Blocky and pixellated text in Microsoft Word

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Blocky and pixellated text in Microsoft Word

Anonymous

Many others have reported pixellated text when upgrading to a higher resolution monitor. I have just upgraded my monitor and I am experiencing this problem, but only in Microsoft Office16 under Windows 10 (I use Word and Excel). When viewing html in Edge or when viewing a pdf the text is sharp and crisp.

So it is not a hardware issue, such as a HDMI cable problem as some have reported. It is not the monitor as when I use my other laptop with Word10 under Windows 7 all is fine. Drivers have been upgraded so I am not sure how to resolve this.

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5 additional answers

Answer 1

I have run 2 different 4K monitors plugged in to my laptop without encountering this problem. I got lucky. (I don't have a 4K right now, hoping to pick one up any day now). What is the physical size of your 4K monitor. I had 42" and 49" 4Ks.

A partial explanation for the different reaction in Word and Excel is that they originated as totally independent programs, written by totally separate groups of programmers. And that still continues today! So while they are lumped in under the "Office" umbrella, they are apples and oranges. So what works for one program may not work for the other(s).

In the Start menu, right click on any of the Office tiles, Select "More", then "Open File Location". This opens a File Explorer in the folder containing the shortcuts used by the start menu.

Here is what I see.

So you ran the compatibility troubleshooter. OK.

Try working through the other setting options, one at a time, then in combinations.

As you can see, I didn't have to use any of the customization to make it work on my machine. I do suspect that pushing scaling up to 300% is contributing to your problem. There is also a separate setting dialog for the system Display. While I agree that 100% scaling is too small, I have not had to go to 300%.

Answer 2

Thanks for your detailed reply.

Previously I had never tried "Let Windows 10 Automatically Fix Blurry Apps Problem" as my apps looked fine with my old 1930 x 768 external monitor. When this monitor failed I replaced it with a 3840 x 2160 resolution monitor. As I said in my original post most things worked fine but Word and Excel from Office16 were blocky and pixellated. Let Windows fix blurry apps did not help at all! After reading your detailed reply I was emboldened to try changing some settings. You said: "Take a look at the suggestions in this article:

https://www.askvg.com/fix-bold-blurry-or-hard-to-read-font-problem-in-windows-8-1/" This was interesting. I tried askvg's Method 3 for newer versions of Windows 10. Changing to 100% in scale and layout made everything way too small to read and also changed the whole color balance of the displayed pages to a pinkish caste. So I set it back to 300% (recommended). Things returned to normal except Word was still blocky, so I tried the new "display settings" tab in Word at the right hand bottom of the screen and used the "optimise for best appearance" radio button. This worked and fixed the blocky pixellated text issue in Word.

However the blocky text problem still occured in Excel, and it does not have the "display settings" tab to help. The advanced options in Excel do not seem to have a fix for this problem either.

So I then tried the "**Try disabling display scaling on high DPI settings"**that you suggested :

"1. Open your Office installation folder and right-click on the Office app that has poor scaling issues and select Properties."

My problem here was that I could not find an Excel app icon that gave me properties. My fix was to put one on the desktop, which then gave me accessibility to properties.

2. Click on the Compatibility tab and put a check on Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.

Re-Launch the Excel app and see if the issue still occurs. "

I did this and Excel shrunk to about 1/16 of the screen. I maximised the app but all text was too small to read. Then I set the zoom to 300% (like in Word) and now I can see Excel clearly. If I save the document I am working on then Excel remembers the zoom setting.

So in summary all is working OK for the moment. I am not sure what will happen when I reboot my PC. If it still is an issue I shall report back to this page. Thanks for your help!

Answer 3

I have used Word 2016 on an external 4K monitor plugged in to my laptop with no issues.

Does your computer have an addon video card as well as the built in video processor? Start task manager and look in the "GPU Engine" column. Do you see entries for GPU-0 and GPU-1?

It is most likely a video driver issue between Word and the driver.

The first thing to try is disabling "Hardware Acceleration", separately in Word and Windows

Change your Office “Hardware Acceleration” setting

File menu >Options command >Advanced option >Display section > change current “Disable hardware graphics acceleration”, either turn it on or off.

Change your Windows “Hardware Acceleration” setting

Take a look at the suggestions in this article:

https://www.askvg.com/fix-bold-blurry-or-hard-to-read-font-problem-in-windows-8-1/

Has it worked properly previously on this computer and monitor? Maybe the newest update of the driver is the problem. You might want to see if you can find a copy of an older version of the video driver.

Report this problem to the maker of the video driver and to MS using a "feedback".

Provide them with make and model of the video card and monitor. And give them the version number of the video driver.

This old article describes causes of similar problems in past. It is not likely directly relevant to your problem so you should only read it for interest sake:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/murrays/archive/2012/07/29/office-adopts-new-windows-display-technology.aspx

Try disabling display scaling on high DPI settings

by following the steps below:

1. Open your Office installation folder and right-click on the Office app that has poor scaling issues and select Properties.

2. Click on the Compatibility tab and put a check on Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.

3. Launch that Office app and see if the issue still occurs.

(I haven't confirmed this one still works in Win 10)

Disable Hardware Acceleration In Windows

Open Run dialog using <WIN><R> shortcut

Type inetcpl.cpl

press Enter

Click Advanced Tab

Click to add Checkmark beside “Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering”

Click Apply button

click ok button

Restart the computer to apply this change

Answer 4

You have not mentioned what resolution is being used on what monitor HiDef means different things to different people

The resolution is 3840 x 2160 on a 4K external monitor.

In Word I tried the new "display settings" tab at the right hand bottom of the screen and used the "optimise for best appearance" radio button. This worked in word and fixed the blocky pixellated text issue. However the problem still occurs in Excel, and it does not have the "display settings" tab to help. The advanced options in Excel do not seem to have a fix for this problem either.

Answer 5

Anonymous

You have not mentioned what resolution is being used on what monitor HiDef means different things to different people

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Blocky and pixellated text in Microsoft Word

5 additional answers