Tip: Stop squinting 01 Nov 2005
10 comments Latest by andee
Many of Apple’s apps let you adjust the font size of the UI. This is really helpful on large displays.
In iTunes, set the Source Text and Song Text to “Large” on the General Preferences tab. In Address Book, go to the same panel and choose “Extra large” for extra luxury. And in Mail you can set the Message and Message list fonts under the Fonts and Colors preference.
Bump ‘em up!
10 comments so far (Jump to latest)
ajr 01 Nov 05
I find small type easier to read. I feel like my eye has to travel less - that is if the column widths are set right.
Anonymous Coward 01 Nov 05
Interesting. And trying to make the text size larger on your blog using IE does not work!
stridey 01 Nov 05
“using IE”
Houston, I think we just found the problem.
Wyatt 01 Nov 05
“Houston, I think we just found the problem.”
I thought this site was all about user interface, or was I mistaken?
Martin 01 Nov 05
Interestingly enough, bumping the font size for everything is easy in Windows. And it work well, give and take some broken apps that assume a certain font size.
Such a setting was one of the first things I was looking for when I got my Mac. No luck. What a shame for a OS that otherwise can pride itself with a very good UI.
OS X’s font rendering is *way* ahead of what I know from Windows or Linux, but still.
ad 01 Nov 05
I’d prefer to be able to *shrink* the font size. Using OS 9 at work gives me a real perspective on this — you can fit so much in Finder windows with 9pt Geneva compared to the giant, shadowed OS X Finder.
Darrel 02 Nov 05
Yet another reason why web designers need to get over the whole heavy-handed control over type issue.
Tom 02 Nov 05
I find it strange that people want bigger and bigger resolutions on their lcds. Personally i don’t think I could stand using the newer lcds as the resolutions are too high, so I am stuck with crt monitors for now. Suprisingly os x doesn’t allow you to globally change the font size as windows does and I found it very hard to change the size of system fonts such as the menu font.
MH 03 Nov 05
On a similar note, I heard that Apple is going to move to scalable UI elements soon…if you look at screenshots of Aperture (ona humonguous monitor) it’s almost silly how tiny the menus and buttons are.
http://www.apple.com/aperture/gallery/
andee 03 Nov 05
Seems to me, 37s UI designers must have terrible eyesight… all interfaces seem to display type at 18pt or higher. ;)
I do appreciate the tip, but I am setting my fonts the other direction. Example: now that Apple has enabled the adjustment of Mailbox list in Mail, I am set at 9 point, mmm.