Maximize Your Laptop Screen With These Tips

Most of us have laptops with screen sizes of 14-inches or under. The reason being, larger machines are significantly heavier and to an extent, inconvenient to lug about. Though a sensible choice, smaller displays are inherently less useful and offer considerably worse overall productivity.

That is why maximizing what you already have is extremely important. In this article, we will cover several ways in which you can make what’s already available seem bigger. This is what you can do:

Hide the Windows Taskbar
Windows users have grown accustomed to having the taskbar anchored to the bottom of their screen. It’s there to help shuffle between windows, check the time, internet connectivity or access a plethora of features that the OS has to offer. Though this may not pose a problem for a desktop PC, on a compact laptop, it occupies precious screen real estate.

Thankfully, Microsoft has included a handy feature that allows you to hide the Windows taskbar. But it’s allowed to reappear once you hover your mouse pointer towards the bottom of the screen. To do this, go to settings>taskbar behaviors (alternatively, right click on the taskbar itself), and type the word taskbar. Scroll down till you see the words “automatically hide taskbar”.

If at any point in time, you’d like to undo this setting. All you have to do is return to said menu and uncheck the box that says “automatically hide taskbar”. You’d be surprised with how much extra space becomes available once the taskbar is hidden.

Hide Chrome Bookmark Bar
Minimizing the space taken up by things like the bookmark bar can do wonders for your web browsing activities. Hiding it makes the tabs and address bar seem more compact and allows for a better viewing experience, regardless of what it is that you’re doing. To do this, click on the three vertical dots on the top right-hand corner of the browser.

Then, select the Appearance Tab on the left of your screen. This will reveal options that can be changed. This includes changing themes (read our article on how to do this here), font size, page zoom and hiding the bookmarks bar.

In Microsot Edge, it’s even easier to do. Click on the three horizontal dots on the top right-hand corner of the screen and select settings. Here you’ll have the ability to access several more customizable options.

Enter Full Screen Mode
You can take screen expansion to a whole new level by going into full screen mode. Here, everything is hidden including the browser tabs. All that remains visible is your content. This is true of Windows folders as it is for web browsers. The feature minimizes clutter and allows you to focus on what you’re doing at that time. To do this, tap on the F11 key or (Fn+F11) on certain laptops.

There’s a caveat. In full screen mode, your options for multitasking are limited, because you can only accomplish one task at a time. If you would like to switch browser tabs or access another app, you’ll need to exit full screen mode by tapping F11 again.

There are various other ways that you can use to maximize screen use, but the ones we’ve stated here are the easiest to use and manage.