Fix the HMI cross-reference window clipped at high resolution

Why the scale setting is the cause

Count the pixels first. The laptop panel is larger in both axes than the desktop: 1680 against 1280 wide, 1050 against 1024 high. A fixed window that fits the smaller screen also fits the larger one, so resolution is ruled out by arithmetic. What differs between the two machines is the scale setting. A 1280 x 1024 desktop monitor runs unscaled, with nothing to scale. Laptops ship at 125 or 150 percent to keep text readable on small, dense panels.

Above the unscaled setting, Windows gives software from before high-DPI displays a logical desktop: the physical pixels divided by the scale factor. At 125 percent on the 1680 x 1050 laptop, the software works inside 1680 ÷ 1.25 = 1344 by 1050 ÷ 1.25 = 840 logical pixels. The fixed window keeps its designed size, its lower rows now sit below 840, and with no resize handle and no scroll for the clipped columns, those rows and columns are invisible.

Symptoms and what each points to

• One fixed window clips on one machine and reads clean on the other. Display scaling on that workstation. This is the case this article fixes.
• Every window in the software shows oversized or blurry text. The same scale setting, with Windows stretching the program. Same fix.
• The clipping appears only inside a remote desktop session. The session carries the scale of the computer you connect from into the session, so a correctly set host display still clips when viewed from a scaled laptop.
• Text is cut mid-word or shows wrong-looking characters. Legacy font substitution, a different fault with its own fix: fix HMI dialogs clipped by legacy Windows fonts.
• The editor draws objects but no text at all. DPI again, covered in HMI editor shows objects but no text: check Windows DPI.
• The same view clips on both machines at 96 DPI. The view itself cannot lay out its columns at any scale. Report it; the package to send is in the questions at the end of this page.

Checks that take two minutes

1. Read the scale value on both machines with the path Settings > System > Display > Scale. Write the percent next to each machine.
2. Open the same project copy on both machines and run the cross-reference with the same sort option, "Sort by Tag Name".
3. Confirm the window truly has no resize handle and no horizontal scroll for the clipped columns.
4. Record the software version from its About screen and screenshot both views with the scale value visible.

A desktop that shows every column unscaled and a laptop that clips at 125 or 150 percent answers the question with no project change at all.

The fix, in order

Work per program first so the rest of the laptop keeps its scaling:

1. Right-click the program's executable, choose Properties, open the Compatibility tab, click "Change high DPI settings" and check "Override high DPI scaling behavior". That is the documented per-app path for high DPI scaling.
2. Close and reopen the HMI software, open the same project and run the same view. Check the columns that were cut.
3. If columns still clip, set the system scale to 100 percent in Settings > System > Display > Scale, then reopen the software. That is the 96 DPI the software was built around.
4. Keep the "Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution" mode on the same Compatibility tab as a last resort for reading one list. It puts the whole screen into 640 x 480 while the program runs, and people set it by mistake and reverse it on the same tab. Uncheck it when you are done.

Older installers and editor utilities sometimes also need XP compatibility mode for legacy HMI programming software; that box sits on the same tab.

Example: the 1680 x 1050 laptop

Take a cross-reference window fixed at 1280 x 960 pixels, a size that fills a 1280 x 1024 screen. On the desktop, the work area is 1024 - 30 = 994 pixels high with the taskbar, so the window fits with 994 - 960 = 34 pixels to spare and every column shows.

On the laptop at 125 percent, the software sees 1344 x 840 logical pixels, and the work area is 840 - 30 = 810 high. The window needs 960. It is short by 960 - 810 = 150 pixels, about five 30-pixel rows of the list, past the screen edge with no way to reach them.

On the laptop at the unscaled setting, the work area is 1050 - 30 = 1020 high. The same 1280 x 960 window fits with 1020 - 960 = 60 pixels to spare, and the list matches the desktop exactly.

That is the whole fault and the whole repair: one setting, 25 percent, 150 pixels of lost rows.

What not to do

• Do not rename or delete tags to shorten the list. The list exists so you can find which object uses a tag before you delete it; shortening names to fit a clipped window damages your own reference data.
• Do not reinstall or update on hope. Read the release notes for a cross-reference or window-layout fix before you install anything, and back up the project copy first.
• Do not drop the laptop to 1280 x 1024. The scale setting still divides the result down, and the picture gets coarser. The scale is the setting that matters.
• Keep the production project closed while you work; make every change on the copy.

Verify it and close out

Reopen the project copy, run the cross-reference, choose "Sort by Tag Name", and confirm the cut columns now show on both machines at their recorded scale values. Write the working scale value next to the workstation record so the next person does not rediscover this. The panel on the machine keeps running the downloaded project the whole time; nothing here reaches it.

Recommendation: set the laptop's display scale to 96 DPI whenever you work in the cross-reference view, or apply the per-app high DPI override when the unscaled setting makes the rest of the laptop hard to read. Confirm the same project on the second machine at 96 DPI. Only if the view clips unscaled on both machines treat it as a limitation of the view itself and report it with the version, both resolutions, both scale values and the screenshots.

Questions