Why do some programs not rescale when moving across monitors on Surface 3?

Anonymous
2014-09-19T15:57:18+00:00

One of the nice features of the Surface 3 Pro is that in a multiple monitor setup (which I use a lot), windows will scale when I drag them from my primary display to the external one(s). That is, the scaling that is done to increase the size on the high DPI Surface screen is removed when I drag to en external monitor with a lower DPI. Very nice!

But, while this is nice, it doesn't work for all windows programs. Why? My example is, of all things, PowerPoint. Word is fine. Excel is fine, Firefox is fine, so is Thunderbird, Windows Explorer, etc. But when I use PowerPoint on my external monitor, the ribbon bar takes up 10-15% of the screen! Add to that the menu and such and I have less than 75% of my screen for actual work.

Is there anything one can do to fix this?

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2015-05-18T14:41:20+00:00

Thank you for this pointer. Seems that this does, indeed, fix the problem (for me, at least).

For my setup (Windows 8.1, Surface Pro 3, Office 365 - Office 15) the specific instructions are few and simple:

  1. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15
  2. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and change the permission so you can modify the file
  3. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and open with Wordpad
  4. Change the line

    <dpiAware>True/PM</dpiAware>

    to

    <dpiAware>False/PM</dpiAware>

  1. Save file

(at least with Office 365, you don't need to do anything in the registry as it's already looking at the external manifest file.)

Yes, line 4 seems counter-intuitive, but it's correct. Once you change this to False, Powerpoint will scale moving from high to lower DPI monitors. I've not encountered any other issues, but I've not used it for very long, yet.

Thanks to the previous pointers/authors for this tip.

(Do read

http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/

if you want more details and the history of this.)

Was this answer helpful?

70+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

76 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2015-06-10T09:33:17+00:00

    Hi, 

    The below did not fix my problem, does anyone have another solution to this problem?

    Best Regards

    Emelie

    Thank you for this pointer. Seems that this does, indeed, fix the problem (for me, at least).

    For my setup (Windows 8.1, Surface Pro 3, Office 365 - Office 15) the specific instructions are few and simple:

    1. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15
    2. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and change the permission so you can modify the file
    3. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and open with Wordpad
    4. Change the line

        <dpiAware>True/PM</dpiAware>

        to

        <dpiAware>False/PM</dpiAware>

    1. Save file

    (at least with Office 365, you don't need to do anything in the registry as it's already looking at the external manifest file.)

    Yes, line 4 seems counter-intuitive, but it's correct. Once you change this to False, Powerpoint will scale moving from high to lower DPI monitors. I've not encountered any other issues, but I've not used it for very long, yet.

    Thanks to the previous pointers/authors for this tip.

    (Do read

    http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/

    if you want more details and the history of this.)

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2015-05-19T20:20:56+00:00

    Thank you! This is exactly what I needed. This fixed my Dell XPS 13. So simple!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2015-05-19T19:03:21+00:00

    This also worked with a Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro running 8.1 and PowerPoint 2013.

    Kudos!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2015-05-18T18:21:13+00:00

    Holy Smokes Batman, it worked!  

    Thanks TheZar, you are a star!  

    I am on a Yoga 3 Pro with Office 2016 (beta) now, did a search for powerpnt.exe.manifest and found it here:

    C:\ProgramFiles (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16

    Right-clicked on powerpnt.exe.manifest and changed permissions in Properties>Security Tab for Users by clicking all the boxes and applying.

    then right-clicked and opened with NotePad and followed rest of instructions as above.

    Again, forever grateful.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments