How Do I Fit My Laptop Screen on TV/Monitor over HDMI (Windows or Mac)?

Written by JJ in Computing

When you are using your laptop at home, you may want to connect it to a separate monitor to have a larger display. After all, laptops are made to have smaller displays that are best for portability. However, one of the initial problems you may end up facing while connecting your laptop to a separate display through HDMI is that the screen doesn’t fit the display. So, how do you fit your laptop screen on your TV or monitor over HDMI?

You can fit your laptop screen on your TV or monitor over HDMI for Windows by going to the Display Settings and the Scale and Layout portion to scale your laptop screen on the monitor’s display. For Mac, go to Displays on System Preferences and then choose Scaled to scale the laptop screen on the display.

When you are connecting your laptop screen to your external display, it is essential that you know how to fit the laptop’s screen because it will provide a better viewing experience. Therefore, scaling the laptop’s screen to a TV or monitor will make working or gaming on a separate screen a lot better in terms of the overall experience.

Why is my laptop screen not fitting my TV or Monitor?

One of the best things you can do with a laptop is that you can carry it around anywhere thanks to its smaller form factor and size. And, in connection to its size, most laptops do have smaller screens so that they can stay light and easy to carry around. Therefore, it may be more convenient to work from a bigger monitor or TV for a better working experience.

Meanwhile, when you are at home, you can easily connect your laptop screen to a TV or monitor that has a larger display. This will allow you to do things on a larger screen without having to worry about straining your eyes on a smaller laptop display. By connecting the screen to a TV or monitor, you will be able to game, play, or watch movies on a much larger screen. And you can do so by connecting your laptop to the external TV or monitor using an HDMI cable.

However, one of the problems you may end up facing when you are connecting your laptop to a TV monitor is that the display that appears on the screen isn’t exactly ideal. It could be that what is displayed on your external TV or monitor is much smaller and does not fit the entire display. This essentially defeats the purpose of connecting your laptop to a larger external screen. But why does this happen?

Well, the reason why your laptop screen might be smaller on an external TV or monitor is due to how your TV or monitor’s native resolution is different from the resolution of your laptop. So, if you have a laptop that has a native resolution on its screen that is 1080p but your TV has a native resolution of 4K, what may end up appearing on your TV screen is a much smaller 1080p display instead of the TV’s 4K display.

So, if the laptop and external display resolutions are not the same, what will happen is that the laptop may end up displaying its screen on the native resolution of a TV such that it tries to scale its own resolution based on the resolution capabilities of the TV. In that case, you will have to fix the display settings on your laptop after connecting it to the TV so that you will be able to fit the laptop resolution to the TV’s screen.

How do I fit my laptop screen on my TV/Monitor?

Now that you know why your laptop screen doesn’t fit the screen of the TV or monitor that it is connected to, here is how you do it with either a Windows laptop or a MacBook:

Windows

  1. Firstly, connect your laptop to your TV or monitor using an HDMI cable. This cable transmits the HD and audio files coming from your laptop to your external display.
  2. Then, change the input source on your TV or monitor to that of the port that the laptop is connected to. You will know that the port is correct if the TV or monitor is mirroring the screen of your laptop.
  3. In most cases, when the laptop’s resolution is the same as the TV or monitor’s native resolution, what will happen is that the laptop’s screen will automatically fit the TV’s screen. However, this might not always be the same especially if the TV’s native resolution is different compared to the laptop’s resolution capabilities. Always check if the TV or monitor has an HD, Full HD, or 4K native resolution so that you can check if the resolution of your laptop fits the display.
  4. So, if your laptop screen does not automatically fit the TV or monitor’s display, what you need to do is to move your cursor to the bottom right corner of your Windows screen and then move it upward. 
  5. Right-click on the Desktop and then select Display Settings to reveal the monitor’s display settings.
  6. You will be able to see the laptop’s resolution there. Click on the Scale and Layout section of the Display Settings. From there, you can change the scaling depending on the scaling you want. If you have a 1080p laptop and the TV or monitor has a 4K resolution, you may have to scale up to 400% to fit the laptop’s screen. 
  7. You can also simply drag the resolution slider to fit the laptop’s screen on the external screen.
  8. If the screen still doesn’t fit, go to Advanced Scaling Settings and then enter a custom scaling size between 100% and 500% depending on what fits. 
  9. Click on Apply to save the changes.

Mac

  1. On your Mac, connect the MacBook to the TV or monitor using an HDMI cable, which transmits both HD video and audio signals to the external monitor.
  2. Then, change the TV’s output monitor’s output to the port that your laptop is connected to. Use the remote control of the TV or monitor to do so. You will be able to know that the output port is correct if the laptop’s screen is now mirrored on the TV or monitor.
  3. In most cases, what will happen is that the laptop’s screen will automatically fit the TV or monitor’s screen because the default settings will be based on the default native resolution of the TV or monitor.
  4. After that, what you need to do is to check the TV or monitor’s native resolution so that you will know if their resolutions match. If your laptop has a smaller resolution than that of the native resolution of your TV, expect that your laptop’s screen will appear smaller on the TV or monitor. So, for example, if your laptop can only do 1080p but your TV or monitor has a native resolution of 4K, then what will happen is that your screen will be smaller on the TV or monitor.
  5. So, what you need to do here is to go to your Mac’s System Preferences.
  6. From there, go to Displays.
  7. In Display, you will be able to see that the default display setting on Default for display.
  8. Click on scaled so that the laptop’s screen will be scaled on the size of the TV or monitor’s screen. The settings will automatically be applied.

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