Break the narrow space on the Desktop

Workspace on the desktop very cramped! Title bars, icons, toolbars, child windows . occupy all the work space. How to get more work space on your computer?

This article will help you easily optimize the work space for Windows OS and familiar applications quickly and easily.

Increase resolution higher

To get more work space, increasing the resolution to higher means the ability to display more things on the screen. Most computers today use 800x600 resolution. This resolution is also considered a standard for some Web sites. If possible, try to increase the resolution to 1024x768, you will find the workspace will be much more spacious.

To adjust the resolution of the screen, right-click on the desktop, select Properties, select the Settings tab. In Screen Resolution, drag the slider to the right to the desired resolution and click Apply. If the screen and graphics card support this resolution, the screen will display very well, then press OK to select this setting. Conversely, if the quality does not meet or the screen is dark, you can press Esc or wait about 10 to 15 seconds, then the screen will return to the original resolution.

If the resolution increases to a higher level without success, the software settings below also help you get more space.

Expand the workspace in Windows

Hide the task bar (taskbar)

The taskbar helps you access applications and programs faster, and also occupies a significant workspace. To hide the taskbar after the applications are in use, simply right-click the taskbar, select Properties. Next, uncheck 'Always on top' or 'Keep the taskbar on top of other windows is cheked', you will see the Windows window become wider. To access this taskbar, press Ctrl-Esc, or press the Windows key. When you want to hide the toolbar, just press Esc.

Actually, it is not convenient to hide the taskbar. You like the taskbar hiding feature and only appear when you mouse over. Very simply, right-click on the taskbar, select Properties, select the option 'Always on top' or 'Keep the taskbar on top of other windows is cheked' and use Auto hide or Auto- option hide the taskbar. Now, the taskbar will only appear when the mouse pointer comes, and "disappears" when ignored.

If you have to work with large spreadsheets, the documents are set in landscape mode, then put the taskbar down to the bottom, which will help to get more space. On the other hand, for portrait-oriented documents, moving the taskbar to the right or left saves space.

Open the application with the largest size

Always opening the program window with the maximized size when clicking on the program icon is not too difficult. Just right-click, select Properties -> Shortcut, select Maximized from the drop-down list, and select OK. To switch between the widest and normal display mode, simply double-click the title bar of the running program.

"Cool" with Windows Explorer, IE and Firefox

Remove the toolbar

In Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer windows and other applications, the toolbar will save you more time. But in return, they also take up a lot of space in the program. Explorer and IE allow users to consider and choose which toolbars, which buttons to use.

To make the frame display larger documents, putting some toolbars in the same row would be a good choice. You can even put a toolbar in the same row as the menu bar. Most of the toolbars have buttons that allow you to display the next button that the screen cannot display. To add or remove unnecessary or frequently used functions, click on the toolbar, and select Customize. After the Customize Toolbar dialog box appears, select the small icon from the drop-down menu and select the buttons you frequently use. This greatly reduces the occupancy of unnecessary buttons and on-screen toolbars.

More space, in Explorer and IE just press F11, they will display in full screen (Full Screen). All borders, title bars, and controls . will also disappear. To return to normal view, just press F11 again.

To turn off the toolbars on Mozilla Firefox browser, select View -> Toolbar and uncheck the unwanted toolbars. You can also choose Customize to drag the necessary buttons to the toolbar. Selecting 'Use Small Icons' in the Customize Toolbar dialog box will also save space.

Minimize title bars, scroll bars

To minimize the title bar on Windows windows, simply right-click the desktop and select Properties -> Appearance. For Windows XP, select the Advanced button. In all Windows versions, simply click on the image with the Active Title Bar or select Active Title Bar from the drop-down menu. At that time, you will edit the title bar size and font as you like. But it should be noted that the size of the title bar is not too low, you may not see anything. At the same time, some fonts will not perform well when the font size is too small, so choose a font that displays well like Tohoma, Arial. Other options such as shrinking scrollbars also bring a lot of free space.

Expand the image preview size in XP

If you want to see the thumbnails in Explorer, just select View -> Thumbnails. To minimize wasted space, and able to hold multiple frames of thumbnails in Windows, hiding the image file names also brings good results. In Windows Explorer, just click on that folder and hold down the Shift key, you will see all the image files in that folder without containing any labels. To display more of these files, hold down the Shift key while reopening the folder.

If these preview frames are still too small, download the small utility from Microsoft, PowerToys. This is a free utility, there are many good and useful features that you can explore. PowerToys offers scalable and simple image thumbnails scaling.

Simple Word and Excel office applications

Microsoft Word and Excel are fully capable of making the most large sizes available. Choose View -> Full Screen to optimize the framework. In this mode, Word and Excel will hide all scroll bars, but still support the scrolling capability of the mouse. If you do not see the menu bar on the screen, hover over it, then the menu bar will appear. To return to normal mode, simply click the Close Full Screen button or select View -> Full Screen or use the shortcut Alt-V.

Windows Media Player is compact

Minimize WMP program

If you use Windows Media Player (WMP) while working, you can minimize this software by setting it on the taskbar. Right-click in the space in the taskbar select Toolbars -> Windows Media Player. Now, minimize the program, all WMP controls are located on the taskbar. To restore the original state, simply click the restore or full mode icon.

If you don't like the integration into the taskbar, use Skin mode (Skin provides customizable interfaces for WMP that is still fully functional) for WMP to be more compact than the program's default interface.

More compact

Even without using the Skin, WMP can still be more compact by choosing View -> Menu Bar Options -> Hide Menu Bar (or choosing Autohide Menu Bar). To make this music player the right size as expected. You just need to hover your mouse over the edge of the program interface, when the cursor changes to the arrow at the two ends, simply press and hold the left mouse button and drag the desired size.

Maxly with Adobe

Expand the Acrobat screen

You can switch to full screen mode in Adobe Acrobat by selecting View -> Full Screen or using the Ctrl-L keyboard shortcut. In full screen mode, press the left mouse button to read the next page, and right-click to return to the previous page. If you want to have the fastest tool bar, press F8, to return to pressing F8 again.

Hide the palettes in Adobe software

In many Adobe applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, and After Effects . you can quickly hide the tables to provide clearer and clearer browsing of documents. Simply press Tab, all the toolbars and palettes disappear. Click again to show the full menu again.

Use virtual desktop creation software

If these solutions don't really satisfy you, then you should probably use them through software that creates virtual desktops. These programs allow you to display and manage applications like on a second monitor. Here are some virtual desktop software:

Virtual Desktop Manager: This software is from Microsoft and is provided for free. This small utility is capable of managing up to 4 virtual desktops. This software is very attractive, you should download and try it out.

MyDesktopToolbox 3.2: Software from Delta Computer & Network allows to optimize the desktop, quick access to file programs suitable for user needs. The software allows for a 14-day trial, if you want to use it again you must register for $ 29.90.

Multi User Desktop 2004: Gamers Tower software not only has the function of managing virtual desktops but also allows connecting from virtual desktops to other computers via VNC or RDP protocols . However , the trial version is limited to 5 virtual desktops and 14 days of use. Multi User Desktop price is about 19.95 USD.

Minh Phuc