Screen resolutions

• 640 x 480
• 800 x 600
• 1024 x 768

A computer monitor with a resolution of 800 x 600 is considered to be an acceptable design standard but many computers will be set to different resolutions. This changes the size of everything displayed on the screen.

The browser uses some of the screen space, so the design area is actually smaller than the resolution.

For example,

• The design area for a 640 x 480 resolution is 620 pixels wide by 250 high.
• The design area for a 800 x 600 resolution is 780 pixels wide by 520 high.

A webpage will scroll when the page dimensions (pixels wide x pixels high) are larger than the browser window. Vertical scrolling is acceptable but do not allow horizontal scrolling.

For a 640 x 480 resolution you will design your content to fit into 620 pixels wide to avoid horizontal scrolling.

If you want to avoid vertical scrolling, you will have to keep the height to 250 pixels.