Increase OSX system text size?

thomthom · 27 Mar 2012, 21:21

I´ve hooked my Mac Mini up to my TV and are finding the text generally a wee bit small. I cannot find any settings to increase the general size of text in OSX 10.5.

Some googling suggest decreasing screen resolution, but that is no good option as its an LCD TV so the image would be blurred. I need to stick with native resolution. Any ideas? I´m an OSX newbie.

jeff hammond · 27 Mar 2012, 22:09

to the best of my knowledge, there is no way to globally alter text size in OS X (might be a hack out there but i'm not aware of one)

it's all done on an app by app basis.. (for instance, in safari preferences, theres an option that says something like "don't show text smaller than _____" …setting the number to something higher than the default will result in increased text size (unlike zooming which will increase the size of everything)..

in many apps, the standard shortcut for increasing text size is cmmd+ or cmmd- for decreasing.. though some apps treat that as a zoom instead..

thomthom · 27 Mar 2012, 22:49

Ugh.. really? There is no such setting even in the latest OSX?

jeff hammond · 27 Mar 2012, 23:06

@thomthom said:

Ugh.. really? There is no such setting even in the latest OSX?

yeah.. i really don't think there is..

i remember something a while back about resolution independence(?) coming in Lion and i'm pretty sure it didn't make it in..
i believe the capabilities are already in the OS and have been so for quite a while (since tiger maybe?) but never as a single global setting.. apple apparently leaves it up to the individual developers/apps to tie into the feature..

[again, i'm not 100% positive about this… but i'd be (pleasantly) surprised if someone showed me i'm wrong]

thomthom · 28 Mar 2012, 07:48

I might drop by the local Apple store and query the people who work there.

I'm really surprised by this - thought Apple was well into this high resolution monitor thing. How is that suppose to work if you cannot adjust global text size? "It just work" - my shiny metal .. rear end! grumble

jeff hammond · 28 Mar 2012, 13:18

I googled around a bit last night and am concluding that this is definitely not possible in OSX as of right now.

I saw a terminal hack which will allow you to magnify text on a global level but the rest of the system doesn't necessarily handle it properly. (text spilling out of buttons, clicking on parts of the text won't register, etc)

I guess this is easy to do in windows and I read a few people saying this is the single feature preventing them from using osx.. weird

michaliszissiou · 29 Mar 2012, 21:43

Cnd +- doesn't work?
Please I need some more information.

thomthom · 29 Mar 2012, 22:08

@michaliszissiou said:

Cnd +- doesn't work?

Not on a global setting. Some individual applications respond to that, but I really am looking for a system wide setting.

@michaliszissiou said:

Please I need some more information.

Like what?

tiptongrange · 10 Apr 2012, 00:38

An option is to use the zoom feature. Go to System Preferences > Universal Access and click the Seeing Tab, then check the Zoom On button. Now pressing [Cmd Opt =] will incrementally zoom in, and [Cmd Opt -] will zoom back to the normal size. The Options button will allow you to zoom to a prescribed size directly with one press rather than having to press repeatedly to get to the desired size incrementally.

jeff hammond · 10 Apr 2012, 00:45

@tiptongrange said:

An option is to use the zoom feature. Go to System Preferences > Universal Access and click the Seeing Tab, then check the Zoom On button. Now pressing [Cmd Opt =] will incrementally zoom in, and [Cmd Opt -] will zoom back to the normal size. The Options button will allow you to zoom to a prescribed size directly with one press rather than having to press repeatedly to get to the desired size incrementally.

that zooms the whole screen though (everything becomes bigger).. thom is looking to only increase text size - globally..

it's not (feasibly) possible in osx as of right now..

krath · 10 Apr 2012, 07:36

Thomas,
there is a free application called TinkerTool (http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html) .
It allows for adjusting a couple of preference settings that are hidden. Among other things you can change Fonts and Font sizes.
TinkerTool is also useful for exploring all of the osx directories without having to resort to the command line.
All of the changes can be reversed with one click.