line-spacing on Apple's pages too tight with larger minimum fontsize

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Level 5

6,264 points

line-spacing on Apple's pages too tight with larger minimum fontsize

I'm normally a Camino user, but with all the hubbub about Safari this week I thought I'd give it another try.

Because of my vision I normally set a higher minimum font size in my browsers.

If I set the minimum in Safari to 18, then letters are big enough to read comfortably -- except primarily on Apple's sites, including these forums: there is not enough space between the lines! Each line looks jumbled on top of the next.

How can permanently set Safari to have larger fonts, and still have Apple's pages look decent?

MacIntel Mini 1.83, 2 Gig, OSX 10.4.9; iBook G4 800, 640 Meg, OSX 10.3.9, Dell 1704-FPV monitor, NeoOffice, Camino, Thunderbird, Parallels, Compositor

Posted on Jun 13, 2007 1:53 PM

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Answer 1

Boece Author

Level 5

6,264 points

Jun 16, 2007 6:57 AM in response to Boece

No takers? Seems like Safari should be able to display Apple's own pages correctly, while still accommodating people with poorer close vision.

Camino handles a larger minimum font size on Apple's pages just fine.

So far the worst problem I've encountered with Safari is on Apple's pages. Most other sites are just fine.

(IMHO it appears that Apple assumes everyone is near-sighted.)

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Answer 2

TildeBee

Level 7

31,923 points

Jun 16, 2007 7:06 AM in response to Boece

Boy, Boece,
You are absolutely right!
It's a nightmare on the Apple pages using 18 point type.
You could let them know here:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

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Answer 3

Boece Author

Level 5

6,264 points

Jun 16, 2007 7:14 AM in response to TildeBee

Done. Feedback submitted. Hope others who feel the same way will do the same.

In the meantime, if anyone has a trick to make Safari alter the stylesheet when using apple.com, I'd like to hear it.

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Answer 4

Boece Author

Level 5

6,264 points

Jun 16, 2007 7:47 AM in response to Boece

deleted

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Answer 5

Boece Author

Level 5

6,264 points

Jun 16, 2007 9:20 AM in response to Boece

Anyone tried SafariStand to fix this problem with Apple's websites?

http://hetima.com/safari/stand-e.html

"SafariStand is an add-on for the Safari browser that increases the amount of customization permitted by users—including, but not limited to, specifying user style sheets on a per-site basis. While the process of adding a user style sheet still involves saving the CSS file to a specific directory before you can load it in SafariStand, it’s a heck of a lot easier than it was. Tick off point number 2 for Safari users."

Not available for Safari3, unfortunately.

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Answer 6

Andrew99

Level 4

1,305 points

Jun 16, 2007 5:32 PM in response to Boece

Hello Boece,

I didn't have much luck with SafariStand. From what I was able to discern in a cursory testing, however, was that you would need to enable SafariStand's Site Alteration feature, add the Apple Discussion site, and then select your own existing style sheet -- assuming you have one. If you don't have your own style sheet you'd have to create one and enter it into your Style Sheet Location directory so that it can be chosen. In other words, SafariStand's Site Alteration feature doesn't allow you to simply "turn off" Apple's Discussion page style sheet. Unless I was missing something.

But here's maybe some better news... Instead of setting a minimum font size through Safari preferences, add the larger/smaller Text Size button to your Address Bar. Under Safari's View menu > Customize Address Bar, drag the Text Size button to the Address Bar and press Done.

If your experience is like mine you should notice that when you press the larger letter "A" two or three times you should find a suitable text size, 18 or above -- and without the annoying jumble. This is probably not the solution you were looking for but perhaps a decent enough workaround.

Good luck!

Andrew99

iMac 1 GHz Flat Panel 15" PPC 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.9)

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Answer 7

TildeBee

Level 7

31,923 points

Jun 16, 2007 6:07 PM in response to Andrew99

Andrew, that's a great idea.

Another way to do it, Boece, is to press the Apple Key with the "Plus" key
until you get it where it's comfortable for you. I tried it that way, and the text doesn't scramble up, as Andrew noted.

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Answer 8

Boece Author

Level 5

6,264 points

Jun 16, 2007 7:25 PM in response to TildeBee

Bee and Andrew,

Thank you for your suggestions -- although it is sad that such steps should even be necessary with Apple's own browser on Apple's own site! Especially since Camino and Firefox do not have this difficulty.

The problem with zooming the text as a solution is that I like to have my minimum font size set at 18 for all the sites I visit.

I'd have to turn that off and then manually zoom text every time I open a new tab or window.

Clearly the designers of Safari anticipated the needs of people like me when they included the minimum font size option -- but apparently they didn't talk to the designers of Apple's web pages (or was it vice-versa?).

I do now have SarfariStand installed and I have tried to copy Apple's CSS pages and modify them to have reasonable line-height settings. I must not be doing it right because I haven't succeeded in change the appearance at all.

So far all the CSS sheets I've looked at for this forum set line-height in static pixels, rather than a scaleable unit like ems. Apparently Camino and Firefox are smart enough to rescale the the pixel settings when the minimum font is increased, while Safari is not.

I've now added the zoom text button to my menu bar and will give it a try. If I hit it about 4 times I get pretty good, readable print on this site. Of course, it makes other sites way too big when I switch to them, unless I set a pretty small minimum font size.

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Answer 9

Boece Author

Level 5

6,264 points

Jun 18, 2007 9:49 AM in response to Boece

Sadly, I'm going back to Camino.

It's just not worth the extra bother of pushing the Increase/Decrease Text size button on every page I visit to get the text size "just right". I'd rather save my brain activity for something else.

In Camino I have minimum font size set to 18 and that's that. Even these forums work OK. Not so with Safari 2 or 3.

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Answer 10

TildeBee

Level 7

31,923 points

Jun 18, 2007 10:06 AM in response to Boece

Boece --
I'm sorry that Safari doesn't work well for you,
but I'm happy that Camino does exactly what you need.

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