Increasing fonts size for larger resolution monitor

carlmart

Gawd
Joined
Sep 17, 2006
Messages
687
I have just installed a Viewsonic 32" 4K monitor, as old age is starting to show in spite of my glasses, and as you imagine fonts sizes got smaller.

So I went into Display Settings, where you are allowed to increase text size up to 150.

That works very well for the monitor resolution I was using, which was 1920 x 1080. But I want to know if I can still have 3840 x 2160 and increase the text size even more.

Is that possible? How?
 
Kept investigating, and I got to this MS optimizing page:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/technet-magazine/ff629368(v=msdn.10)

Following their instructions, I went to Set Custom Text Size on the left. Then followed their advice not to go higher than 200%.

The problem is that setup adjusts DPI of the whole screen, if I'm not wrong, not just the text.

Is there a way to left DPI as it is and increase just the text 200%?
 
DPI scaling should have options that go much higher, over 200% on 4K displays. Even my 1440p goes up to 225%. It's under Display -> Scale and layout -> Change the size of text, apps and other items.

If you prefer a certain scaling level but want bigger text, set that and then go to Ease of access settings -> Display or just search for "Make text size bigger" in Settings. This allows you to set a bigger text size.
 
I think something might be wrong in this setup I'm using, as sometimes images get crazy with Firefox.

The only way to solve it is to close the program and start over again.

Another thing I wonder is if the video board, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, is up to the task for this 4K Viewsonic monitor.

How can I test that?
 
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There seems to be an advanced version of that program. It's the one I'm trying now.

Let's see how it behaves during the day.
 
I also asked if there's a way to test the interrelation between the larger screen monitor and the video board capability.

Any recommended test for that?

I would also like to know if there's some way, not involving external tools, to adjust the monitor in all its specs.
 
This crap is why I don't want a high PPI screen for use with Windows.

I had a 30" 2560x1600 screen for a while and even that had text that was kind of uncomfortably small at normal 100% scale, and the scaling support varies by application which leaves you in a haphazard mess.

When I upgrade from 1200p to 1440p, I want to go to a 32" screen to maintain my current PPI.
 
Being a resolution junkie and always run at 100% scaling this thread is making me very scared for when my eyesight starts to go. Thanks guys.
 
Yes, different programs provide different fonts sizes.

Adjusting the DPI did increase the fonts sizes everywhere, but I think it kind of messes things up on some areas. Which ones they are I still don't know.

Mozilla Firefox is affected by this DPI adjustment, and after being several hours it short of gets "crazy". The image sort of "dismounts", difficult to explain.

A pure text like that on WhatsApp Web is still very small. I would like to increase the size of it.

Same thing goes for the Gmail Window, where text is quite small.
 
In web browsers you can use Ctrl + '-' and Ctrl + '+' to zoom in and out. Holding Ctrl and using your mouse scroll wheel will do the same thing.
 
Adjusting the DPI did increase the fonts sizes everywhere, but I think it kind of messes things up on some areas. Which ones they are I still don't know.

Mozilla Firefox is affected by this DPI adjustment, and after being several hours it short of gets "crazy". The image sort of "dismounts", difficult to explain.

A pure text like that on WhatsApp Web is still very small. I would like to increase the size of it.

Well you can increase the DPI setting even further (150% on 32" 4k is same as 24" 1080p) so you could go to 175%. Or you could increase font sizes for said applications (most apps allow some or all of their fonts to be customized). I'm also using 32" 4k since 2 years now with 150% scaling and have yet to get into problems other than with very old games which don't respect DPI settings (for those you can https://www.windowscentral.com/how-...ngs-classic-apps-windows-10-april-2018-update).

You mention Firefox acting up, there I had no problems ever.

Regarding the video card question. On the desktop it shouldn't matter whatsoever, even integrated GPUs can drive 4k nowadays and were able to going back some years. In games and other GPU heavy applications, you need to crank down the settings even on new cards, or better yet, play in lower resolution.
 
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Browsers scale very well. Current patch levels of windows 10 is a lot better than W7 or other older OS’ at scaling and has per app preferences for older apps that don’t scale well (changeable from a shortcut). Changing system font size instead of DPI scaling leads to more issues.
A lot of apps test at specific scale levels which work slightly more consistently than arbitrary scale values.
MacOS is still the best at scaling at this point but W10 has been steadily improving because of the surface line and increasing laptop DPIs.
 
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