Have you ever had the experience of going to a site and the print there is just too small for your comfort range? Or, perhaps the print makes the site look like a 1st grade primer, and forces you to scroll unnecessarily.
Interactive Experiment
Try this experiement now: Click on the font plus and font minus buttons below and adjust the print to your preference. We have print of varying sizes so you can see how they adjust for you. Do not be concerned, this experiment willl affect only this one page.
Take Charge of your Browsing: Relative Font Sizes
You can do it.
Notice how the print changes as you click the two buttons. Even small print gets bigger when you click the font+ button.
You might even be able to get the print so small you cannot read it.
It is also interesting how bold the larger print looks.
Default Font Sizes
In most popular browsers you can change the size of your font if the web site has it too small for your eyesight, or too large for your sense of aesthetics and scrolling convenience. The browsers may differ as to their default font size. Thus, if everyone leaves their font size where the browser initially puts it, the look of the site may vary according to browser. There are ways to impose the site's preferences on you, but then the size might be too small/ too big for your comfort range with whatever equipment you are using.
How to change fonts in your own browser
It is a good thing to get used to adjusting your font size. There are those sites that look like some sort of a sadist's eye test. With luck, you can increase the size font, and the site will be readable. Of course, some web designers are so entranced with their design, they make it unadjustable.
To adjust the size, in Internet Explorer 6 you go to View, Text Size, and then choose from their choices of small, medium, large, etc. In Netscape 6, you choose View, Text Size, and then choose a number such as 100%, 120%, or so forth. The 120% size in Netscape is approximately the same size as the medium size in Explorer. We have set the font size so it is appealing to us with the modern browsers on the medium setting. It may be too big for some, too small for others. The moral of this story is get so you use the font size setting in your browser and save your eyes!
