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Google Chrome doesn't seem to respect my DPI setting in Windows. I run at 150 DPI, but Chrome ignores that, meaning that images and text are teeeeeeny tiny.

I hit:

  • Ctrl + +
  • Ctrl + +

to zoom in. Unfortunately every new tab, or new window, defaults to the 100% teeny tiny zoom level.

Update: It's also important to note that you cannot click buttons in flash (e.g. YouTube videos), because Chrome mis-handles mouse coordinates. (Fixed 6.0.472.55)

Is it possible for either:

  • Chrome to respect my Windows dpi setting?
  • Chrome to remember my zoom preference?

Checked version: 4.1.249.1045

Half fixed

While Chome still doesn't honor the Windows DPI setting, it does now remember your zoom level.

Version: 5.0.375.55

Five-Eighths Fixed

While Chrome still doesn't honor the Windows DPI setting, it does now offer a default "page zoom" option:

enter image description here

Unfortunately there is no zoom level that matches my current DPI setting: 136% (131dpi).

Version: 10.0.648.133

Zoom flag

I tried scoducks' suggestion of the new hidden dpi flag. It's truly awful. It seems to cause Chrome to simply re-scale the final rendered Window; causing text to become blurry (rather than sharper):

enter image description here

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7 Answers 7

Reset to default
16

It's a known bug with Chromium, the program on which Chrome was built upon.

Be sure to star it!

Update: More up-to-date related bug report: Enable high-DPI support in Vista, Win7 and Win8

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I had this question and found this answer that was posted somewhere else. Go to: chrome://flags/#high-dpi-support

It is not perfect because it isn't fully supported yet, but it is exactly what you were looking for, it fixed the problem for me. A few buttons are mis-sized, but it is much better.

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    Text is horribly blurry. Looks like they're simply applying the blunt hammer of scaling the final composited window image - rather than actually supporting high-dpi. Hopefully it's a work in progress; maybe in 7 years Chrome will be where IE was 7 years ago.
    – Ian Boyd
    May 17, 2014 at 21:45
  • I tried this and reverted it back, the chrome menus and extensions don't play well with this setting (eg scrolling menu text rendered out of visible window).
    – Eric L
    Nov 5, 2014 at 20:47
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Update: 9/5/2014

Chrome 37 now supports high-dpi!

For example:

  • the bookmark bar icons are scaled
  • the bookmark bar text is scaled
  • the address bar text is scaled
  • the tab icon and text is scaled
  • extension icons are scaled
  • the customize icon is scaled

Now Chrome just needs to improve its rendering speed so it's as fast as IE.

But this is a great day!

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  • And many themes are broken...
    – Fran Marzoa
    Nov 6, 2014 at 0:23
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With Chrome 44.0.2403.9 dev-m (64-bit) I have a problem where only a few website are rendered extremely small. What is working for me is to use the Chrome DevTools to emulate a different device.

  • ctrl + shift + i to open the Chrome DevTools
  • ctrl + shift + m to toggle device mode on, if it isn't already on
  • In the device drop menu at the top left of the screen, select a mobile device, e.g. a tablet with a large display resolution like the Nexus 10
  • ctrl + shift + i to close the Chrome DevTools

This causes the page to be rendered normally for me, but you may need to select one of the laptop devices, after selecting one of the mobile devices, to get the page to render correctly for you.

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  • Then don't use the dev release, use the latest stable release instead (43.0.2357)
    – DavidPostill ♦
    May 23, 2015 at 14:16
  • @DavidPostill This wasn't a complaint, but rather a possible solution for the other people experiencing the same problem. This problem has existed for years and still exists in current versions of the Chrome browser, which I was highlighting by posting my version number and can also be seen by recent posts in the bug listed in the post current marked as the answer.
    – WhiteKnight
    May 23, 2015 at 17:44
  • If it's only a few websites then it is probably not a chrome problem. Can you share a couple of failing sites?
    – DavidPostill ♦
    May 23, 2015 at 17:50
  • @DavidPostill A few examples are Reddit, 500px and Google Drive, but other smaller websites have the same problem. I've reported these sites to Google.
    – WhiteKnight
    May 23, 2015 at 18:01
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I will try to sum up the discussion at google support forums previously linked. It comes down to two suggestions.

A. Design our web pages with fixed width and fixed font, for a set dpi and then let the browser scale everything up.

B. Use variable text, image and table sizes that are specified as relative to 96 DPI and let the browser add the desktops DPI settings to those values.

Microsoft have gone and set the Zoom level in IE8 to match the DPI setting in the OS. If you have 125% DPI size (120dpi), default zoom level in IE8 would be 125%. Observe that IE defines it as percent increase from the default 96 DPI, not the actual DPI target it renders for. 100% means 96dpi in Windows DPI settings.

The truth is, most web pages are not made with a variable text, table and design size, so you would mostly need to use the zoom-the-entire-web-page-in feature. Lazy web designers and Microsofts Windows dominance with their unfair bundling of Internet Explorer, we can assume the zoom solution is here to stay.

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    How is A different from B? i mean, from an implementation point of view, you wouldn't notice any difference. And as a web-designer, both are equivalent. And while ie does "zoom", it doesn't "zoom". It doesn't "blow everything up". If it did then text would get fuzzy. It doesn't. ie rescales everything as appropriate. On the other hand i'm getting really tired of Chrome's poor high-dpi support. As soon as ie9, and it's fast rendering speed is released, i'm sooo switching back.
    – Ian Boyd
    Apr 3, 2010 at 23:51
  • Also, it would be a poor decision to call it 96dpi, rather than 100%. Nobody know, cares, or show have to know, or have to care, what a dpi is, and why there's 96 of them. Windows itself, when setting dpi, doesn't even call it dpi. They use percentage larger, e.g. 125%
    – Ian Boyd
    Apr 3, 2010 at 23:55
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    We could call the resolution on monitors as VGA, WXGA, WUXGA etc instead of 640x480, 1280x768 or 1920x1200. We could put parking, slow, fast, very fast and too fast on the speedometer. We could dumb down anything and call it game. Just like they have in Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer; they set the latency as bars, and no way to tell how much one bar represents. It was discovered that they were way too high range, and many people edited the config files so one bar would mean 25ms. And then they found out most people had more then 100ms latency any time, to any host.
    – DarkUltra
    Apr 4, 2010 at 17:10
  • It would require a learning curve by displaying the latency in ms instead of bars, but then again it would scale nicely into the future, when internet connections become faster.
    – DarkUltra
    Apr 4, 2010 at 17:11
  • The same applies to DPI. It is necessary to know if you wanto be accurate in what you design or write, and it would scale well in the future, and it would provide an accurate reference point from general text and design scaling. The web pages should be able to scale and look good in most desktop and laptop resolutions and DPI situations.
    – DarkUltra
    Apr 4, 2010 at 17:12
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Firstly, if Chrome (or other applications) appear blurry, go back to Windows dpi settings and check the 'XP style font scaling' option.

enter image description here

Meanwhile in Chrome, keep zoom at 100% but increase the font size to large (or very large). Set a minimum font size.

If you have Chrome 26 or earlier, this works well. Page text is scaled up, as is Chrome itself (the url and bookmarks bars). In Chrome 28 or later, the page text is scaled up, but the url and bookmark bars remain small.

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This is what worked for me,

Instead of using the default scaling of 100%, 125%, 150% etc., I changed it to custom scaling of 126%, and it worked.

For some reason Google Chrome ignores scaling upto 125%.

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