Internet Explorer - Using Compatibility View

Some websites may display incorrectly or function improperly when viewed in more recent versions of Internet Explorer. If a website is not working correctly in one of these versions of Internet Explorer, Compatibility View may sometimes resolve the problem.

Background

Newer versions of Internet Explorer may display web pages differently than in previous versions of Internet Explorer. If this causes problems, IE has an option called Compatibility View which is designed to display a troublesome page as if it were being viewed in IE 7.

    Using Compatibility View in Microsoft Edge

    1. Open Microsoft Edge
    2. Click the ellipsis button button in the top-right corner.

      red outline and arrow highlighting ellipsis button

    3. Select the Settings option in the drop-down.

      red outline around settings option

    4. On the left-hand side, select Default browser.

      red outline around default browser option

    5. Under the "Internet Explorer Compatibility" section, click the drop-down in the "Allow sites to be reloaded in Internet Explorer mode" and select Allow.

      Red outline around drop-down and arrow to select Allow

    6. Click the Restart button that appears after selecting Allow.

      red outline around restart button

    Using Compatibility View in IE 11

    These websites can be added to the compatibility mode list by doing the following:

    1. In Internet Explorer, click on the Tools menu. Unless you have the menu bar enabled, this will be a gear icon: IE-gear-rev

      • Note # 1: You can display the menu bar by either: 1) pressing the ALT key or 2) right-clicking the Address bar and selecting Menu bar.

      • Note # 2: If the Internet Explorer browser zoom level is set to something other than 100%, then the mouse clicks register in incorrect places on the browser screen, giving the appearance that one cannot access content or can access content selectively

    2. Click Compatibility View Settings.

      IE11Tools

    3. Under Add this website, enter the URL of the site you want to add.

      IE11Compatibility

    4. Click Add.

    5. The list should look like the following if you added the typical websites.

      IE11-Compatibility_View_websites

    6. Upon reloading the webpage, content should display properly.

    7. Note: By default, IE11 is set to clear your browser history when you quit, which also clears the list of websites added to Compatibility View. To disable this setting:

      1. Open the Tools menu as described in step 1 above, then select Internet Options.

      2. Under the General tab, uncheck the Delete browser history on exit, then click Apply. If you do not disable this setting, you will need to recreate this list every time you launch IE.

      IE11-DEL_Browsing_History

    Information for this webdoc was based on the article, "Fix site display problems with Compatibility View", from the websites:

    Using Compatibility View in IE 9 and 10

      1. In Internet Explorer 9 and 10, there will be a small icon that looks like a piece of paper ripped in half located in the address bar (If you don't see the icon, it is likely you will not need it to properly see the webpage).

      2. Clicking on the icon will toggle Compatibility View on () and off ().

    IE 10 - Compatibility view

    Using Compatibility View in IE 8

    1. In Internet Explorer 8, go to Tools

    2. Click on Compatibility View

      IE 8 - Compatibility view


    KeywordsIE8 8 IE9 9 IE10 10 IE11 11 iexplore Microsoft browsers known issues problems viewing websites compatible adding enabling display   Doc ID11667
    OwnerHelp Desk KB TeamGroupDoIT Help Desk
    Created2009-07-05 18:00:00Updated2022-10-05 18:33:22
    SitesDoIT Help Desk, DoIT Staff
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