Safari 6 default font way too small?

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79 points

Safari 6 default font way too small?

I see that Apple removed the ability to set the default fonts and, more importantly, font SIZES with the release of Safari 6.

So now every time I do a google search the results are in a microscopic font and I have to manually zoom the page... which is irritating after the very first time.

I set the "Never use fonts smaller than..." option to 20 (as usual 18 is too small but 24 is too large, why this big gap?), but now pages like Facebook have the fonts all crammed together and overlapping.

Is there an actual solution to this? Why would they remove something so basic as the ability to make fonts actually readable???

Thanks.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 26, 2012 9:07 AM

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Answer 1

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Micah D. Author

Level 1

79 points

Jul 26, 2012 10:13 AM in response to Micah D.

For now my solution is to go back to good old Firefox. In about 10 seconds I was able to adjust my font sizes to be readable, and look at that! Pages like Facebook still render properly and look fine.

Thanks Apple, I've been wondering for a while "Why do I keep using Safari?" and now I have an answer: I don't. Until you make it so people don't have to manually increase the size of every page just to be able to read it, I give Safari 6 a HUGE thumbs down.

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Answer 2

kenlloyd

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0 points

Jul 27, 2012 7:11 AM in response to Micah D.

Same here. Try this:

In Safari 6 preferences go to "advanced" and select "nerver use font size smaller than" and select a font size.

This works fairly well for your home page but not so good for other webpages. I switched to Chrome.

Thumbs down here also.

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Answer 3

Micah D. Author

Level 1

79 points

Jul 27, 2012 8:55 AM in response to kenlloyd

@kenlloyd: Thanks, I tried that already. Like you said, it's a "sorta" solution... as in it sorta works on some pages, doesn't work at all on other pages, and makes some pages unreadable.

Posting from Firefox 14 as I type. Generally I prefer to use native software just because it's usually integrated more completely with the overall OS, but when a piece of software has basic functionality stripped from it and is rendered unusable without inconvenience, why would I stick with it? Apparently I wouldn't.

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Answer 4

Jul 30, 2012 11:37 AM in response to Micah D.

You can change the default font without too much trouble. Go to the "Advanced" tab of the Preferences window, and under "Style Sheet" select a file that has the font spec you want in it. All you need is for the file to have something small in it, like this:

body {

font: 12px "Lucida Grande";

}

Or whatever font you want the default font to be.

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Answer 5

kenlloyd

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Jul 31, 2012 8:38 AM in response to Mike Byrne

Thanks. Good idea. It does work for some webpages but not for others. Pretty annoying stuff Apple guys !

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Answer 6

Aug 2, 2012 1:12 PM in response to kenlloyd

Because of this, Safari 6 is completely unusable to me on my MBA. Too bad because I wanted to use the integrated browser.

I have switched to Chrome.

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Answer 7

Micah D. Author

Level 1

79 points

Aug 6, 2012 10:43 AM in response to Mike Byrne

Hi Mike, thanks for the suggestion. I tried this, but I can't get it to work. Anyways it's utterly ridiculous that I should have to learn how to create CSS stylesheets just to make Safari even marginally useable, so I'll just stick with firefox.

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Answer 8

Aug 10, 2012 8:29 AM in response to Micah D.

The OSX Hints website at Macworld has the solution I think.

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120731105734626

In short there are a set of Terminal commands you can run.

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Answer 9

Micah D. Author

Level 1

79 points

Aug 10, 2012 10:06 AM in response to entropybydesign

Thanks entropybydesign, if I were willing to tackle shell scripts and line commands to fix a problem that should simply be in the Preferences menu I'd go for that. Plus I wonder if that will simply recreate the garbled pages that happen when you set Safari's "Never use fonts smaller than:" preference.

As it is, it's much easier to just use a different browser. Trying out Chrome right now and frankly wondering why I stuck with Safari for so long in the first place. Maybe Apple did me a favor!

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Answer 10

kenlloyd

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0 points

Aug 13, 2012 7:16 AM in response to entropybydesign

Interesting. I tried the first set of terminal commands with my own font choices and it worked pretty well.

Unfortunatly font sizes still vary from page to page. The second set of "improved" terminal commands did not work for me at all. Thanks

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Answer 11

Aug 15, 2012 2:19 PM in response to Micah D.

Like many others here, I simply abandoned Safari (again), and returned to the Firefox fold.

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Answer 12

Aug 15, 2012 2:38 PM in response to Micah D.

Understood, yeah it's weird they took away the font preferences in Safari and left it Mail. I have been looking at Chrome lately. I use Firefox occasionally but may switch back to it since I like the separate search box and better set of extensions.

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Answer 13

Sep 23, 2012 6:21 PM in response to entropybydesign

download this program worked wonders on my 11" MBA was able to set the default zoom level to what i wanted

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/35756/allpageszoom-safari-extension

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Answer 14

JG Here

Level 1

34 points

Oct 2, 2012 7:58 PM in response to Egeiger81

I hate this aspect of Safari, but I really like the convenience of iCloud keeping all my apple products in sync. If I could get iCloud to sync my bookmarks in Firefox or Chrome, I'd switch.

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Answer 15

Vlsf

Level 1

0 points

Dec 22, 2012 12:22 PM in response to Micah D.

Swiched back to Chrome. The default font on Safari 6 is exactly the same microscopic size iphone 2G had.

Safari 6 is unusable again.

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