Page 269 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

No matter which source you use to choose a photo, you have one more

issue to deal with. Unless you’ve gone to the trouble of editing your chosen
photo so it matches the precise dimensions of your screen (1440 × 900 or
whatever), it probably isn’t exactly the same size as your screen.

Using the “Choose a fit” drop-down menu, you can choose any of these

options:

Fill. Enlarges or reduces the image so it fills every inch of the
desktop without distortion. Parts may get chopped off, though.

Fit. Your entire photo appears, as large as possible without

distortion or cropping. If the photo doesn’t precisely match the
proportions of your screen, you get “letter box bars” on the sides or
at top and bottom.

Stretch. Makes your picture fit the screen exactly, come hell or
high water. Larger pictures may be squished vertically or

horizontally as necessary, and small pictures are drastically blown
up and squished, usually with grisly results.

Tile. This option makes your picture repeat over and over until the
images fill the entire monitor.

Center. Centers the photo neatly on the screen. If the picture is

smaller than the screen, it leaves a swath of empty border all the
way around. If it’s larger, the outer edges get chopped off.

Span. If you have more than one monitor, this option lets you slap
a single photo across multiple screens.

Tip

Really, the Background screen is the wallpaper headquarters. But there are “Set as desktop
background” commands hiding everywhere in Windows, making it simple to turn everyday
images into backgrounds. You’ll find that command, for example, when you right-click a graphics
icon in a File Explorer window or a graphic on a web page.