Configuring External Monitor Settings

This article will describe how to configure external or secondary monitors (screens) on your desktop or laptop for both OS X (Mac) and Windows (PC).

Windows

1. Right-click on your desktop and select Display Settings.
2. Here, you will see the screens currently recognized by your computer and the configuration they are currently set for
3. If you want to see different things on each screen, scroll down and set the "Multiple displays" option to "Extend these displays"
4. You can click the Identify button to determine which screen has been assigned which number (a large white number should appear on each screen)
5. This is what you should see:

1. Select the screen you want to change settings for (in the small diagram)
2. Scroll down and set the resolution to one looks best to you, and repeat for each screen.  You can also change the orientation if you would like.
3. Then, in the diagram, you can drag the monitors to match the way they are physically configured (side by side, one above the other, etc.)
4. Finally, you can select the monitor you want to be your main display (where the start menu and task bar will be, where your log in screen will show up, etc.) by clicking on it and checking the box for "Make this my main display).

OS X

1. Open System Preferences (it may be on the dock at the bottom of your screen or you can click the apple in the top left corner and select it)
2. Click the Displays icon (it should be in the second row form the top)
3. This should open a window on all connected screens.
4. To change the resolution (the size of icons/text) to something other than the default, select Scaled.
5. In the window on the main display, click the Arrangement tab
6. You should see a check box for "Mirror Displays" if you want to show different things on each screen, make sure this box is unchecked
7. In the diagram, you can now drag the screens around to arrange them to match how you have the screens physically setup (side-by-side, one above the other, etc.)
8. Once everything is set the way you want, you can quit System Preferences.