Page orientation

[1] The term "portrait orientation" comes from visual art terminology and describes the dimensions used to capture a person's face and upper body in a picture; in such images, the height of the display area is greater than the width.

The term "landscape orientation" also reflects visual art terminology, where pictures with more width than height are needed to fully capture the horizon within an artist's view.

The IBM DisplayWriter had a portrait monitor and keyboard with large backspace key, as it was designed for use in word processing instead of spreadsheets.

However, according to a long-time regional manager of the IBM personal computer division, speaking in confidence to the author of this entry in the mid-1980s, when the IBM PC was introduced, no portrait mode was made available for two reasons: (1) Top management did not want the PC division to undermine the DisplayWriter product, (2) The computer was designed with spreadsheets and software development in mind, not word processing.

[better source needed] For the first computing devices a screen was built to operate in only portrait or landscape mode, and changing between orientations was not possible.

[17] Building on this technology, Portrait Display Labs leapt into this market niche,[18] producing a number of rotating CRT monitors as well as software which could be used as a driver for many video cards.

Portrait mode is popular with arcade games that involve a vertically oriented playing area, such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.

Bandai's handheld WonderSwan console was designed to be used both vertically and horizontally, and certain Nintendo DS games, such as Sonic Rush and Mr. Driller Drill Spirits would use its two landscape screens together to make one portrait-orientated play field.

Portrait orientation is still used occasionally within some arcade and home titles (either giving the option of using black bars or rotating the display), primarily in the vertical shoot 'em up genre due to considerations of aesthetics, tradition and gameplay.

However, as a result of the light polarization technology, an LCD monitor, particularly TN panels, the angle of image viewability will degrade when rotated.

Projectors can generally operate from any angle due to the compact, rigid design and a cooling system utilizing a forced-air fan.