Lay out one menu board canvas across four screens

The canvas is the size of the whole wall

Multiply one screen's pixel width by the number of screens; the height never changes. Four 1920 × 1080 screens in a row give 4 × 1920 = 7680 px wide and 1080 px tall, which is 64:9. Build at that size from the start: a 1920 × 1080 design stretched across four screens makes every line four times softer than it needs to be.

The seams sit at fixed positions: on three screens they are the thirds of the canvas, on four screens the quarters. Design around them and nothing important lands on a bezel. Use the same screen model, resolution and mounting height for the whole row; a mixed row moves the seam positions and breaks the panels.

What you need

• Four screens of one model and one resolution, mounted level and edge to edge on a rail rated for the combined load; get the row level before you measure anything.
• A tape measurement of the gap between two screens' pictures, in millimeters or inches.
• A design tool that exports PNG or MP4 at 7680 × 1080 px. If your tool caps the canvas width, build two 3840 × 1080 halves and join them on export.
• A feeding route: a video wall controller, one player per screen, or plain card playback for still menus.

Pick one model for the whole row and order four of it. Our display range covers wall models quoted per project, with sizes, orientation and ratings confirmed on the quote.

Design the canvas, step by step

1. Set the canvas to the wall's size: 7680 × 1080 px for four 1080p screens.
2. Drop vertical guides at x = 1920, x = 3840 and x = 5760 px. Those are the seams.
3. Measure the gap between the mounted screens and mark a dead zone of half that gap, each side, along every guide.
4. Lay out each 1920-px panel as its own menu: heading, item lines, prices, all inside the panel. No text, logo or price box crosses a guide.
5. Size the text from the reading distance with the highway legibility planning figure (FHWA): 30 ft of viewing distance per inch of capital height, line spacing 1.7 × the capital height.
6. Let motion cross the seams only as full-bleed video or background. The moment a price tile slides across a guide, it lands on a bezel.
7. Export one 7680 × 1080 file for a controller route, or four 1920 × 1080 slices for a player-per-screen route.

Backgrounds are the usual failure: a background sized to one panel leaves the other three empty or stretched. We cover that case in why a menu board background image is not showing.

Example: four 1080p screens read from 10 ft

The inputs, and where each comes from:

• Four screens at 1920 × 1080 px each, the case in the table above.
• Reading distance 10 ft, measured from the counter where customers stand.
• Picture width 19 in, measured across one screen's picture; for any 16:9 screen, width is about 0.87 × the diagonal.
• Gap between screens 0.25 in, measured on the mounted row.

The rules, in words: capitals in inches equal the distance in ft divided by 30. Line spacing equals 1.7 × the capitals. Pixels per inch on the wall equal 1920 divided by the picture width. The dead zone each side of a seam equals half the gap times pixels per inch.

The arithmetic:

• Capitals: 10 ÷ 30 = 0.33 in. Line spacing: 1.7 × 0.33 = 0.57 in.
• Pixels per inch: 1920 ÷ 19 = 101 px per in.
• Capital height on canvas: 0.33 × 101 = 33 px. One menu line with spacing: 0.57 × 101 = 58 px.
• A six-line block: 6 × 58 = 348 px tall. Two blocks take 696 px of the 1080-px panel height, leaving 384 px for headings and margins.
• Dead zone: 0.125 in each side × 101 = 13 px, so work to 15 px; the price column in panel one ends by x = 1920 − 15 = 1905 px.

Result: a canvas of 7680 × 1080 px, six menu lines readable at 10 ft, 58 px of line spacing, and seams that fall between panels with 15 px of clear space each side.

Decision: build it this way at a 10-ft counter. If the counter moves out to 15 ft, capitals need 15 ÷ 30 = 0.5 in, which is 51 px on this wall, and lines grow to 0.85 in, about 86 px, so cut each block to four lines (4 × 86 = 344 px) or move the smallest prices up a size.

Two ways to feed the wall

A video wall controller. A controller takes one video input, splits it, scales it and positions the pieces across its outputs; set the layout to 1 × 4 and assign one output per screen. Check the input resolution the controller accepts before you design: many four-output units accept 3840 × 1080 in, not 7680 × 1080, and the wall then shows that input upscaled two times, which softens text. On the same four-screen row that works out to 3840 ÷ 76 in of wall = 51 px per inch, so size capitals against that figure and check the smallest text at the counter.

One player per screen. Each player plays its own 1920 × 1080 slice, with no splitting hardware. With still menus the screens can loop independently and nothing crosses a seam. With one video spanning all four, use players with a sync feature so playback stays in step, because independent loops drift apart and the picture tears at the seams; we cover that drift in why your sync group screens play video out of sync.

Card playback, no subscription. For menus that change a few times a year, card-run menu boards are the simple case: our card-run menu boards play slides straight from a card, offline, with no software subscription, and you prepare the slides free in a browser. Split the canvas into four slides and load one per screen. For an LED strip or window wall instead of screen panels, we cover driving an LED video wall from a signage player.

How to check it worked

• Test image: white canvas, a 4-px black vertical line centred on each seam position, x = 1920, 3840 and 5760. On the wall, each line should vanish into the gap between screens. A line visible on a screen's picture means the crop or scaling is off.
• Read the smallest item text from 10 ft. If it fails, the capitals are under 0.33 in or the controller is scaling the canvas down.
• Let the loop run one full cycle. With independent players and still menus, each screen advances on its own schedule and that is fine. With one video across the wall, check the seams during motion, never on a still frame.
• Check every background fills its panel edge to edge.

Recommendation: Build one 7680 × 1080 canvas for a row of four 1080p screens, guides at x = 1920, 3840 and 5760, line spacing 58 px at a 10-ft counter, and 15 px of clear space each side of every seam. Feed it one player per screen with still menus; add a video wall controller only when one unbroken video has to run across all four panels.

Questions