You can cut into that horizontal width and not affect much, but if you cut into the vertical space, you’re blocking some of the content.Īs you can see, the side taskbar shows the most content vertically. There’s blank space on both sides, and the content runs down the middle of the page. The How-To Geek homepage is formatted like many websites on the internet. How are most websites formatted? For vertical scrolling. What’s the thing that most of us do on our computers every day? Browse the web. However, the numbers aren’t taking into account how people actually use their computers. The numbers above show that on a 3:2 display, putting the taskbar on the bottom takes up the least amount of screen space. Screen Space Aside, Vertical Taskbars Are Just Better

I believe you should use a side taskbar on 3:2 displays, too. But here’s where I don’t think the math tells the whole story.

So the numbers clearly back up the fact that putting the taskbar on the side will give you the most screen area on widescreen displays.

In this case, we can see that the taskbar on the bottom is the best choice to maximize screen real estate. Now, let’s take a look at the same thing on a 3:2 display. Since the taskbar is spanning all the way across the 2,556 pixels horizontally, it’s taking up more of the total screen area. That means that any wider of a display will be even more of an advantage for the side taskbar. It uses less of your screen than a bottom taskbar.

Bottom Taskbar: 1,920 x 40 = 76,800 (3.7%)īy a slim margin, the side taskbar wins out.

First, the popular combo of 1080p and 16:9 here’s how many pixels the taskbar takes up in each orientation, and how much of a percentage of the screen that is. Let’s take a look at how much of the total screen area is taken up by the taskbar in both positions. However, 3:2 displays, which are similar to the 4:3 displays we talked about earlier, may work best with bottom (horizontal) taskbars. If we look at this from a mathematical standpoint, the question is really this: How can we get the most screen space minus the taskbar?Ĭommon sense suggests that any display wider than the standard 16:9 aspect ratio is better suited for a side (vertical) taskbar. Side Taskbars Use Less Screen Space: The Math The question of why you should put the taskbar on the side can be answered in two ways: mathematically and practically.

Blank space on taskbar