pages are almost always too large to fit on one screen, so a larger resolution is better. We recommend using a resolution of 800 X 600 if you have a 14 or 15-inch monitor, and a resolution of 1024 X 768 for 17" and larger monitors.
Changing the ResolutionFor Windows users, from the Start menu, select Settings,
then the Control Panel folder. Now double-click on the Display icon, then
click on the Settings tab to see the current screen resolution.
![[Windows 95 Display Properties]](monitor1.gif) Try changing the resolution to the largest you can: 1024 X 768 if you have a 17-inch or larger monitor; 800 X 600 for a smaller monitor. Screen ColorsThe number of colors is also important. Unless you
are working with professional graphics and photography and have a computer
with lots of memory, avoid using 16 million colors. The best practical
resolution to use on the Web is 64,000 colors (High Color-16 bit). You
can get near photographic quality using thousands of colors, and you'll
find many web graphics, like those on Learn the Net, look much better than
when your display is set to only 256 colors. One thing to keep in mind,
however, is that many multimedia CD-ROMs with animations require you to
set your display to 256 colors. Even though you may need to change your
color settings once in awhile, you will find the Web more visually exciting
if you surf at thousands of colors.
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