font type in Leopard too small for my old eyes

[feuerschlange]

I am quite new to Macintosh and struggle with the very small fonts in Leopard.

I use a mbp 15" with the native resolution and a second monitor.

I adjusted the font size in the preferences to a bigger font.
With the finder and some software I am very sadisfied now.
But there are still problems here and there.

When I use quick look in mail.app the font size is so tiny (small excel files), that even with the lupe function the fonts can not be read properly.

The same happens in other software, as the standard smallest font, used by leopard is just to small.

Is there any proper way, to adjust this globally?

Thanks,

menos

 

[b1u3b0y]

Have you tried going to: System Preferences > Universal Access and putting the zoom function on??

 

[SpEnCeR132]

if im not mistaken if your mbp has multi touch then you should be able to pinch out and make the text bigger? i might b wrong

 

[Sun Baked]

A lot of apps have the increase decrease font size, or text zoom.

Mail and firefox are easy, command-plus/minus

Some of the others use command < or >

With Office, I think there is a way to set up a standard document to automatically open with text zoomed.

Just have to look at how the view page/text/zoom/etc. is used.

 

[mysterytramp]

Have you tried going to: System Preferences > Universal Access and putting the zoom function on??

If you have a real visual impairment, that might be a workable option. But for people with bad eyesight (I'm one), the zoom function is a mess. You'll get seasick if you need to use it.

A better option would be for developers to recognize how small the type is and make sure they offer users an option to enlarge, making sure their layouts can handle a different point size (I absolutely despise web sites that can't recognize the importance of different point sizes).

mt

 

[emt1]

If you use a mouse, hold down the control key and scroll with the mouse wheel. The entire screen will "zoom in".

If you don't have a mouse you can hold control, and use two fingers on the trackpad as if you were scrolling.

 

[feuerschlange]

Thanks for your replies so far (you people here seem to be very quick with a helping hand).

The OS X zoom function is a nice toy but in this case completely useless (one can use it, to watch streamed video in web browser, or watch the live timing during a formula 1 race on a big monitor).

The problem is, that some software (mail.app and excel.app are the most annoying to me atm) open documents with so small fonts, that it is very hard to read.

I am not visually impaired, but I work 10 hours a day with those documents (which is very hard to the eyes) and often I just have to open the documents with my bootcamp partition in a windows app.

This slows down my workflow immensely.

I am a long time user of Microsoft Outlook for windows - I am used to click an attachment in a mail opens this attachment instantly within the same preview window of outlook and the same "control+mousewheel zoom" to the fontsize works system wide in any app (from webbrowsers, to text editors).

I look for a function like this. Such functionality seems not to be very polished on mac so far - between different apps (as a lot of other functionalities are way above windows limitations, which lead me to Macintosh in the first place).

The key for me would be a global minimum font size, to prevent those tiny writings completely.

One problem, I dont see any solution so far is opening a mail attached excel sheet for preview with quick look (focus on file and hit space).

There is no way to increase font size (even the halfbaked quickview command+/ command- doesnt work).

I am forced, to open the excel file with excel for mac (which takes ages) and have the same tiny font size again (which I finally can increase with control+mouse wheel as in Windows).

 

[kisswonder]

solution?

I am forced, to open the excel file with excel for mac (which takes ages) and have the same tiny font size again (which I finally can increase with control+mouse wheel as in Windows).

You found a solution?

Thanks.

 

[ewilson6]

You can use Microsoft Entourage. It is a very cool and reliable program and when you click on preferences you can change the default font to any size you want.

If you are using Excel, Word, and Powerpoint on your Mac, then you have Entourage installed as well.

This will fix your font problem.

--Eric

(P.S. Entourage is the equivalent to Outlook Express)

 

[feuerschlange]

You found a solution?

Thanks.

No, unfortunately not.
I use my workaround, to open files with invisible font sizes with their native app and increase font size with "⌘ + +".

Entourage is an absolute no go for me.
I know the MS software from long years of use with Windows.
The software, I tried on the Mac (Entourage, Excel, Word) handle much slower and more restrictive than their native Windows counterparts.

My daily program is Excel and I cannot count the crashes, it gives me regularly opposed to the extremely stable latest Office 2007 Suite, I used.

Excel crashes back then were unknown to me, as well, as filter restrictions and endless loading times + very very long calculating of big sheets with several filters.

The MS software for Mac is bloated as well.
The not used Entourage weights in with nearly 1GB on my hard drive and can not be uninstalled without compromising Excel.