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

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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.)

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-09-27T14:51:06+00:00

    So this is frustrating. I keep looking around for solutions (since Microsoft seems to not care) and look here:

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_365hp-powerpoint/powerpoint-will-not-scale-properly-on-second/90235c12-ee4b-44ec-aafb-856b4edd6948

    This is on your own site and from December 2013. Same complaint. Same problem. No solution at all.

    This problem is almost a year old (at least) and there is no solution and not even an acknowledgement of the problem. Ridiculous.

    I guess I'll have to move on. If someone at Microsoft really cares, and I mean REALLY cares, then let us know what is being done to fix this. But at this point, I'm done wasting my time trying to prove to you there is a problem and waiting for a useful solution.

    This site is mislabeled. There are no "answers" here from what I can tell; only lots of customers reporting problems.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-09-26T20:29:16+00:00

    I've tried to post photos but it keeps crashing the browser when I do. One more time!

    This is a Dell U2412 monitor on my dock with a CableMAtters cable. Many other cables/monitor types fail the same way, so this seems to not be hardware (Excel is fine, Word is fine, Firefox is fine, Thunderbiord is fine, etc.). Turns out IE is also broken in this way (which is what I'm using to send this to you, now).

    In these images, the top ones are on my Surface (Excel and PowerPoint). The bottom ones are on my external monitor. Note how Excel looks nice (gets scaled properly) but PowerPoint is HUGE on the external monitor due to being scaled 150% still.

    Now any ideas? Seems PowerPoint is simply refusing to rescale. I don't know why and I believe it works for you, but are your external monitor(s) scaling at 150% like the surface or something else?

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-09-24T19:31:43+00:00

    To be 100% clear... it's PowerPoint ONLY (not Excel) for both of us.

    Can you explain why the video adapter would have anything to do with this? How can it know what program is running?

    Do you, indeed, see the rescaling happening or does it just look right in both places? What is the scaling on your Surface Pro 3? IS there an easy way to report the scaling on each monitor? I'd like to compare mine to yours.

    PowerPoint is the ONLY program not scaling. Is there really no idea why? And what version of PowerPoint are you running? I'm running 15.0.4649.1000

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-09-24T19:00:39+00:00

    Hi Return of the Mac and TheDaveZ,

    Thank you for your responses and confirmation that the issue is in fact with Excel, and not Powerpoint.

    I have tried replicating the issue by connecting the Surface Pro 3 with an external monitor via the official Microsoft Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter (Surface Pro) and both PowerPoint and Excel were rescaled proportionately.

    Could you give me a description of your setup? (What adapter and monitor you are using)

    Also, could you send us a picture of the screen?

    Thanks in advance!

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