2005
05.05

Tiger – Screen Rotation
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How cool is this!!!

Open up your System Preferences, hold down the ‘option’ key while you click on the ‘Displays’ icon. Then in the displays panel you’ll get an option to rotate your screen in varying degrees…

It doesn’t work on my 12″ PowerBook, but it does on the 15″. Rotating it 90 degrees and reading in bed or designing A4 layouts has just taken on new meaning!

(This is a Tiger/Mac thing – sorry PC losers users)

  1. anon said: 2005.05.05 13:08

    Actually I’ve been able to do this on my last 3 PC’s (XP and Win2K) and I think the reason it doesn’t work on the Powerbook is because it’s a graphics card feature which the OS hooks in to. ;)

  2. Pete said: 2005.05.05 13:15

    I meant that the post was a Mac/Tiger thing, not the functionality it referred to… I should have been clearer rather than taking cheap shots at pc-users… :!

    You’re right, it does depend on the graphics card installed – I think the ATi Radeon card in the 15″ PB’s is the minimum it will work with…

  3. Boris said: 2005.05.05 19:50

    So I just tried this on my 15″ and it does work. However, it removes the rotate option from the Prefs Pane. You have to relaunch System Prefs to get the option back to switch back. :)

  4. Pete said: 2005.05.05 22:53

    Hey Boris,

    yep – bloody difficult with the mouse/pad the wrong way round isn’t it! :)

  5. stephan .com said: 2005.05.10 01:57

    Wow!!! Thank you!!! That’s one of the only things I can do on my PC (which I never even switch on, think I might sell it) that I can’t do on my Mac. It even works on the MacMini!!!!!! I’ve been wishing for this for years – I have a flat monitor on the PC that rotates 90° just for this, and I made a custom vertical wallpaper for it. I’ll have to put it on the Mini tonight!!!!!

    Thank you very much!

    (psst, and please try out starman)

  6. Pete said: 2005.05.11 15:15

    you’re welcome stephan.com ;) and, thanks for the heads-up info on the widget install thing… :)

  7. beau said: 2005.05.13 21:17

    Ha! I should’a read the comments before trying this…. but I just got too excited!! My powerbook screen was sideways and then I couldn’t figure out how to rotate it back. So I restarted and then logged in sideways! =P Then relaunched prefs, and then the option to rotate was there again. =) So much fun.

  8. Andy Budd said: 2005.06.03 22:21

    I hate you!

  9. skety legs said: 2006.01.03 15:59

    i have a 15″ powerbook with a ATI Radeon card, and i have the rotate option in my system preferences, but wenever i use it the screen goes nuts fuzzy! i wanna be able to use 180 degree rotation. any ideas?

  10. k00kla said: 2006.03.04 21:26

    It doesn’t work for me. I have a G4 500Mhz with an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro and a 17″ LCD Studio Display and Tiger. Doesn’t work. Maybe it’s a Powerbook thing? But someone said it works on the mini. Must be hardware-specific beyond just the graphics card.

  11. Louis said: 2006.03.19 08:15

    I have a 1.25ghz 15″ Powerbook and have used this option before on an external monitor (vga) but have never been able to get it to work on the powerbook monitor itself. I have tried clicking on the display button in pref pane but have not been able to get the option up. Does anyone know any other way to apply this option on the powerbook screen? It would be nice to be able to read while lying down.