Different DPI on MacBook Pro and external monitors

I have an external monitor connected to my MacBook Pro, the two screens have different DPIs. Ideally I would like them to be the same, but as this is not the case, the best option I can see is reducing the resolution of the MBP screen to bring its DPI as close as possible to the external monitor. This introduces scaling artefacts on the screen, as LCDs don't look good at non-native resolutions.

Is there a standard or best way of handling this, and if not, what other options are available?

Ollie Glass

Posted 2010-07-13T20:56:46.383

Reputation: 451

Answers

I put the monitors at a different distance from my eyes so the DPI (as perceived) is reasonably close.

Cajunluke

Posted 2010-07-13T20:56:46.383

Reputation: 2 308

Since there is no better solution, just ignore the problem (it's easy to get used to the jumpy pointer when traversing the boundary) or do this. – Daniel Beck – 2011-01-13T20:34:23.417

This probably won't help but I stumbled across a tool that will let you inspect your factory dpi settings.

Quartz Debug -> UI -> Resolution

It's part of the dev tools. It allowed me to set my gtk dpi correctly using:

defaults write org.x.X11 dpi -int 72

Jacob

Posted 2010-07-13T20:56:46.383

Reputation: 179

Different DPI on MacBook Pro and external monitors - what options are there?

Answers