Erratic Chart Scaling

Symptoms

When plugged in to a projector or second screen, your chart changes size or position compared to the way it looked during slide preparation. For example it is much larger relative to the rest of the slide, or it has shifted off the edge and is only partially visible.

Background

This is something that can happen when the computer’s graphics drivers are struggling to draw the screen at both the computer’s resolution and also the projector’s (or external screen’s) resolution at the same time.

There are a three possible fixes for this. In order of preference:

Update the graphics drivers for your computer.

This should fix the issue but not every graphics card has up to date drivers for this kind of scenario. You can see more information under ‘For All Other Symptoms’ in this article.

Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration

The same article above describes how to disable your graphics acceleration settings in Windows and Office.

Change the Screen Resolution

When you are using a projector, change the Windows resolution so that it is the same on both the computer and the projector. For example, if it’s 1024 x 768 on both, you should not see this problem since that is a very old standard that is very widely supported.