How do I fix “squashed” (compressed) dialog boxes in Roof Wizard?

🔎 What causes “squashed” dialogs?

This issue of “squashed” dialogs, (similar to below) relates to a Windows System Font Error, where a high-resolution screen at install time can result in the Windows System fonts not rescaling when made normal size again after Installation.

This has the effect of distorting the dialog because the dialog size is a function of the font – it looks something like this one below...

📌 Background (from David Musgrave – Microsoft Dynamics GP)

A description from David Musgrave - Microsoft Dynamics GP - "Research showed that many users with high resolution monitors (particularly LCD flat screens) were running the monitors at lower resolutions than the native resolution of the screen. This was usually because at the native resolution, the fonts were becoming too small to read, so the users would decrease the resolution.

Windows includes a facility to increase font and window sizes while keeping the screen at the native resolution. This is a much better method of increasing the font size as it can produce much smoother images by using many more, smaller pixels. The really significant issue is, unlike CRT monitors, flat-panel LCD monitors have a fixed pixel size, or "resolution", and that when users change to a lower resolution (in order to increase text size) the system has to re-sample the lower-resolution display image into its fixed resolution causing a significant degradation in display quality: not just text looks worse, everything looks worse.

A change was made for Windows 7 to set the screen resolution to the monitor's native resolution and if the screen is over a certain resolution to default the font size 120 DPI (dots per inch). This is approximately 125% of normal 96 DPI (100%). When the system defaults to 125% DPI it also adjusts the MS Sans Serif font to be bigger. If the user then decides to set the DPI back to 100%, then TrueType fonts, which are scalable, adjust as expected. But the bitmap MS Sans Serif font does not: it remains at the larger size, hence our issue. This problem does not occur if Windows 7 keeps DPI at 100% when it is first installed."

The internal Windows 7 Enterprise build had an appropriate video driver for my machine and was able to go to the native resolution (1920 x 1200) and default to 125% DPI. As my machine is older, when I installed the Windows 7 Ultimate build, it did not have the video driver and so defaulted to a lower resolution at 100% DPI. Once I installed the video driver from Windows Update, I was able to get to the native resolution and remain at 100% DPI. Because the initial setting was 100% DPI, the MS Sans Serif font was the correct size.

I realised that the issue is not an internal problem, but can occur on any Windows 7 system that has a high resolution monitor for which drivers can be found during the initial install and so default with 125% DPI. If the user returns to 100% DPI, the MS Sans Serif bitmap font will remain larger.

The solution took a while to find, but is really simple. We just need to make some registry changes and reboot."

⚠️ Important note before you start

Note: The registry changes do not take effect until the system has been restarted. You MUST reboot after making the registry changes.

🧩 What Registry settings are involved?

The Registry setting:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts\MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24

…is set to SSERIFF.FON on a system which started at 125% DPI.
The setting is set to SSERIFE.FON on a system which started at 100% DPI.

Notice that one character of the file name changes from F to E.

The actual font files used might be different on Windows systems for other languages or code pages. See the table below for the file names:

🧰 Optional: fix MS Serif and Courier too

While we are fixing the MS Sans Serif font, we can also fix the MS Serif and Courier fonts. These are the Registry settings MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 and Courier 10,12,15 values in the same registry key. See the table below for the file names:

To fix the system you need to change the settings to new file names (changing the appropriate letter from F to E) and reboot.

Note: The registry changes do not take effect until the system has been restarted. You MUST reboot after making the registry changes.

🤖 THE “AUTOMATIC” FIX

To fix the font record, open Notepad, create a new text document and copy/paste in the text between the lines:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24"="SSERIFE.FON"
"MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24"="SERIFE.FON"
"Courier 10,12,15"="COURE.FON"

Then go to File > Save As

Save as type: All Files (.)
File Name: Font-fix.reg
Save to a folder that you can find easily - say the Desktop. Close Notepad.

Double click Font-fix.reg on the Desktop to apply the fix, then restart the computer.

If you get this error, you forgot to include the first line "Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00" in the text file. Without this line, the registry can't process the instructions.

🛠️ Quick manual fix (writes directly to the Windows Registry)

Open the start menu and type 'Regedit' and then press Enter.
Locate the key in path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Fonts
Find the value MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24
Change from SSERIFF.FON to SSERIFE.FON
Find MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24
Change from SERIFF.FON to SERIFE.FON
Finally find Courier 10,12,15
Change from COURF.FON to COURE.FON
Restart your system in order for the changes to take effect.

🧾 FIXING THE TEXT SIZE ON THE MENUS

If you require larger text in the menus and dialog boxes, you can set this with the setup function. This is especially helpful if you have a very large, high resolution monitor where the text will be so small that it is almost impossible to read.

Go to CAD > Defaults > Setup. Select the larger font and select [OK].

When you are happy with the result, select File > Layout > Save Values to keep these settings for when you next come back to the software.