How do I change the font of desktop icons?

Question

How do I change the font of desktop icons?

imac, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Feb 5, 2009 7:58 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 5, 2009 8:12 PM in response to curtisdumonceaux1

OS X only permits changing the font size but not the font itself. There are third-party interface modifiers that may enable you to make more extensive changes, but since the basic system fonts are embedded they are not easily changed. The freeware tool, TinkerTool, can be used to make some font changes, but icon fonts. Look for it and other software at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.

Reply

Answer 2

Feb 5, 2009 8:28 PM in response to Kappy

I also notice my font in itunes has changed to the same thing. It was something my 4-year old did while unsupervised.

Reply

Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 5, 2009 8:45 PM in response to curtisdumonceaux1

Are you referring to the size or typeface of the font? Font size in iTunes is controlled in the General section o iTunes preferences. The size of icon fonts is set by clicking on the Desktop and selecting Show View Options from the Finder's View menu.

Reply

Answer 4

Feb 5, 2009 8:50 PM in response to Kappy

the typeface has changed from the factory default to what looks like times font. My desktop icon font is now the same as my itunes font.

Reply

Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 5, 2009 8:58 PM in response to curtisdumonceaux1

I'm not sure how that happened. A lot of users would love to know how to change the Desktop icons' font. Are you sure you child didn't delete fonts from the /Library/Fonts/ folder?

Reply

Answer 6

Feb 5, 2009 9:02 PM in response to Kappy

No because I see the factory default font everywhere else. Another thing that happened was that she changed the screen resolution to 1064x768 stretched, which I changed back to 1680x1050. That was the first thing I did which did not change the font back to the original. BTW thanks for trying to help. Any other suggestions?

Reply

Answer 7

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 5, 2009 11:59 PM in response to curtisdumonceaux1

I'm sorry, but I haven't a clue.

Reply

Answer 8

howwow

Level 4

3,538 points

Feb 6, 2009 12:14 AM in response to curtisdumonceaux1

Hi all.

Hmmm, could she has accidently change the System Language of the mac besides English, so the apps etc are displaying the fonts other than the "standard" U.S. Eng font?

Cheers

Reply

Answer 9

Feb 6, 2009 4:01 PM in response to howwow

The system language was not changed.

Reply

Answer 10

Feb 6, 2009 4:10 PM in response to curtisdumonceaux1

I also notice the same has happened in Finder.

Reply

Answer 11

Feb 7, 2009 4:26 AM in response to curtisdumonceaux1

I can think of only two ways:

1 TinkerTool

2 Silk.

I'd not recommend either way. Bad Things™ can happen when the system fonts are Not As Expected by certain, mostly Apple, applications.

Reply

Answer 12

Feb 7, 2009 11:18 AM in response to Charles Dyer

I have figured it out.

System preferences > Appearance > Turn off text smoothing for font sizes xx and smaller

This was the changed parameter. It was changed to font size 12 and smaller. Therefore all desktop fonts, itunes fonts, finder, etc. were not smoothed out and took the appearance of times font.

Thank you to everyone who tried to help. We have now all learned something.

Reply