Thinkpads Forum

I feel this is a pretty old question but -
is there any reliable way to increase system fonts to live comfortably with 15.4" WUXGA?

Any links to corresp. utils w/snapshots of results?

My work is a 50/50 mix of high-res like CAD, plus programming.
And some websites use quite microscopic fonts which is sometimes hard to read even on my 19" 1280x1024 SXGA 86 DPI.

Go to Control Panel/Display/Properties/Settings/Advanced and change the DPI settings.
Standard is 96 against your 86 DPI, Large is 120 DPI.
You can also set it to your own value. (at least in XP)

Yes, thanks, I've already played with that, but
- some fonts scaled, some not (and some look rather ugly)
- windows and icons grow (thus reducing usable screen space)
- web pages' fonts doesn't scale
(typical example is http://cnews.com main page, tiny "Related Searches:" in UL corner right under the logo)

So I'm afraid the MSoft medicine can't cure this case

I've heard that FireFox can scale fonts in web pages - any experience?

PS maybe I'm sliding into offtop - but there is a good ThinkPad with WUXGA which still scares me a bit as a tool for all-day text job (and decent web surfing sometimes)

In Firefox, click on View, then Zoom to adjust the fontsize

It is hard for me to judge how people see things (I have enough issues of my own). But I went to the Cnews page with my 14" screen, 1280x1024 resolution and 96 DPI font. The font under Related Searches looked normal to me. I do admit that sometimes the fonts are tiny if I am too far away (farther, for example, than I would read a book or magazine), but most of the time, the fonts are just fine and look proper using the standard DPI. ... JDH

RealBlackStuff wrote:In Firefox, click on View, then Zoom to adjust the fontsize

... yes, this is one way, but it is much faster to use Ctrl+ and Ctrl-

By the way, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 has the same functionality, but in my experience it works quite poor. So the way to go is --> Get FireFox!.

Another option is (perhaps?) to increase the font size as described in Adjust Display and Appearance. Have you enabled ClearType? That also helps!

Johan

Johan quotes RBS and notes:

> In Firefox, click on View, then Zoom to adjust the fontsize

... yes, this is one way, but it is much faster to use Ctrl+ and Ctrl-

Even easier is to install one of my favorite add-ons, QuickPageZoom, that puts plus and minus icons for altering size in the status bar.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6715

With Opera, you can use the "View Bar" toolbar which has a drop down menu box for zooming from 20% to 1000%. If you don't like having the "View Bar" toolbar, it can be turned off, and you can still access this feature from "View" drop-down menu at the top - although this does require more mousing around. Personally I like having the View Bar toolbar.

You can use this feature on an individual page, or you can set the zoom to a specific default value for all pages.

The + and - keys work as well for 10% increments.

... not sure if it is of interest/use, but I just came across a thread here on a strongly related issue; see Screen Size, Resolution, Readability & Eyestrain which has quite a few suggestions - you may want to check it out!

Please let us know if you end up "circumventing" (improving/enlarging) the very small fonts on some web-sites... thanks!

Johan

Another feature of Opera is that you can select which fonts to use by default for various webpage parts (and choose perhaps a more readable font). Even better, there is a menu choice to choose a minimum font size for all fonts.

There is one caveat to the above. If the text is imbedded within an image, none of the above has any effect. Only the zoom feature will increase an image size and any text within.