I an trying to figure out any way, in the normal day to day activity to handle the insistence on lite blue, and grey text. I do have pretty normal sight, but within apps, or even Apple web pages, much of the text is too faint in it's lovely lite gray, to see without increasing the font size to 18 pt. Am I missing some really simple FIX?
Thanks so much. mch
MacBook (13-inch Aluminum Late 2008), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
Am I the only person annoyed at Apple's IPhone design team determining that light gray text on a white background is better for legibility? What were they thinking!!
Am I the only person annoyed at Apple's IPhone design team determining that light gray text on a white background is better for legibility? What were they thinking!!
I'm age 97 and have had an Apple computer of one size or another for quite a few years. My previous one was a 27 inch "Lion." My eyesight is still pretty good with tri-focals for regular use and bi-focals prescribed for computer viewing, and I have little trouble except for very small print like newspaper type especially when in light colors (a dumb idea) and I was led to believe by the advance hype that the new Apple Yosemite would be great for reading on-screen text.
So as soon as the Yosemite came on market I bought (at a cost of about $2800) one of the early 27 inch Yosemite models and what a mistake that was. The text had more resolution but they got that by making everything much smaller. I had to go to the least resolution available on the scale menu in order to read it at all and I still have to do so when not online or wenj using the Apple Safari browser. After a frustrating year of experimentation I finally switched from Safari to the Google Chrome browser and it helped a great deal because the Google Chrome browser has an extension which allows one to go through a range of color modifications. The best option I found on it was the switch to High Contrast which makes the raised contrast on the Apple display option look like a joke. On the Google Chrome browser it also makes all the texts look bigger and as if they were all in BOLD. I have recently upgraded the Yosemite system to the new El Capitan at no cost which also helps some, but by and large I would say the trouble I have had with Yosemite from the beginning is inexcusable for Apple. In my view it certainly wasn't ready for prime time. For those having the same problems I did, I suggest trying the Google Chrome browser which does have a few bugs of it's own but in my case it made considerable improvement in my use of all the computer's features when online. Unfortunately when offline I still have to wrestle with almost invisible texts when viewing some of the built-in apps. Why can't Apple just give us an option to make all the texts stand out in BOLD like Google has done with their High Contrast extension?
Duma
Me too! Done everything...no good results. Why oh why did Apple feel it necessary to change the font color! Maddening! If it's not broken, don't mess with it!
No, you're not "the only person annoyed at Apple's IPhone design team determining that light gray text on a white background is better for legibility?" Coping with near invisible light grey font is for me a major irritant. Even this txt is too feint. One ought to be able to read at a glance and with ease, not peer at almost illegible greyed-out fonts. What were they thinking? I doub they were.
Hi Jeff120Jeff. I don't know why this issue is marked "solved". I'm having two problems: first in my version of Sierra Go to Settings > Accessibility > Increase Contrast does not exist. I have to click display icon to get to a contrast slide bar. Second, I already have the best contrast I can get on my Macbook air. Slide bar only makes it worse. The cause of this problem is Mac's use of grey and black. It doesn't work. I'm not the only one complaining. Please escalate.
I find that the web pages print in a faint gray. I bought a new printer and that did not help. I asked neighbors all ages to try. All had the same results. It was suggested that I use a PC. This started when I upgraded the system. I need to print out readable page when I am placing an order for goods or financial pages.
Lori
How about a sensible reply? in English not an egotistic answer please leave your ego in the box
Design fad that shows up so many places these days, especially on the web. Thank goodness for the Firefox browser's View > Page Style > No Style to let me actually see text so I can read it.
Very difficult to read. Have to strain my eyes. Why are they doing this?
Linda, I'm so glad I'm not the only one with problems. My latest actions have hepled quite a bit, but I am far from an expert and when my KMUG gurus didn't find an easy way, I was at least given some works to search. These are not STEPS, to take, but ideas to try.
My 2 computers were so far from Factory settings for the screen that I found a window within Color Sync Utility [ I believe that was my search phrase in Spotlight]. At any rate, one option, without losing my current, bad calibration settings, was Factory Setting. It seemed really yellow, and dark, but I tried it, and then followed the steps to calibrate Factory. By following the mysterious instructions, my screen looked more normal, BUT…the text looked much more readable. Apple still uses an annoyinly light gray text for most of its help, like at the bottom of this page, but I can at least see it with my aging eyes. Light blue and gray may be "arty", but it stinks for reading.!
Hope this doesn't take you on a wild goose chase.
mch
Jeff, Thank you for finishing up this thread that was started back in 2013. The basic reliance on gray text still exists with Apple designers, but some of the tweaks did certainly help. I am not a doctor, but will add that I did not know the part cataracts played in my computer "sight." After 2 successful surgeries, the Accessibility tweaks do make a nice difference in personal preferences for my computer.
Thanks for the email to remind me of my earlier request.
mch
Agree, silly problem. The "Accessibility::contrast" solution offered does NOT work. Only thing that works seems to be bold or font size. What a terrible design choice. (Not just Apple, either: my 'droid has some of the same proclivities, just not applied to the main body of text you're trying to read.)
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Increase Contrast > Darken Colors, After this the text should be dark enough to read well.
There is an option to enable a high-contrast view in OS X Mountain Lion. It is however, a global effect, so you can't modify specific regions.
To enable a high contrast mode:
> On the Dock, click Settings
> In Settings, click on Accessibility (System Section, second icon from right)
> Select Display from the list on the left side
> Ensure the Invert Colors checkbox is checked.
This setting will invert the colours on your screen:
Black becomes white, white becomes black, blue goes to orange, green goes to purple. I'm not sure if it's the solution you're looking for, but it should help you increase readibility in some cases.
If it does work for you, and you don't want to use it all the time, you can place a shortcut to the options in the menu bar:
> On the Dock, click Settings
> In Settings, click on Accessibility (System Section, second icon from right)
> At the bottom of the window, select the Show Accessibility status in menu bar checkbox.
Hope this helps you out!
- Callum
I went to assessibily because i couldn''t read the light text and broken small text. The text went to black and white text and black background, which i didn't know would happen. First i tried color sync and also tried making the windows text and photos bigger. no luck. now my screen is this crazy purple and white with black background and text and photos are white and light purple. i would love to get my colors back. What should i do? i still have the broken small white letters while trying to read the community pages. i have a 13' macbook pro from 2010. i added more memory and mountain lion worked well at first. Did i mess it up while trying to fix the color with colorsync? Thank you for your help!! Reading your response about inverting colors, i think that is exactly what i did.
Thanks again for your help.
linda
How darken text for readability?
