In Windows 7 I'm unable to adjust the font size for what I guess is the system font. It's the one that appears in dialog boxes and in programs that don't let you select the font for the text on screen.

I've already done everything allowed by Win 7. In Control Panel, Display, Set Custom Text Size I have Larger-150% selected and Use Windows XP style DPI scaling is checked. (I've also tried it with that setting unchecked.) I am using Aero. I've also tried to make the font size larger with Windows 7 Basic, which offers the chance to change the font size for several display elements. Nothing changed with the system font. I searched the Registry with Regedit in hopes I could find a default display font size, but there was nothing in human-readable form for font sizes and I couldn't determine what font is used for the dialog boxes, etc.

I wonder if the problem is related to resolution (1600x1200). If so, all high-resolution display might have this problem. Old programs often had hard-wired fonts whose size couldn't be adjusted and seemed to expect 640x480, with the font getting progressively smaller as resolution went up. I would hope we'd be past this obsolete behavior by the time Win 7 is out.

I'm attaching some screen shots to show just how awful this small font is. Does anyone know how to make it larger? I've done a lot of googling and could not find this problem discussed. All the talk of small fonts dealt with things that responded to changed in settings, but this does not.

I have more screen shots but I can't get them to upload with either IE or Opera. The problem seems to be on CompuServe's end. I'll try again in a while.
--Judy M.

Attachments
	Name:   SmallFont1.jpg	Size:   62 K

I already thought of that. All the Win 7 fonts are in the font directory as they were when Win 7 was installed. Segue is there.

>> I also found that one can NOT simply copy the Font files into the folder, they have to be installed vis Control Panel | Fonts to work properly... >>

Hmmmm. You're supposed to be able to drag and drop to install fonts. You found that doesn't work right? What happens? I haven't tried to install any other fonts yet.
--Judy M.

Sorry -- the answer to what?

PS Do you remember The Graduate .....

  Hugh

The answer to too small fonts is always resolution. Setting a system to 800x600 or thereabouts will make the fixed text (as in Judy's samples) big enough to read. It may also make a mess of something else, but the letters will be big enough.

Plastics?

I already tried those settings, Hugh. No change. If you notice, this font is not among those that are adjustable. The fonts on screen and in programs that respect those settings are fine. This font does NOT change when you change font size settings. If you look at the screen shot for MasterCook, you see the font that displays when there are no font settings in the program. It's the same font that appears in the tabs for various dialogs. 

Also, if you use Aero, you don't get those font selection dropdowns. Note the message on the tab in your screen shot: Sizes selected here apply only if you have selected the Windows 7 Basic theme...

If you use Aero, those fonts are fixed in the theme. You make them smaller or larger through the Small, Medium, and Large setting. Unfortunately, setting it on Large does not affect the tiny screen font in my screen shots.

I have tried it using Aero and not using Aero (using Win 7 Basic or Windows Classic). Safe to say, choosing Aero or something else makes no difference. That's why I think the absolute size of the font is fixed and if you have a high-res display, the font gets too small to see comfortably. If so, this is really lame. Surely there are many users today with high-res screens.

I am using Aero and will not change, especially since not using Aero does not let me make the font bigger.

The screen shots started out at 1600x1200 and I had Irfanview reduce them to 1024x768 to keep the size down for downloading. Mainly you can see that the too-small font is smaller than all the other type (menus, icon labels, title bars, etc.).

Maybe I'll see if Windows 7 has a generic video driver that I can use at 1600x1200 instead of the ATI driver. Maybe the font size is related to the video driver.
--Judy M.

>> The answer to too small fonts is always resolution. >>

Not really. Most font sizes are adjustable. So even with a high-res screen, you can change the font sizes so you can see the letters comfortably.

Except for the fonts that aren't adjustable because they're hard-coded somewhere. It looks like this font is one of those.

I certainly will not change the screen resolution. After all, I paid good money for a high-res screen. I'd be nuts to reduce it to something silly like 800x600.
--Judy M.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. I've tried changing all font settings but nothing enlarges the "too-small" font as seen in my screen shots. None of the adjustable font sizes was set smaller than 14.

I wonder if there is some Registry setting. I did a search on font in the Win 7 Registry but found nothing that looked like what controls the too-small font. Of course, most of those Registry settings were incomprehensible.
--Judy M.

Yes Plastics and No the answer is not always resolution if you want little details like not having to scroll to see all of displayed matter.

There used to be a specific variator for icons in XP (that will make Dale happy <g>) and not just for everything.

  Hugh