How do I get monitor resolution in Python?

Question

What is the simplest way to get monitor resolution (preferably in a tuple)?

Answer 1

To get bits per pixel:

import ctypes
user32 = ctypes.windll.user32
gdi32 = ctypes.windll.gdi32

screensize = (user32.GetSystemMetrics(0), user32.GetSystemMetrics(1))
print "screensize =%s"%(str(screensize))
dc = user32.GetDC(None);

screensize = (gdi32.GetDeviceCaps(dc,8), gdi32.GetDeviceCaps(dc,10), gdi32.GetDeviceCaps(dc,12))
print "screensize =%s"%(str(screensize))
screensize = (gdi32.GetDeviceCaps(dc,118), gdi32.GetDeviceCaps(dc,117), gdi32.GetDeviceCaps(dc,12))
print "screensize =%s"%(str(screensize))

parameters in gdi32:

#/// Vertical height of entire desktop in pixels
#DESKTOPVERTRES = 117,
#/// Horizontal width of entire desktop in pixels
#DESKTOPHORZRES = 118,
#/// Horizontal width in pixels
#HORZRES = 8,
#/// Vertical height in pixels
#VERTRES = 10,
#/// Number of bits per pixel
#BITSPIXEL = 12,

Answer 2

Old question but this is missing. I'm new to python so please tell me if this is a "bad" solution. This solution is supported for windows and mac only and it works just for the main screen - but the os is not mentioned in the question.

Measure the size by taking a screenshot. As the screensize should not change this has to be done only once. There are more elegant solutions if you have a gui toolkit like gtk, wx, ... installed.

see Pillow

pip install Pillow

---

from PIL import ImageGrab

img = ImageGrab.grab
print (img.size)

Answer 3

Here is a quick little Python program that will display the information about your multi-monitor setup:

import gtk

window = gtk.Window()

# the screen contains all monitors
screen = window.get_screen()
print "screen size: %d x %d" % (gtk.gdk.screen_width(),gtk.gdk.screen_height())

# collect data about each monitor
monitors = []
nmons = screen.get_n_monitors()
print "there are %d monitors" % nmons
for m in range(nmons):
  mg = screen.get_monitor_geometry(m)
  print "monitor %d: %d x %d" % (m,mg.width,mg.height)
  monitors.append(mg)

# current monitor
curmon = screen.get_monitor_at_window(screen.get_active_window())
x, y, width, height = monitors[curmon]
print "monitor %d: %d x %d (current)" % (curmon,width,height)  

Here's an example of its output:

screen size: 5120 x 1200
there are 3 monitors
monitor 0: 1600 x 1200
monitor 1: 1920 x 1200
monitor 2: 1600 x 1200
monitor 1: 1920 x 1200 (current)

Answer 4

If you are using the Qt toolkit specifically PySide, you can do the following:

from PySide import QtGui
import sys

app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
screen_rect = app.desktop().screenGeometry()
width, height = screen_rect.width(), screen_rect.height()

Answer 5

I created a PyPI module for this reason:

pip install screeninfo

The code:

from screeninfo import get_monitors
for m in get_monitors():
    print(str(m))

Result:

monitor(1920x1080+1920+0)
monitor(1920x1080+0+0)

It supports multi monitor environments. Its goal is to be cross platform; for now it supports Cygwin and X11 but pull requests are totally welcome.

Answer 6

XWindows version:

#!/usr/bin/python

import Xlib
import Xlib.display

resolution = Xlib.display.Display().screen().root.get_geometry()
print str(resolution.width) + "x" + str(resolution.height)