HelpLobby TV & screensReadability on the TV

Readability on the TV

A board only works if people can read it. turnda watches the numbers against your screen size and viewing distance and warns you — before it's on the wall — when the text is too small for the back of the room.

Owner, Manager & Location-manager Where: Displays → Editor 3 min read

The readability check

When the smallest numbers would come out too small for the distance, the editor shows "People at the back won't be able to read this." It's a guardrail, not a wall — you're warned, never blocked.

It tells you which section and why, rather than just objecting — "On a 43 inch screen from about 16 ft, the numbers in Waiting come out too small." Then the reason it found.

The two usual reasons

Reason	What the message says
Too many rows	“It's showing 12 rows; about 7 fit.”
Too little width	“They've been shrunk to fit across a narrow box” — sometimes with “— this layout was built for a tall screen” when the board and the screen disagree about which way round they are.

Ways to fix it

Button	What it does
Fix it for me	Cuts the section down to the number of rows that genuinely fit, which is what makes the rows that remain bigger. It does not shrink anything and does not hide the section.
Split over two pages	Spreads a long list across pages so each row is bigger.
Show {orient} layouts	Offered when the board's orientation doesn't match the screen; the button names the orientation you'd be switching to — wide or tall.
Keep it anyway	If you know your room and want it as-is. The warning goes; nothing about the board changes.

"Fix it for me" is not one tap. It first shows you exactly which rows would go, headed "This takes rows off your board", and you press "Remove them" to accept.

If losing those rows is enough You get "Sorted — big enough to read from the back now."

It can finish with the board still unreadable. It tells you so both before and after. When you see either message, stop trimming rows — a bigger screen or a closer one is the only thing that will work.

When	What the screen says
Before you remove rows	“Even after this the numbers will STILL be too small to read from the back — this screen is too small, or too far away. Moving the screen closer or using a bigger one is what fixes that.”
After you remove rows	“Rows removed — but the numbers are still too small to read from the back.”

“Give it more of the screen.” The warning may also simply suggest this — the section is fine, it just has too small a share of the board. Resize it on the section's own controls and the warning clears itself.

Screen size & distance

The check uses the screen size and how far people stand, both set on the Whole board tab. Leave distance blank and turnda estimates it from the screen size.

Worth getting right These two numbers are what makes the readability verdict — and the board — genuinely useful.

Two things also change what a room can read, and neither lives on this tab.

Setting	Where	What it does
Marking a screen as “S”	Its device settings	Shows about a quarter fewer rows on that TV, so the ones that remain are bigger. It shows less — it does not shrink anything — which is the right trade on a small screen across a waiting room. M, L and XL leave the board exactly as designed.
An upright TV needs a Tall layout	—	A real portrait screen is turned to suit and fills the wall properly. A portrait tablet or a phone is too narrow for a board to be read across a room at all, and gets told so: “This board needs a bigger screen.”

Rule of thumb The fewer things on screen, the bigger each one can be. If the back row struggles, cut a section or split the list before you shrink the text.