Changing Your Web Browser's Display Font Size

Hi folks -- so, the results for my earlier poll on what font size I should use in my Journal entries are in. They're a lot closer than I would have expected.

As of this particular moment, there are 57 votes: 28 for "Use a Bigger Font Size"; 1 for "Use a Smaller Font Size" (I didn't expect anyone to choose this, but I guess there's always someone); and 28 votes for "Don't Change the Font Size."

(One of the 28 votes for "Don't Change" is mine -- I had to cast a vote so I could see the results page to make sure that it displayed properly in the IFRAME.)

So, I will probably be bumping up my font size slightly for future entries. For example, this here entry is written at the AOL Journals default font face, but one bigger at font size 10.

There's good news for everyone, though, since as empowered Web users, you have control over how big the fonts display in the Web pages you read.

Changing the displayed text size is real easy in most modern Web browsers IF you have a scroll wheel on your mouse.

If you do have a scroll wheel on your mouse, just do this to change the displayed text size in Web pages:

1. Press and hold down the Control (ctrl) Key (on Macs, it's the Command Key)
2. While still pressing and holding the Control Key, scroll up or down with the scroll wheel on your mouse. As you do this, the font size should get bigger or smaller. Stop scrolling when you find a size that works.

It's just that simple.

Now, depending on your browser, there should also be keyboard shortcuts for this, as well as an option in the browser menus.

If you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse, open a standalone Web browser (for my example, I will use Microsoft Internet Explorer), and in the "View" menu up top, go to "Text Size" and pick the text size you want:

For users of the AOL software's integrated Web browser (which is a version of Microsoft Internet Explorer), the scroll wheel thing will work, but there's no View menu. So, to change the font sizes:

1. Open up the standalone Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. On most Windows machines, click the Start button, then Programs, then Internet Explorer.
2. In the browser's View menu, go to Text Size and pick the size you want (as above)
3. You may need to close AOL and reopen it for the text size changes to show up in your AOL browser.

(Obviously, this is not very convenient -- the scroll wheel thing is much easier.)

Now, depending on your browser, specifying text size might not work everywhere. It definitely won't work on text that's done as graphics or Flash, and in certain cases, the Web page designer may be able to overrule the browser setting.

Also, note that a Web page may be designed in such a way that it will "break" if you change the font sizes.

Here's what I mean: CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) lets designers specify exact heights and widths of page elements, like boxes that contain text. Designers like this, because they can have total control over how the page looks.

However, if a designer locks the size of text box, and a user makes the display font bigger -- this is like trying to put 10 pounds of potatoes in a 5-pound bag: The text box is locked, so it can't "grow", so that means some text (including clickable links) either overflows into another area, or worse, it gets hidden, which effectively breaks that part of the page.

Just one of the perils of designing Web pages. If you suspect this is happening to you, see if changing the font sizes (even temporarily) reveals some previously hidden text.

Thanks to AOL's own Joe in Member Services (Happenings) for reminding me about the Control+Scroll Wheel font size tip.

Also, thanks to Journaler Lori of Lori's Laurels for reporting a browser display problem that inspired the second half of this entry.

Thanks -- Joe
Tags: aol journals, browser font size