Illustrator Window Scaling Issue, multiple monitor setup - 4k vs 1080

Question

Hello, I recently started running into an issue with the newer versions of Illustrator regarding window size when using fullscreen.

Firstly, I will describe my monitor setup. I have three monitors. My left most monitor is a 2k Vertical setup Monitor, the center is a 4k Landscape monitor, and the right most monitor is a HD Cintique tablet.

When making the window fullscreen on my main display (the center most 4k Monitor), or rather maximized to fill the monitor (not the fullscreen feature in-app) the right side of the window extends well beyond the monitor bounds. It does not extend into the display on the cintique, but rather is unviewable what-so-ever. Upon trying to drag the window away to make it small again, the window shoots out across all three monitors, extending down bellow my taskbar, completely out of view, and out of bounds of my mouse. No matter what I do, the program will not properly display the full program on my 4K monitor unless it is in windowed mode.

I have overridden the scaling prefrences for Illustrator to follow the application settings as recomended by a similar forum, but nothing happened there. The only 'fix' I have found is to turn off the windows display scaling which unifies the monitors sizing for things like text size, cursor size, desktop icon size, etc. Though this is not a true fix, as when that setting is off, things on my main display are far too zoomed out for me to use.

Any help is appreciated. I have attached a youtube link of the issue I am having.

Jhandyphan · Accepted Answer

Thanks bobby.  Upon adjusting some things, setting the hihg DPI Settings in illustrators shortcut prefrences to System (Enanced) seemed to fix it.  Drivers are up to date and this is the only adobe program that gives me this problem, but thank you for helping me get on the right track!  Much appreciated.

Bobby Henderson · Answer

It sounds like the Windows OS and/or your computer's graphics board isn't reading the resolution of your 4K monitor correctly. It's as if the OS and/or the graphics board thinks the 4K monitor is a wider aspect ratio display, such as a 21:9 monitor rather than a 16:9 monitor.

It also sounds like Windows isn't arranging the extended desktop across all 3 monitors correctly, which seems possible since the monitors are of mixed resolutions and Windows might stumble with that. A 4K monitor (technically 3.8K) has 4 times the pixel real estate of a 1080p HD monitor. And a Wacom Cintiq device is a different kind of monitor. It wouldn't surprise me if the OS is getting confused about the kinds of monitors being connected and how to extend the desktop to the vertical 2K monitor and the Cintiq device. I would double check how the monitors are arranged in Windows' display settings.

Is the driver for the computer's graphics board up to date? It might be worth it to check settings in the driver to make sure they look correct.

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