Monitor Rotation – easy switching to Portrait mode
Saturday, May 3, 2014 at 11:14PM Alan W A handy helper for rotating LCDs
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Monitor in Portrait mode displays my Word document (click to see)I’ve just taken delivery of a new monitor, an iiyama XB2380HS. It’s a 23” IPS panel with both adjustable height and pivot, DVI, VGA and HDMI. As the LCD rotates 90° I can view documents in portrait mode, which is ideal for word processing and it reduces the need for scrolling.
Before now I have had three Viewsonic LCD monitors, each equipped with an automatic rotate that never worked properly: turning the screen to portrait mode still left the image stuck in landscape mode. Two of them failed after lengthy use – I do thrash them, after all – but I could never get the bundled auto rotate software (Pivot Pro) to work and I suspect a combination of OS and video graphics drivers foiled the useful picture swivel feature; I gave up trying to use it in portrait mode.
If you’re interested Pivot Pro from Portrait Displays costs $19.95 and claims to work with almost every graphics card ever made. If your screen has an auto sensor then Pivot Pro can rotate the image automatically and it manages workspaces too. A free 14 day trial is available.
Back to my new iiyama then, which has no auto pivot. The sturdy height-adjustable stand allows the screen to both tilt and swivel, but after spinning the LCD to portrait mode you have to rotate the image manually.
It’s not the end of the world, as in Windows 7 simply right-click the desktop, choose Screen Resolution and then Orientation, Landscape or Portrait. You can also access similar settings through your video card software (eg NVidia Control Panel).
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Setting image orientation in Windows 7 (click to see)However I found a neat little utility, free for personal use, that helps a lot. iRotate runs in the Windows notification area and offers simple keystrokes to rotate the image. Simply hit CTRL + ALT + left arrow to spin the image 90°. CTRL + ALT + up arrow restores normal landscape, or spin it 180° or 270° instead.
Now I can quickly pivot the monitor and change the orientation with a swift keystroke combo, which is the next best thing to automatic rotation. Incidentally it does work in Windows 7.
Reader Comments (1)
What about for multiple monitors?
Which one does it control?