Support for High DPI / PPI Screens on Windows

bryan1up · January 15, 2014

As you may know, most high end Windows laptops now come with high DPI (or PPI) displays similar to Apple's Retina display on Macbook Pros. Is there any plan to support high DPI screens? Right now the standalone version of Zotero looks pixelated on high resolution screens. My Dell XPS 15 9530 has a resolution of 3200x1800. It's not a big problem at all but it would be nice if the program supported high DPI.

austron · February 2, 2016

I have the same problem. Is there a general fix for this issue?

adamsmith · February 2, 2016

I think that was fixed since. Looks nice for me on Windows 10 with a Dell XPS 13, which has a 3200x1800 screen res.
What isn't looking right for you?

austron · February 2, 2016

i can not seeing a setting to change it to this mode. where is it located? i am using the standalone client.

adamsmith · February 2, 2016

there's no setting. It should just work out of the box. What's not looking right?

ajmorales17 · July 18, 2017

I just updated to the new Zotero release 5.0.4.

Any idea on what to do to avoid having blurry text on high DPI screens? (I use a 3200 x 1800 HR screen)

Thank you

adamsmith · July 18, 2017

on which OS?

Gurdas_Sandhu · July 18, 2017

If this is Windows 10, you can play around with display scaling to fix, or at least improve the display. I'm using Zotero FF 4.0.29 on a Surface Pro 3 (2160x1440) and an external display (1980x 1080) and it looks crisp on both screens.

The issue is often seen in an external display that has a resolution considerably different than the screen of the host computer, though it also occur on the computer's native screen.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3025083/windows-scaling-issues-for-high-dpi-devices

https://www.howtogeek.com/175664/how-to-make-the-windows-desktop-work-well-on-high-dpi-displays-and-fix-blurry-fonts/

tarskiLindenbaum · September 5, 2017

I had the same low res problem but it was fixed after

1) right click on Zotero
2) go to "compatibility"
3) check "Override high DPI scaling behavior"
4) select "Application" for "Scaling performed by"

andselisk · September 5, 2017

Not a complaint, but on 1366x768 screen Z5's interface (v. 5.0.17 from AUR) looks just fine on Windows 10, but on Manjaro Linux with Plasma 5 all interface element are like 1.2 times upscaled. Maybe it has something to do with how Qt draws window decorations and elements. It's not really annoying, but noticeable.

amarbasu · January 10, 2018

tarskiLindenbaum, your suggestion worked!

(I have a 3000x2000 surface book). I noticed that you have to right click on the zotero shortcut in its start menu folder. For me, I had to navigate to
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Best, AB

ahlyon · January 23, 2018

Thank you andselisk and amarbasu, I was having the same problem and your suggestions fixed it (had to navigate to Compatibility rather than use the start menu as amarbasu noted).

jamesctarrant · March 3, 2018

tarskiLindenbaum, thank you for your suggestion! This worked for me on Surface Pro 3, Windows 10

dstillman · March 3, 2018

This is fixed in the latest Zotero beta and will be fixed in 5.0.36.