“You don’t even get told what each resolution is – not at all helpful, but very ‘Apple’”
From using a second display to taming the Magic Mouse 2, Paul helps three readers who are struggling to adapt to Apple kit in their home offices
I’ve received a number of cries for help from readers over the past few months of people working at home, so for this column I’ve picked out a few because they have a common theme of trying to use a Mac productively as part of a home office setup. Let’s run through them in no particular order. The first is from Jo:
“I’ve bought a lovely monitor that plugs into my MacBook Pro. It works well, and I like how macOS supports multiple monitors – I prefer it to my employer-provided Windows setup back at the office. However, I have the new monitor sitting above the laptop screen and I’ve used the desktop arrangement tools to position things as best I can, but I can’t get the scaling to match. When I move stuff between screens they shrink and expand, and the mouse pointer doesn’t move smoothly from one screen to another. Is there a way to fix this?”
I know exactly what Jo means, and the problem is that, by default, macOS doesn’t offer many desktop scaling options. In fact, you get a choice of just five, with names such as “More Space” and “Larger text”. You don’t even get told what each resolution is – not at all helpful, but very “Apple”.
With just five options, the chances of finding one for the external monitor that exactly matches how you have the laptop set up are very slim indeed.
There’s a hidden trick, though. Open up the Display panel within System Preferences and you’ll see the resolution picker appear on both your laptop screen and the plugged-in monitor. Both offer the “Default for display” and then these standard five options. On the external monitor hold down Alt/Option as you flick between the default and scaled choices, and you’ll see that those standard five options suddenly become a much longer dropdown list. With far greater choice on offer, you should be able to find one where the scaling on your monitor matches the laptop display.
I use a similar setup to Jo. I have one of the original 15in Retina MacBook Pros – it’s from 2012, so getting on a bit now, but still feels pretty fast. An equivalent eight-yearold Windows machine would probably be struggling by now, but
I’m not feeling the urge to upgrade my Mac any time soon. The only thing that might force my hand is when the internal batteries die. They’re glued to the bottom of the case so it’s not the easiest of DIY repairs – there’s a good reason that glue is one of Lee’s topics this month on p116.
Sitting on the wall above my MacBook is a 27in LG 4K IPS monitor – it’s great because it complements the LG-made IPS panel in the laptop. With the colour and brightness tweaked a bit, there’s a perfect match between the two. Some people like to sit in front of banks or monitors, or one huge screen, but 27in or 28in is the sweet spot for me, because when sitting the usual desk-based distance away everything remains within my peripheral vision. If I’m looking bottom left and an alert pops up top right I’ll spot it. If I was sitting in front of a 42in monster monitor, I’d surely miss stuff.
If my MacBook had used a Samsung panel, I’d probably have gone for a
“If I was sitting in front of a 42in monster monitor, I would surely miss stuff”