Can I no longer change fonts in Safari 6?

I don't have any difficulty changing font sizes. Command>shift>plus (or minus) handles that just like Safari always has. But I want to change the typeface entirely. I found a couple of extensions at extensions.apple.com (look under "other") that work although they are pretty limited. One is "HelveticaTheWorld" so if you can live with Helvetica everywhere, it will give you that option.

The other extension is called "GoogleFonts in Safari." It provides several options from the Google font directory. They are pretty limited (not to mention ugly) but at least it gives you some variety. Of course, who knows what kind of Google tracking stuff that opens up.

Needless to say, you can't use both of those extensions at the same time, so you have to uninstall one or the other. And they also change the font on sites that would be better off if they were left alone. So it is not a perfect workaround

I always preferred using fonts from my own system. Trebuchet or Frutiger being the most common for surfing the web. I have a couple sites that I visit that function entirely in Times Roman, which I have never felt was a legitimate font to use for smaller text on the web. At least for me it is very, very hard to read. Maybe some extensions developer will restore that functionality.

Hope that helps.

This is not just a Mountain Lion problem; the new Safari 6 for Lion also lacks the font preference. There is no way to set the default font to a specific (and more readable) size.

Sure, you can hit Zoom (Cmd+/- is fastest), but who wants to do that every single time you open the program?

Everyone who thinks this is a problem should post a polite request to restore the Safari Appearance Preferences at www.apple.com/feedback. If enough people complain, they might do something about it.

For some of us older users we need a heavy font. I have been using Casual, or Comic, and some versions of Chalkboard.

I use a Mac mini on a 55 inch TV because I have warped retinas which cause no end of headaches trying to read standard fonts.

I have been forced to move to FireFox, and I am not happy with it, but most of my reading is done on text based sites.

I can not use Safari on the iPhone or iPad for the same reason. I know we are a niche group but we have been loyal to Apple since before the Mac, come on Apple let us have the Customized fonts back.

Eliminating the Appearance preference from Safari 6 was a dumb idea.

I like being able to set font and font size preferences, bring these back, Apple!

A person can add the zoom button to their toolbar or you can use the command + shortcut. I like holding command with my right thumb then with my middle figure hit the + sign. You can hit it many times to enlarge the page/font to your desire. Use the - sign to reduce.

I think this is a bug. There's still information about the Appearance preference on the Safari feature information page, which includes information about the new features only available in Safari 6.

I hope it's a bug. Sites with bad default fonts are impossible to look at now. I want my font selection back.

Where can we report it? No bug icon anymore.

For the past few days I have been researching a workaround and I found this works for me. Download a Safari extension called: "Quickstyle" by Canisbos Computing. It took some practice with the CSS, but I finally got a couple of my favorite websites tweaked the way I like them.

Simple CSS commands are:

font-family: Fill in your font name here ;

font-size: 16pt ;

font-weight: Lighter ;

Replace the values after the colon with yours. Don't forget the semicolon at the end. Other font-weight options are "Bold, Bolder, Lighter, Normal".

There are lots of other CSS commands but theses are the real basics. A quick primer on CSS may be helpful.

I hope this helps.

Will

A great solution to the problem: http://canisbos.com/quickstyle

Quickstyle is actually easier to use than it would seem, given the developer's instructions (more capabilities than are needed for this discussion).

After installing it, all you need to do is load a page you want to customize, click the Quickstyle toolbar icon, move the pointer to over an area you want to adjust, then press a hotkey(s) to make adjustments (see table about midway down the Quickstyle page), and finally click on the page and a sheet drops down with a save button to click.

I was able to customize the display of six different sites in just a couple minutes. Highly recommended!

This is crazy! Workarounds to change fonts? What are they thinking? How can an update remove a simple and useful feature like changing the font?

This was a really bad idea...

Yet another passionate plea for Apple to restore the Appearance panel, so that we can set default fonts and sizes.

Add to the list of reasons this is essential: I have very bad astigmatism (more than 6 diopters), and so am very sensitive to the relation between vertical and horizontal weights in fonts. The point? No one can predict the myriad reasons why users must be able to specify default fonts and sizes.

I totally agree. I don't have the vision problem, but it drives me crazy that I can't define the fonts. What really bugs me is trying to imagine the internal discussion at Apple where they decided to remove this feature. What possibly could have been the rationale? HTML5 or not, there are always going to be websites that either don't define fonts or use only generic fonts that look bad. I can't think of one reason, even looking at it from Apple's perspective, that would make sense to remove that panel.

There's one side of me that thinks removing it was actually an error or that for some reason, new bugs were created by that panel that they didn't want to fix, so they removed it.

I think that Apple's great success and the resulting arrogance is getting the better of them. So we have major bugs in 10.8 (battery life and system freezing), the Maps fiasco in iOS6, Apple's ridiculous pricing for adapters to the Lightning plug, etc.

Apple doesn't always read the posts here. Please send your feedback to them at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html.

A Safari Extension called "Quickstyle" can help with this, but it is work to use it. The real solution would be for Apple to reinstate the preference option in the next update.

Just realized today that they removed the ability to change fonts. Count me in for the people wanting that option brought back. Safari is already extremely uncustomizable, but this was just the icing on the cake. For me it's mostly an OCD thing, I prefer Helvetica/Arial to that of Times and having Times on several of my favorite websites instead of Arial is driving me nuts...

I agree. I have to be honest. I switched to a Mac this summer for all the great things I had heard about it but as I am using it more and more I am realizing that I am using Chrome, Windows apps through Parallels, etc.. It's a shame that Apple seems to think that we are all idiots and can't customize things for our better enjoyment without screwing things up. I thought Communism was dead in North America?