ACAD 2014 text and menus are too small to read

[meenakshichengappa]

I have a Dell xps 15 laptop with Windows 8.1. I've just installed AutoCAD 2014, but some menus and text are too small to read!

Attached is a sapshot of my screen.

Video Card Intel R HD Graphics 4600
                   Driver Version 10.18.10.3345, 10-31-2013
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M
                   Driver Version 9.18.13.3165, 10-23-2013
Display of built-in laptop monitor is 3200x1800 32 bit (60 hertz)

Please help!

[JoAnn_Hogan]

OK I can see you are using Classic mode which gives you small Icons Automatically. But those are too small.

1. Switch your workspace to "Drafting & Annotation" and switch back to classic mode.
2. Do you have all your service packs installed
3. If issue is still not resolved. Reset your AutoCAD (Start screen > Right-click All apps > Look for your Reset settings to default under AutoCAD 2014.

Please let me know if that does not work then we have to take a more drastic approch

[meenakshichengappa]

1. Tried that but it didn't help. It's not just that some of the font is too small. In some places it's so large that it either overlaps neighbouring text or simply isn't visible. Pop-up windows like the help window, for example, are too small to read and can't be zoomed into.

2. Yes all service packs are installed.

3. Tried this but the problem's still the same.

[Alfred.NESWADBA · Accepted solution]

Hi,

you played with the font-sizes within the OS .. and sorry, that is not the best option for getting anything better readable.

You can see in your screenshot that the text-size raises, but the icons or other controls like combobox does then not show the full text at all, most is cutted and so you lose more and more readability.

So first reset the font-size of your OS back to 100%, I guess you have set it to 150% or played with individual sizes, then you have now a lot of work to reset them back.

I'm also wondering, why your screenshot has a resolution of 3180x1787 pixel ... on a 15" monitor!? Right-click on your desktop, there you find the option to change the graphic-card resolution ... what is currently set? And is it a help if you reduce that setting?

I know that it's is not the preferred way to drive the monitor at another then the default resolution, but at least if you need really that large text like in the command-line I guess you need larger icons too and then changing the resultion might be the option you need.

- alfred -

[meenakshichengappa]

Hi,

I haven't changed the font sizes within the OS- i can'r get rid of the large texts just as is can't zoom in to the minuscule ones.

I tried the lower screen resolution options but there was no change in the autocad display!

 It seems it might be a compatibility issue with Windows 8.1...

Meenakshi.

[JoAnn_Hogan]

Windows 8.1 is currently having an issue. There is service packs to help with this but not for all of the issues. Hopfully this would be resolved soon.

In the meantime you can customize your AutoCAD's user interface. This might take longer but might help. So when you type in CUI, the user interface dialog box appears. Then under ribbon > Panel > Select the command > and  on the left hand side change the size of the box. For example Large Horizontal with text. 

But I would strongly consider getting use to the ribbon. Once you understand it it is not that bad. You have your different tabs explaining what is in them and your commands are categorized by their function. So all your drawing tools would be in your drawing panel for example. Just while Autodesk is resolving this issues.

[pendean]

Friend, Alfred got it right, other advise is excellent but not your issue I suspect: your 3200x1800 screen resolution on a very small tiny 15" monitor is the problem. That resolution is beautiful on a 27" monitor, but on a 15 you need to be running maximum in HD mode. (1920x1800) Sorry, there is no patch or fix or much else for it, Win8.1 or not.

[meenakshichengappa]

The idea is to attach the laptop to a large monitor (and keyboard) while working on AutoCAD. Any advice on selection criteria for a monitor? : )

The problem is both readability of the large text which sometmes gets cut (i should have worded my 'Subject' differently) and tiny pop-up menus- not the icons on the ribbon which i don't use- which are too tiny to read. I projected it on a HDTV screen to check, and these were just about readable then.

So i guess my only option is to wait for ACAD to support Windows 8.1. Or downgrade to Windows 7.

[JoAnn_Hogan]

Have you tried changing your resolution like Alfred suggested?

How did your screen display on the HDTV? Didn't quite understand what you where trying to say. Was it readable (so you can see everything), or was it still a problem?

[pendean · Accepted solution]

You can't use Windows' built in "large text" option, it messes up AutoCAD menus as you can see. It is recommended that you run everything at the default for your monitor, including "normal" sized text.

I don't think Win7 is going to change the fact that your resolution is too high for you to read the tiny little words/letter under the 'normal' setting.

Is there no option for a 1920x1800 display setting? With "normal" text size of course.

[meenakshichengappa]

Changing the resolution did help! In my previous attempts hadn't realised that i had to restart the system in order for the changes to apply to autocad.

Changing the text to Normal size also solved the problem of the disproprtionately large text.

Thank you thank you.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

SCNR (sorry, just wondering).

Message 5: I haven't changed the font sizes within the OS

Message 11: Changing the text to Normal size also solved the problem

Message 5: I tried the lower screen resolution options but there was no change in the autocad display!

Message 11: Changing the resolution did help!

Whereas it's always worth to reboot a system when changing basic system options ... but in this case: changing the resolution does not need to reboot the system.

At least kudos to Dean, he got you better into the right direction/doing the steps so it's working now.

- alfred -

[meenakshichengappa]

Heres the thing- The default setting for text on my system is "Large". I had to manually change it to make it lower which is not "recommended" on my system.

Most of the display setting changes happen on the fly, but not all (there's a warning that flashes with this information. I missed it earlier. Probably because it was so small). I'd wrongly assumed that my AutoCAD workspace changed without the restart. I wonder if that's a feature peculiar to Windows 8.1.

Meenakshi.

[craig]

I have this same laptop, and of course this same issue. Acad 2015 is actually worse, Properties is nearly unreadable as are tool palettes. The ribbon is OK, fortunately:

There is another thread in this forum where there is a better (if somewhat scary) fix:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-2013-2014-2015/dpi-scaling-autocad/m-p/5162511/highlight/true#...

Thanks to ppauerthd for posting this link, which shows how to tell windows to alter scaling for just a particular application:

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

This is not an issue simply of resolution as has been stated in this thread, I run AutoCAD on a 2560x1600 display with no issues, but that is a 30" monitor (PPI ~= 100). It's a matter of PPI, which is something like 218 on the XPS15s screen.

We are only going to see more of this going forward, Dell has announced a 5k 27" Ultrasharp! Autodesk needs to address this problem, switching away from the native resolution of the display, or altering font scaling through the OS are unacceptable workarounds.

Cheers,

cc

[Anonymous]

Try this.....it worked for me for my Yoga Pro 2 for Autocad 2015

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

[mviscetto]

this may be our answer.

disable the DPI in AutoCAD

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Odd-gr...

[BillGlennie]

Thank you for your observations on the appearance of AutoCAD on high resolution displays.  The development team is looking for comments about your experience with setting the Windows display scale to 150% or more, to accommodate newer monitors.  Please take this quick survey (5 minutes), if you have tried to use AutoCAD this way.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Bill Glennie, on behalf of the AutoCAD Team

[BillGlennie]

The link below is intended to be used only once.  Here is an unlimited link:

https://autodeskfeedback.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eDqoKQe8KIZZXvf

Apologies for the error.  

Thank you,  Bill

[kurt190]

This is a bad situation and it’s only going to become worse as systems and monitors native resolutions are higher than ever and will continue to climb. Software publishers need to grow with these changes and obviously AutoCAD has not. We folks who absolutely hate for good reason deplorable slow fat multi-click ribbon UI will do whatever it takes to either keep AutoCAD LT 2013/14 that still allows “classic UI”. Notice that the Ribbon UI Scales just fine with high resolution Screens but the classic UI is totally out of scale and cannot be corrected without losing the high resolution you dearly paid for. Using the terrible extremely limited Windows 10 new display setting field give this crazy scale control and blatantly tells you that programs may not follow the chosen scale. REALLY? Well guess what is one of those programs. AutoCAD LT using classic UI will not scale EVER! They are forcing you like Microsoft to eat and love with no choice the ribbon UI. Ribbon UI is a power-user killer in every program it is embedded in. It’s an old Paul Allen days failure that Microsoft will never emit too. I also would have attached a screen shot of the classic UI scale problem but it is the exact same situation as the post that sent the last screen shot. My question is will AutoCAD help us classic UI users out and fix this or just pretend that we can obliviate our system settings to accommodate AutoCAD Classic UI. Do the right thing AutoCAD, PLEASE

[kurt190]

I'm running Windows 10 pro 64 bit and its doing the same as thing as 8.0 8.1. I ran AutoCAD LT 2013 classic UI just fine on a Windows 10 puter with no scaling problems. The resolution was a bit lower on the older laptop then this 4k unit so this just started when I bought a new high-end puter with running what is becoming normal native today 3840 X 2160 res My computer and video card calls this native. Everything else look great except AutoCAD LT classic UI.