No UHD support in Office 2016?

Core

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Had I not experienced this myself, I would not believe it.

I upgraded my monitor from 23" 1080p to 27" 1440p, and Office can't handle it. Corrupted toolbars and random vertical black bars all over text in Outlook, Word, and Excel. I don't know if it's an issue with previous Windows versions but apparently it's been a known issue with Office 2016 on Windows 10 ever since it was released.

Funnily enough, Office 2016 on macOS does not suffer from these issues.

I am thoroughly unimpressed with Redmond for this. 1440p isn't bleeding edge technology.

Has anyone come across this issue and found a workaround that does not involve changing desktop resolution?
 

Ian

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I've not used Office 2016 at 1440p, but my laptop runs at QHD+ (3200x1800) and it works as expected - so perhaps this is specific to that resolution. I've sometimes seen apps display quite unusually (with similar artefacts) when scaling is set to anything other than 100%.

Any chance you could take a screenshot so I could see what you mean? I see if I can help find a fix :).
 

Core

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office.png
 

Core

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I've not used Office 2016 at 1440p, but my laptop runs at QHD+ (3200x1800) and it works as expected - so perhaps this is specific to that resolution.
I tried with a 28" QHD monitor running at 3840x2160 and it had the same issue.
 

Ian

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Eeek, that does look strange. I'll do some research and see if I can find anything that may help :).
 

Ian

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You may have tried some of these things already, but here's what worked for some other users for the same problem (listed from easy to hard!):
  • Go to the Control Panel and run Online Repair:

    1. Windows Key + X
    2. Click Programs and Features (first option)
    3. Right-click Microsoft Office > Change > Online Repair
  • Modifying the excel.exe.manifest in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16" :
    Change <dpiAware>true</dpiAware> to <dpiAware>false</dpiAware>
    Finding this manifest file needs some 'unhiding' and changing it needs administrator rights
  • Disable graphics acceleration in Office 2016, there are instructions mid way down this page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2768648/display-issues-in-office-client-applications
It looks like there are a lot of people with this problem, so you'd have thought they would have a patch by now!

Do you still have the AMD R9 270?
 

Core

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Great finds! Disabling acceleration took care of it.

It's funny, when I googled it I didn't notice anyone remarking about their graphics card; had they all said they were running AMD I might've picked up on that.

I doubt either company is rushing to fix this one so this fix is good to have! Thanks a lot, Ian!
 

Ian

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My pleasure Core, glad it's working now :D.

I was puzzled why it was ok on my laptop (that runs an Intel graphics chipset), so that's what got me thinking about it :thumb:.
 

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