Hans Christian Dirscherl

Is your screen suddenly upside down? Don’t panic: With our tips you can turn the monitor image back into the right position. For Windows 7, 8, 10, 11, Android and Linux, as well as for iPad and iPhone. With keyboard shortcuts, via the system settings and via the control center (iOS).

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Rotate screen 90 or 180 degrees – how it works

The issue:

Your monitor suddenly shows an upside down image. This can happen on Windows 10, but also with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 or with Android screens and on Linux computers.

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Rotate screen 90 or 180 degrees ? this is how it works

You probably accidentally pressed a key combination that rotates the monitor image by 180 degrees. Those are them

most common keyboard shortcuts or shortcuts to flip screen content

(Danger

:

Whether and which of these shortcuts work on your Windows PC depends on its configuration. By no means does every key combination necessarily work on every Windows PC):

• CTRL + arrow key

• CTRL + ALT + arrow key

• CTRL + SHIFT + arrow key

• CTRL + SHIFT + 9 (for 90° rotation)

We explain step by step how to immediately undo the mistake and rotate the screen image back into the correct position. Either via the Windows system settings or via the graphics card driver settings or via key combinations (shortcuts). On computers ➤

with Windows 7, Windows 8
or ➤

Windows 10/11
as well as ➤

Linux
. On desktop computers and on laptops. Also ➤

on the iPad
you can rotate the screen. Alternatively, you can of course also use our tips to consciously rotate the screen. There are good reasons for this, which we present below.

The solution: How to rotate the screen

There are three ways to turn a monitor image that has been rotated 90 or 180 degrees back into the correct position: The Windows system settings, the graphics card driver settings and keyboard shortcuts.

Windows 7 and 8: Rotate the screen via system-preferences

On Windows 7, go to Control Panel, Appearance and Personalization, Display. Then click Change Display Setting or Adjust Resolution. Both buttons open the “Screen resolution” menu. Or you can choose the alternative way: Click with the right mouse button on the Windows desktop and select the entry “Screen resolution” from the mouse menu that then appears. Then you will also end up in the “Screen resolution” menu.

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Windows 7 System Settings: Screen Resolution

In the “Orientation” pull-down menu, you can choose from four different options in Windows 7: Landscape, Portrait, Landscape (rotated), Portrait (rotated).

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Windows 7: Choose from a variety of formats.

Select the orientation you want – this should usually be “landscape”. The small monitor preview above the selection menu shows you what the screen display will look like.

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Windows 7: The screen has been rotated 90 degrees.

Now click OK. The image now switches to the newly selected orientation for a few seconds. If you want to keep these, click on “Keep changes”. This should already solve your problem!

Incidentally, depending on the selected orientation, it may well be that you not only see the image the wrong way round, but also that the mouse pointer is no longer so easy to control. But don’t panic: the image will automatically snap back to its original position after a few seconds, unless you click on “Keep changes”.

Tip:

You can also try “portrait format” or another orientation that does not currently match your monitor without hesitation. Because after a few seconds, the image jumps back to the original setting, unless you click on “Keep changes”.

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Windows 7: Rotate screen using right-click context menu.

Windows 7, 8: Rotate screen via graphics driver setting

The context menu of the right mouse button also gives you access to the graphics card driver settings.

On our Windows 7 Pro computer, this comes from Intel because our computer has an onboard graphics chip from Intel. So right-click on the desktop of your Windows PC and select “Graphics Properties” and then “Display” from the context menu that appears. Then set the screen size under “Rotation”. With the value “0” you restore the original state. There is also a preview function here.

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Windows 7: Rotate screen using right-click context menu, but this time using the graphics card driver.

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Windows 8: Rotate the screen using graphics card settings

Windows 7, 8, 10/11: Rotate screen using keyboard shortcut

There are various key combinations with which you can rotate the screen display in no time at all.

Important:

However, these shortcuts only work if Windows is responsible for rotating the screen. If, on the other hand, the graphics card driver is responsible for rotating the screen display, then the following shortcuts will not work!

Possible Windows key combinations for rotating the screen are:

• CTRL+arrow key

• CTRL+ALT+arrow key

• CTRL+Shift+Arrow Key

Let’s take the example CTRL+ALT+arrow key: Hold down both the CTRL and ALT keys simultaneously and also press one of the four arrow keys on your keyboard. The arrow key up forces the usual display, the arrow key down turns the screen content upside down. The left or right arrow keys rotate the image left or right accordingly. Feel free to try it, you can use the buttons to undo the change immediately. In contrast to the way via the Windows system settings, the change is implemented immediately with the key combinations.

This key combination works not only on desktop computers, but also on notebooks.

However, the first and the last combination do not work on any computer known to us. They depend on the graphics card used.

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Windows 8: Display Settings

Windows 10/11: Rotate screen via system settings

In addition to the key combinations mentioned above, you can also change the screen orientation under Windows 10 via the system settings, provided that Windows is responsible for rotating the screen (and not the graphics card driver). The quickest way to do this is to right-click on the desktop. Then select the entry “Display settings”. Or you go via the Windows start menu to “Settings” (second icon from the bottom in the leftmost menu bar) and then “System, Display”.

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Windows 10: Rotate the screen

This opens the “Display” page (formerly: Screen) in the Windows settings. And there you can select the desired format again under “Screen orientation”. With “Landscape” you set the optimal standard setting, a misaligned screen should be fixed with it.

Windows 10: Rotate screen via graphics driver setting

However, you can also select the “Graphic properties” entry in the context menu with the right mouse button; this item may also be called “Nvidia Control Panel” – namely when Nvidia graphics card drivers are installed. However, you will not end up in the Windows Control Panel, but in the settings of the graphics card driver.

With an Intel graphics chip, for example, you can specify the orientation of the screen content in the “Display” menu under “Rotation” and you will also get a preview here. A value of “0” restores the default setting.

It works the same way in the Nvidia Control Panel under “Display, Rotate Display” if an Nvidia graphics card is installed. Like on our desktop computer with Windows 10 Pro and an Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 6 GB.

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On this Windows 10 machine, the Nvidia Control Panel is responsible for rotating the screen.