Change default font size in Notes App in OS X El Capitan

Boldman17, I am tempted to do that myself, I am SO disgusted at Apple for such an oversight. I'm hoping for a patch soon! I used use Evernote prior to Notes and I remember there was limitation with the free version, can't rightly remember, I believe it may have been searching, on the free version I don't believe you could search, which would be a show stopper for me.

Mike

Doesn't look like Evernote allows font size to be changed either on iPad, sigh...

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The font is really really small on my Macbook Air.

Is there any designer in Apple using Note App??? Please Help.

I have got the same problem. The font is really small. I am considering moving to another app.

This is a very frustrating feature (anti-feature). However, I found a link with a decent solution.

Basically, notes default settings is kept in a system's file @ Applications/Notes.app/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/DefaultFonts.plist!!!

You need to open this file with an (nano) editor which runs on your Terminal.app, using the following command:

1) Start your Terminal.app. Close Notes app

2) Type "sudo nano /Applications/Notes.app/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/DefaultFonts.plist"

3) It will prompt you for your admin password.

4) Edit the file - its obvious

5) Ctr-X to save and close.

http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/how-to-change-the-default-fonts-text-size-in-os-xs-n otes-app

The solution from the tekrevue article doesn't work in El Capitan, probably because of System Integrity Protection.

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/205575/how-to-change-the-default-font-a nd-size-in-notes-on-el-capitan

This does not work.

I change the font,

I put Cntl + X.

The programme asks if I want to save.

I say "Y".

It proposes to push "Enter".

I do that.

It says:

"[ Error writing /Applications/Notes.app/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/DefaultFonts.plist: Operation not ]"

How is the new notes a practical improvement? I too cannot read ANY of my previous notes without going in and changing the font individually.

Terrible clunky workaround for new notes:

Create a template note with a small amount of text. Go to it and copy the text before creating a new note. Paste into new note. Highlight existing template text before starting to type in new note. New text will retain font size.

The reason that does not work is due to El Capitan's new SIP (System Integrity Protection) - which one can turn off as follows:

1. Restart your Mac.
2. Before OS X starts up, hold down Command-R and keep it held down until you see an Apple icon and a progress bar. Release. This boots you into Recovery.
3. From the Utilities menu, select Terminal.
4. At the prompt type exactly the following and then press Return: csrutil disable
5. Terminal should display a message that SIP was disabled.
6. From the  menu, select Restart.

However even after disabling SIP (which I'd suggest you not do unless you are aware of the repercussions) and editing the DefaultFonts.plist file (which I am now able to do), the default font size does not change in Notes.

So then what's your post about? If it doesn't allow the user to change the font size! Still waiting for Apple to resolve this.

Correct - this is unresolved.

I'm simply pointing out to others that disabling SIP and using a means of fixing this problem from a version of the OS pre El Capitan does not fix the problem - so people should not bother trying this.

Sorry if there was any confusion.

@Matt - thanks for trying that SIP disable. Mystified as to how that extreme measure could also not work. Does the plist file revert back when you launch Notes? If not, and your change remains, what the **** is it pulling from? (Is there any chance you misspelled font name or something?)

All others - the only way this will change, as @sparkleberry said, is for hundreds of users to request it using http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html.

The new El Capitan version of Notes has finally given me the note taker I needed. And yes, the inability to set the default font and size and the difficulties with fonts, period, on the iPhone can be really frustrating.

But given how great the app is otherwise, this workaround is good enough for me, and I hope it may be useful to others:

1. Create a note on your Mac
2. Style the title and body text with the font, size, color, etc., that you prefer
3. Before you open a new note on your Mac or your iOS device, open this note and copy the title and some of the body text
4. Create a new note
5. Paste the text into the new note
6. Write over the existing title and text, saying what you wanted to say in the new note

If you need to create a numbered list, just type a "1", a period, and a space, and your list will use the same font info you were using at the time. Similarly, you can type an asterisk and a space or a hyphen and a space to have bulleted and dashed lists retain your font settings.

Is this painless? No.

Should Apple fix the problem? Yes.

But I love the new Notes app and this has meant that I can keep using it.

At last!

That sounds too painful. It's nice to run OS X at the higher resolution but some places the writing is just too small, like in notes.

If you don't care about the font and just want the text bigger. Use the keyboard shortcut shift-command-+ to jump up a size at time before you start writing in a new note.