Hello John,
I can sympathize--my eyes have not been working as a team for the last couple of years and I fight text size problems all the time. I am not aware of an "quick-n-dirty" solution to increasing the font size in an existing pdf document.
To alter a pdf file, you need the Adobe program that creates pdfs,
Acrobat. It's not cheap. In addition, you can only edit the offending pdf file with Acrobat if the person who created it either:
a) did not password-protect it, or
b) gives you the password if they did protect it.
I find small-font pdfs are easier to read on-screen in Adobe Reader than Apple's Preview. If the file wants to open in Preview, control-click its icon and, from the "Open with..." option in the contextual menu, select Adobe Reader. To change the file to open in Adobe Reader every time, single-click the document icon, do a "Get Info.." from the Finder's file menu (or type
command-i). In the resulting Get Info box, you can change the application opens the document.
Once you have the pdf open in Adobe Reader, you have options for magnification that I find helpful. I close the left hand overview pane and select the "fit width" option to maximize the view on-screen. Not elegant, but it beats holing a magnifying glass.
Printing has fewer options but the Adobe Reader print dialog box offers some help. Among the printing options are some for how much of the page to use. If the page size of the pdf is smaller than 8-1/2 X 11", you can select "fit to page margins" and get some magnification. When I was working, the network printer in our area could output 11x17 pages. I often printed out offending pdfs that way to gain a considerable magnification.
The bottom line is that the document creator should be aware of readability issues. Twenty-somethings often fail to realize that not everyone can read 8-point text unless it is politely pointed out to them. Heck, until I was 55 or so, I could read anything. If the pdfs that give you trouble come from a government agency or a company, let them know that the document is not appropriate to the vision-impaired customer and ask for a version you can read.
Allan
