How can I make the text on my screen larger?

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This does not work well if you have a laptop because laptops are kind of locked into the screen resolution. But if you have a desktop or tower PC you might want to also try changing the screen resolution to a smaller number.

In Windows XP,
Start
Settings
Control Panel
Display
"Settings" tab

In the bottom left corner of the screen is the "screen resolution" slider. Slide the button to the left, or "less" side. For example if it is set to 1280x1024, try sliding it to 1024x768 and hit apply. If everything is still too small, try sliding it to 800x600 and hit apply. This will make everything much bigger onscreen. This solution solves this problem for 99% of users.

A lot of today's laptops are build with "native" resolution of 1600x1200 or higher, which makes everything so terribly tiny! This works really well for folks who want very detailed game screens when playing games, but it makes it terribly hard to do real work (in my opinion) for us old folks because the text and windows are so darn tiny! The "screen resolution" slider can help on laptops, but it also can cause everything to be kind of blurry once you change a laptop screen away from the built in "optimal" resolution. But worth a try!

This is why when Kathleen and I bought our new dell laptops recently we stuck with XGA (or WXGA) resolution. We don't play games and need our text crisp and large!

Hope this helps,
Hugh

With regards to browsers and not to pour gas on the fire but Firebird has a wonderful function that ignores the stylesheet and infinitely scales text (you can make it so one letter fills your screen if you like) with a quick [ctrl] [mouse wheel]. IE will not scale if font sizes are hard coded in pixels which leads me my next point and pet peeve. I urge developers and designers not to use pixel units for font-size and instead use ems which are based on percentages of user's text size settings and not restricted by monitor resolution. As a former print designer I understand the frustration of web design never looking exactly as you intend across all platforms and browsers. But more the reason not to bother with trying to hard code font size especially with the popularity of Firefox taking off. I won't even go into the 90s design craze of turning all text elements into graphics of miniscule bitmappy fonts. All that careful font hinting by typographers for naught.

On the bright side web designers are wising up. For more info on the W3's Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI/.

Don't forget about the accessability viewer - Hit Windows-U and it allows you to start the magnifier tool. The magnifier sits on top of the monitor and shows a magnified version of the screen around the cursor. It's not perfect (and it recommends you get a professional mangnification tool), but it's something.

Ever since i studily fiddled around with the remove and add programs section, i seem to have deleted some key functions of my computers appearance, everything seem visually larger, more hazzier, a bit irritating as well, as were all used to with the sharp crystal clear images and fonts.

Please help me.

Hey, I need help Leo!

I changed the Screen Resolution on my computer and now when I turn it on, it goes black, is there anyway to change it back?

Please tell me there is a way...

Kyle

I believe that if you boot into safe mode, it will use a resolution that will work. You can then change the resolution that should apply when you reboot in regular mode.

HI; I DID THE ABOVE AND IT WORKS ON SOME THINGS!YES THE PRINT IS LARGER ON SOME WEB SITES ; BUT NOT ALL! LIKE I READ THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE EVERY MORNING; NOW; (I DONT KNOW WHAT IT DID) BUT THE TEXT IS EXTREMELY SMALL! CANT READ IT!!! HOW DO I GET IT LARGER? I PRESS THE VIEW THING; AND IT'S ON LARGEST! BUT IT DOESNT TO ANYTHING TO THE TEXT ON THE TRIBUNE!!!! THIS IS ONLY ONE EXAMPLE; THERE ARE MORE! PLEASE HELP! JOANNE WHITE [Email Address Removed]

The change DPI setting as outlined in the article should do it for you.

Many websites do not support the font-size setting in Internet Explorer. But the DPI setting in Windows should still work.

I have a Dell laptop. I can get a somewhat acceptable font, however, I cannot change the font on the AOl. The letter are extremely small and now even the "News" window (page openned to)have the letters extremely small.

Thank you,

I am a senior lady of 86. I recently had a problem with my computer and had a couple of "experts" [friends] in to help me. I could do every thing but SEND. The last person filled my whole screen with the result that all the printing top and bottom is now so small I can hardly read it. Johanna Tait

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