Nowadays, laptops come with smaller compact design which can easily affect the text size displayed on the screen. After purchasing a Windows laptop or desktop, adjusting the screen display is one of the first things you should do before start using the system. In this article, we will explain various available options to change the text size in Windows 11 computer. If you want to change the cursor size, check out this article.
Setting Correct Text Size
It is important to use the correct text size on your computer for the following reasons.
- You can easily read the content without stressing the eyes. This is especially a problem when you want to read the text labels of the desktop icons.
- Align content within the readable view of the app window. Otherwise, the text will be too small showing lot of white space or too large that you need to drag scrollbars to view.
- Large text also affects your productivity by hiding important tool icons in the app window. For example, the ribbon icons on Microsoft Word will be hidden behind dropdown arrows when the text is too large to fit in the window. Below is how the Word ribbon looks with large (125%) and too small text sizes.
Therefore, it is necessary to use correct text size for protecting your eyes as well as improving the productivity.
1. Increase Text Size from Accessibility Setting
The first and straightforward option is to increase the text size from accessibility setting.
- Right-click on the Start menu icon and select Settings option (or press “Windows logo + I” keys).
- When you are in Settings app, go to “Accessibility” section and select “Text size” option.
- Use the slider to increase the text size up to 225%. You can see the live text preview to get the feel of size increment.
- Click “Apply” button and you will see a blue screen showing “Please Wait…”.
- This may take few minutes for the changes to be applied and you can check the text size is changed as per your setting.
- Below is the File Explorer app with 100% and 150% text size set in accessibility setting.
2. Scale Text Size
The next option is to scale the text size to fit on your display.
- When you are in Settings app go to “System > Display” section.
- On the next screen, scroll down to “Scale & layout” section.
- Click on the percentage value showing against “Scale” dropdown and select your preferred percentage size up to 225%.
- If you want to set a custom value for text scaling size, click on the small arrow showing next the dropdown.
- On the next screen, you can enter any value between 100% to 500% to scale the text size to custom level.
- This will change the text size on your computer and scale as per your display.
Windows will show you a warning when you are in custom scaling screen as setting inappropriate value will distort the app screens and make then unreadable.
3. Adjust Screen Resolution
Similar to change the scaling of text size, you can also try to change resolution level to adjust the text size on the screen display. You can do this when you are on the same “Settings > System > Display > Custom Scaling“ screen under “Scale & layout” section. You can select the value for your computer as per the manufacturer’s recommendations.
Though resolution will not change the actual text size, it will scale the text for the available screen size thus reducing or increasing the appearance.
Changing resolution can help to reduce or increase the text size on the screen while other methods explained above can only increase the size above 100%.
4. Change DPI Settings for Apps
DPI stands for Dots per Inch which is a measure of dots placed in 1 inch. If you see a specific app’s text is distorted or overflowing outside the windows without scrollbars, then you can try to adjust the DPI settings for that app.
- Click the lens icon on the taskbar or press “Win + S” keys to open Windows Search.
- Type the app name that you want to change the DPI setting and click on the “Open file location” option.
- When you are in File Explorer, right-click on the app’s executable file and select “Properties” option.
- Click on the “Change high DPI settings” button under “Compatibility” tab.
- Check the option “Use this setting to fix scaling problems for this program instead of the one in Settings” and select “I signed into this program” option from the dropdown. Also, select “Application” option under “high DPI scaling override” section.
- Click “OK” button to apply the changes and check the app is showing the text properly.
Remember, this will only affect the particular app and not the system-wide text size.
5. Use Magnifier to Increase Text Size
If you have a vision problem and wanted to zoom the reading text then you can use the Magnifier app. You can setup the zooming lens size and move the lens area to read the content with increased text. When you are in Settings app, go to “Accessibility > Magnifier” section and customize the settings.
Press Windows logo and + keys to open Magnifier and read the text with increased text in the zoomed area. Again, press Windows logo key and escape keys to quit the Magnifier.
6. Change Font Size and Zoom in Apps
Most of the apps in Windows allow you to change the font size within the app.
- In Microsoft Office apps like Word, you can use the in-built font changing option to increase or decrease the text size. You can also press “Control + D” keys to open font settings and setup desired font size and family for your Word documents.
- Use “Control and +” or “Control and –“ keys to increase or decrease the zoom level in browser apps like Edge and Chrome.
Final Words
You can use the accessibility or scalability setting for changing the text size system wide. However, if that did not work on a particular app then you can check if the app offers in-built text option to change the size.
