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tbloomq

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 9, 2013
21
5
Hi All, I am having issues with a MacBook Air and seeing the text in an ancient program Lotus/IBM Notes. However, I scale it. I can't see the text well. Will going to a MBP 16 help make it more readable?

Thanks in advance
 
Can you give more details?

This is an age-old issue: Higher resolutions are crisper/sharper....but smaller. Lower resolutions make everything on screen bigger, but they get fuzzy/less sharp. Some monitors only really look good at native resolution, which is typically the highest (smallest) resolution.

Many applications let you zoom in. Hopefully, you are aware...many browsers for example, you can hold down Command and + to zoom in (Command and - to zoom out). does Notes have a zoom feature?

Have you ever considered retiring Notes for something from the current century? :)

Yes, generally larger monitors at a similar resolution will make everything, well, larger. But depending on resolution, you may not find a substantial improvement. You might want to check and compare if you have an Apple store near by.

You can also change the default font size in the Finder, which helps while navigating, but not in apps.
 
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OP:

I think you're going to find text (when displayed at "normal" font sizes in retina mode) "about the same" on any current MacBook/MacBook Air/MacBook Pro. That is to say... on the "small side".

I'm in a similar situation. With my aging eyes, I seem to need LARGER text to make out the characters.
Whether small text is sharp (retina) or not (non-retina) makes little difference, because I still have problems discerning "small, sharp" text. It needs to be LARGER.

My suggestion:
Buy an external display.
I'd suggest a 27" display, either 1080p (which works fine for me) or 4k.
The size of text displayed at normal resolution will be the same for either one.
The retina 27" running at "looks like 1080p" will yield text a little sharper, as well as large enough to read easily.

If you don't need portability, you might consider pairing a large display with something like a 2018 Mac Mini...
 
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Hi, tbloomq,

I want to echo hobowankenobi in suggesting you've examined the system-wide options available at "System Preferences > Accessibility > Zoom" before resorting to the prospect of buying a new machine. There's a variety of options there: for example, you can enable full-screen zooming by holding a key while scrolling with the mouse or trackpad – something I do periodically without thinking, even with decent vision.

(To answer your question about the 16" MacBook Pro – I think by default, the displayed size of onscreen elements remains about the same, and the larger display provides more space in which to arrange them. But again, settings – in "System Preferences > Displays > Display," you can select a scaled resolution which invokes a tradeoff, uniformly increasing the size of everything while decreasing the number of rendered pixels in which to arrange them. You can play with that setting on your current Mac as well.)
 
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I've found that I’ve needed to adjust settings for individual apps! And, within Safari, for individual websites. The general resolution changes didn't work for me, either. I do, sometimes, resort to the command-shift-= keystrokes to increase the zoom.

Many programs have zoom controls — e.g., in Safari, you can park don’t (#*$!# Apple auto-correct!) FONT size enlargement commands — icons — on the toolbar. Word and Excel have zoom commands. Pages works incredibly well with pinch zoom to readjust the font size — and the text retains sharpness even when larger.
 
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Gregg, were you referring to my comment? If so, thanks for the compliment!

As to the font size, I use whatever the MR default is and post via an iPad.

All of the posts in this thread look exactly like mine — readable, good size — falling in-between your LARGE font and your tiny one.
Seems to be about font size 13.
 
From a contact at work

maybe below steps will help....

1.Quit from IBM/HCL Notes
2.Run below command to open notes preferences (AKA notes.ini on windows)

open -e ~/Library/Preferences/Notes\ Preferences

3.Add below line to Notes Preferences and choose a number from 0~25.

Display_Font_Adjustment={0-25}

save and restart notes (Don’t close TextEditor just in case you need to adjust fonts size again. Make sure Notes is closed before you’re trying to save any change in the file)
4.Restart and check if you have appropriate font size in mail.
You may need to do it several times
 
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