Fix if Paratext looks fuzzy on your high quality screen or monitor

Question

Someone posted this link on Facebook. The video doesn’t mention Paratext but the person who posted the link says it worked great. Symptom: You have a high quality laptop or monitor, most programs look very clear, but a few programs like Paratext look fuzzy. A couple of registry changes reportedly help this issue.

Answer 1

Just for the record, the problem is still there in May 2022!
I got blurred Paratext 9.2 with 125% scaling (recommended by Windows 10!)
This tweak works for me.
Another option for me was to select “Custom Scaling” in Advanced Scaling Settings to 120% (that sets the LogPixel value to 115). The tweak above sets is to 125%, funny enough!
And yes, by doing this, the dictionary display becomes difficult - I need to resize the window to see the content.
Dear developers, it would be really nice to have this fixed.

Comments

I reported this issue as well in 2019, PTX-17791. I have a 1440p monitor and use custom scaling (125%) to help with the blurriness of Paratext and some other apps (not the registry). The dictionary display is still a problem, as it only displays in a small quadrant, so no text is visible unless the window is very large. So I tend to use an autohide window, and make the autohide very large/wide so that I can still see the text.

---

I think you can work around the problem by avoiding 125% custom scaling. If the custom scaling is 115% or less; or 130% or more, I think the dictionary content appears like it should.

---

Thanks @sewhite, that does fix the issue with the dictionary. Unfortunately at those percents the text no longer looks nice. At 125% everything is perfectly crisp, but above that things get blurry again, and below that text is thin and not very clear. So I think I’ll have to stick with this until the dictionary window handles custom scaling better.

---

I’ve been reviewing this to document for the developers why it is still a problem (and I can repeat it in Windows 11). In my Windows 11, I find the dictionary displays go small at a custom scaling of 117-125%, but 126% does not cause a problem for the dictionaries. Is there a noticeable effect on the general text to go from 125% to 126%?

---

Setting it to 126% does also fix the dictionary issue. The clarity isn’t too bad at 126%. I would say it is less sharp, but only subtly. I took some screen shots, but changing to 126% affects the size of all of the text a surprising amount, so it’s hard to compare the two screenshots, but let me know if you’d like to see those.

Answer 2

I just want to add the keywords HD screens and high DPI and QHD monitors in case I ever find the cash to have one of those later. Then I will search for this post…

Answer 3

Ha, that was me as the Facebook OP! Since making the registry changes, I have noticed that some font sizes are reduced, and, interestingly, the images of some of my start menu icons sometimes disappear. But, the tiles are still there with their titles, and they are still clickable.

Read the first video description for details regarding font size.

Original post in the SIL Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1719088271698065/permalink/2249521898654697/

Comments

anon094061:

Original post in the SIL Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1719088271698065/permalink/2249521898654697/

This “permalink” is broken. The video is on YouTube at Blurry font and program fix for HD screens | Windows 10 - YouTube .

@anon094061, when I ran RegEdit, I found I already had these settings, except my LogPixels = 0x80 (128): is this number the %scaling? Maybe not since I thought I set the scaling on my 4k monitor to 133%.

---

I’m not sure. I just followed the directions to a T and it worked. Have you tried that?

---

More info here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5990-change-dpi-scaling-level-displays-windows-10-a.html

… and other websites.

The DPI scaling as a factor is Logpixels / 96; or in %, LogPixels × 100 / 96.

Examples:

• 120 × 100 / 96 = 125%
• 128 × 100 / 96 = 133.333%, or 128 / 96 = 1 1/3.

Answer 4

Update for PT9 users: Currently dictionary resources are not displaying correctly when this feature is activated. I’m in communication with the development team to see if anything can be done.

Comments

Yes, I notice that setting the display to 125%, then adding those registry settings described in the video make dictionary windows that are mostly gray, as though the routine that displays content thinks the window is much smaller than it really is.

Answer 5

Another note: I found that if you open a dictionary in its own window and make the window full screen, you can make the dictionary usable- it will occupy about a quarter of the screen. Not ideal, but possibly better than having to go into PT8 (Be sure to close your project files there if you do) or having no dictionary at all.

Answer 6

BTW, I don’t think it looks fuzzy on my screen at 133%.

@anon094061, for other users, following your instructions is going to change the size of everything on their screen, isn’t it? That might not be what they want.

Comments

Yes it will affect the sizing in some other places of the operating system. But it shouldn’t change the sizing of everything. It is not simply turning off all scaling.

The fact that some other things in the operating system display can be affected is mentioned in the tweak documentation, which is unfortunately spread out over the YouTube video, video descrption, Facebook post, Facebook comments, and more than one thread on this forum.

Some people feel that the benefits are worth it. Those that don’t can easily undo the two registry changes. It’s up to them.

I personally much prefer the crisper display even if some things are a bit smaller. But other people may have a different situation.

This isn’t presented as a perfect fix, but rather a workaround.

It is my hope that the Paratext developers will be able to come up with a patch that fixes the issue for everyone.

I hope that helps.