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Rob Hague Author

Level 1

10 points

iCal 5.0 - washed out dates unreadable

The text in Lion iCal 5.0, mainly 'Month' and 'Year' views is so washed-out grey that I can't read it. As a partially sighted Mac user I usually find a little Zoom is all that is necessary, but this text is just too weak-washedout-gray for that to help.

How do I make the date text black - or at least bold? I know I could use Universal Access to set things system wide, but it is just the ugly new-and-improved iCal that is causing me difficulties.

Getting rid of the dirty brown top to the window would also improve the look of the app.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7), 2011 27in i7 3.4GHz

Posted on Jul 23, 2011 3:08 AM

Top-ranking reply

Alan Edinger

Level 4

1,658 points

Posted on Jul 23, 2011 4:08 AM

The Lion installation brought along the default monitor calibration.

I would re-calibrate the color on your monitor and at the end of that procedure change the gamma to a darker contrast to suit your eyes.

You could also use the Universal Access feature to adjust the contrast or flip to White on Black temporarily when viewing iCal.

Thirdly, in iCal you can press ⌘+ (Command plus) to increase the font size. (⌘– [ Command minus to reduce the font size.])

In System Preferences:

#1 • Displays / Color tab / Calibrate.

#2 • Universal Access / Seeing tab

-Alan

View in context

64 replies

Mar 2, 2014 7:54 AM in response to Rob Hague

I still love my Macs, but it's 2014 and iCal still has the same issues as readers and writers have mentioned since 2011. Washed out numbers on the calendar make it near impossible for me to see what date my appointment is on. I'd like the ability to change around my calendar to suit my style. I'm in 10.7.5 and it hasn't been fixed. Sigh

Signed, Please Help

Mar 2, 2014 8:58 AM in response to thebusywoman

Calendar Version 7 has improved on the readability. The text is black (at least as I have things set on 10.9.2 with max contrast etc so that might not be due to Calendar changes), but is still not alterable in any way. BusyCal is still what I used since its fully customizable. Apple's focus on style (and in particular what THEY think is stylish) over functionality is the cancer eatting away at the company. Apple's mantra used to be "it just works", now it seems to be "it just looks nice" (at least looks nice to whoever is Apples style dictator these days).

Mar 2, 2014 1:05 PM in response to John Galloway

Thanks for taking time to respond. I'm not ready to update to 10.9.2 until the bugs are worked out.

Nov 14, 2014 11:37 PM in response to Rob Hague

(vent) - here it is three years after the original post and I still can't easily see dates on the iCal monthly view. Guess I need to put a real calendar on my wall!😢 Does Apple need more diversity in their hiring for user interface specialists? Or does Marketing intercede and have the final say on "aesthetics"?

iCal 5.0 - washed out dates unreadable