Changing font size

Your comment provides no help whatsoever. And for someone like myself, who has owned 7 Macs over the past 20 years and who would never consider using any other computer (nor , until now, had any difficulty in figuring out how to address any operational problem), your condescending attitude it's just a tad offensive. If you believe that computer problems only arise for uninformed, new users, why don't you, with all your experience, initiative, and self-reliance, whittle down that learning curve by sharing some of that knowledge about Apple operating systems? Fortunately, someone else did just that - maybe because they actually knew what they were talking about.

Craig

Now, for you, occassia, all I can say is that I am forever in your debt!!! I, personally, never touched the touch pad settings since I bought this laptop about a year ago, and I don't know if the zooming is a default setting or not. I don't see anything about ignoring accident input, but the problem appears to have disappeared just by unchecking the zoom function. Funny how something so apparently simple, obvious, and easy to explain escaped two Apple Store employees and all other persons who I asked for help on this zooming problem. I guess "obvious" is relative, but I really do appreciate your assistance with a setting which has caused me more lost time and grief than you can imagine.

Craig

ps I may have spoken too soon. As I was about to post this, the screen decreased in size. When I went back to system preferences, the zoom box was again checked. I suppose I could have been so excited that I forgot to click the done button, but I unchecked zoom again and am not encountering unwanted zooming at this point. I'm somewhat concerned that I didn't find anything about ignoring accidental input. Whether or not my particular situation is resolved, I do appreciate your suggestions.

I was downloading new fonts on my iMac and later realized my web fonts had changed to a really unreadable font. I went into Preferences to change and it was set at my original font. I rechecked a readable font, restarted and no luck. I have spent hours trying to figure this out, even deleting fonts I never use in the first place and spending time just in my fonts folder scratching my head. I'm sure it could be something simple, but the help topics are not helping.

And to reply about the earlier jerk who thinks because we own computers we should be computer technicians, leave your arrogance at startup. I bet you own a car too but are not a mechanic.

Almost 100% certainty your trouble is here:

I was downloading new fonts on my iMac...

Many (most) free fonts are junk. They have incorrect internal names which conflict with the fonts you expect to see. You need to ditch the fonts you downloaded and start with a fresh set of known good fonts.

First empty out the /Library/Fonts/ folder and the Fonts folder of your user account. Next, read the last section of Font Management in OS X to see how to restore just the fonts from your OS X installation disks.

Also, for more information on how these junk fonts affect your system, read sections 12 and 13 of the same article.

The link, or one of the links above directs you to my personal web site. While the information is free, it does ask for a contribution. As such, I am required by Apple's rules for these discussions to include the following disclaimer.
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

I had this same problem. I have discovered that when I run my thumb and pointer on the diagonal on the tracking pad (the motion of shrinking something), the screen shrinks. Start with thumb at bottom left corner and finger at top right. Track them in the opposite direction and the screen expands. Apparently this will work on documents and pictures, too.

If you put your index finger in the middle of the trackpad and use your middle finger moving diagonally on the trackpad next to it or vice versa, it will change the size of your font in safari and firefox. hope this helps.

I had this problem and I just went into preferences and clicked on track pad and unchecked the pinch box. I know nothing; this was just trial and error, and it seems to have done the job.