Hello,
the system font is way to small for my eyes, causing headache after working for a while. I own a current mac mini (2011) and an Asus 22" monitor with a native 1680x1050 resolution. I checked all settings but couldn't find anything appropriate.
Where can I change the size of the system font or the DPI?
Thanks in advance,
Oliver
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7)
There is no such setting (yet) in OS X, unfortunately.
It may be available via a 3rd party utility like TinkerTool.
Please give Apple your feedback via the Apple OS X feedback page, so that maybe they will finally give it some priority.
What do you mean by 'system font'?
If you mean filenames etc in Finder windows you can change these via View > Show View Options (or Command - J).
If you mean in the menubar it's not possible as icerabbit has said.
He likely means system wide like in Windows for the menu, task bar etc, where there are a lot more readability & customizability options. The system font one is specifically for Oliver's complaint, and right there, for over decade, under the display settings. Default is about 95 dpi (misnomer). Large is 120 or so. And you can set any custom size in-between. Combined with theme support and other fonts ... one can enhance their reading options and desktop experience a fair bit.
I know Apple is not going to do themes, but support for a customizable font size setting is long overdue. I've been really surprised it is not under accessibility.
Exactly that are the fonts I refered to. I don't care about the theme but the fonts (at least in size) are a heavy usability issue. The top menu line works in font size but things like thunderbird or system settings are too small. I'm very suprised that there is no support since I think that its a basic for an OS regarding usability. I'm a linux user, there its standard as well (Gnome, KDE, ...). I mean, I really like the system because its unix-like but this is like stone age.
There's actually a new hidden option to activate a hi-res mode where everything is doubled in size. I haven't tried it yet myself, but here is an article discussing it:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/14#hi-dpi
The HiDPI option (hack) looks like it would cut the screen resolution in half though, judging by the listing at 720x450 and 640x400 ... it is kind of a variation on zoom.
Not practical, the way I see it ... but I guess, maybe a step in the right direction? Color me sceptical. We have been waiting for that once promised resolution independence for years. 10.5 10.6 10.7 still nothing. Time to hit the feedback page, people.
True, but if your screen is hi-res enough and eyesight is an issue, could be worth the tradeoff.
Try changing your screen resolution to 1280x800, or 960x600, or 800x500 (if the Display Preference Panel will let you). It won't be as sharp as 1680x1050, but everything will be a bit bigger.
The problem with that is that everything becomes "fuzzy" and washed out on top of losing a lot of valuable screen real estate and running into issues where one will not have the recommended minimum display resolution for certain applications, or not enough space to confirm some dialog boxes.
Agreed. But the OP is finding the 1680x1050 native resolution unusable, so it's worth a try?
Thanks for your help. I tried quartz-debug but doubling the pixel size is not an option. Its too big, I can't work with it. I'm not that blind ;-) Lower the resolution is also not an option, its too blurry. Don't get me wrong, the native solution is usable in many points (e.g. the font in the upper menu bar has a perfect size and I can adjust e-mail text in thunderbird via the options of thunderbird). I just thought there has to be this option somewhere to change the font size and I'm just too stupid to find it. I didn't expect it to be such a big deal. I will report to apple (I'm sure many users did before). Maybe it will help. I think they know that I can get very angry and then they will implement this feature immediately.
How to adjust system font or DPI? (to small for my eyes)
