Icons too small/printing fonts too big

[drshrinkwrap]

I'm am a MAC newbie trying to get used to the differences from MS
Office. The fonts for the Office programs at the top of the screen are
TINY, but I can't find a way to increase them. Also, I've been
fiddling around w/ System Preferences to change the font size. I have
it pretty much as I like on the screen, but the font when printing in
all Office programs is too LARGE. Can anyone help me find something
that is JUST RIGHT?
Thanks

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Welcome to the Mac, hope you are happy with it!

I strongly suspect that you bought a new monitor with a larger resolution
along with the switch to Mac? Say a character in 12pt font takes up 100
pixels of height. With a higher resolution (say 1280x854 instead of
1024x768), those 100 pixels are crammed more closely together and 12pt font
looks smaller to you on the new monitor. A higher resolution means that
stuff actually takes up less physical space on the monitor than it used to.

To change the text in your documents so that you can comfortably read what
you are typing, use the Zoom feature instead of changing the font size. In
Word, that's under View | Zoom. Then they will still print out as 12pt
text. Not sure about Excel or Powerpoint--in Entourage, use Preferences to
set different font sizes for printing and for screen views.

By

The fonts for the Office programs at the top of the screen

Do you mean the [apple] Word File Edit View etc menubar? (this line
totally confused me for quite a while)

That's a little trickier and I don't really know how to change it, but maybe
someone else does. What did you change in System Preferences to try to fix
it? (I thought there was a place to set a system font, but now I can't find
it....aha, it's in TinkerTool, but I haven't tried it out--but you are
probably on OS 10.4 and have more options than my OS 10.3)

I'm not sure what you can do about changing the size of the icons on your
toolbars either. I thought some of the programs had preferences for "large
icons", but now I can't find any.

And, important, what is the exact OS version, exact Office version, and size
and resolution of your monitor? And which programs are you most concerned
with fixing?

 

[Clive Huggan]

Leave the default font at the usual size ­ e.g. 12 point Times New Roman ­
and instead go to the View menu => Zoom => select an appropriate enlargement
(you don't need to select only the default percentages). I have mine at
125%, but on my wife's new 15" PowerBook, which displays in smaller size, a
higher percentage is appropriate.

Once you get a size you're happy with, choose File menu => Project gallery
and open the Normal template. Configure the chosen percentage again and
save. Close the Normal template From then on, all new blank documents will
open in that size.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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[drshrinkwrap]

Thanks for your attempts to respond to my poorly worded questions. I
should have said tiny ICONS, not fonts, that are the problem on my
screen in Office I did not switch monitors, but instead switched my
PC for a Mac-mini.

Here are the facts:
Monitor: Viewsonic VA720 17" screen, maximum resolution: 1280 x 1024
OS Version: 10.4.3
Office version: 2004 for Mac 11.2.1

Ideally, I'd like to
1. increase the size of the icons (at the top of the screen) in the
Office programs

2. Decrease the font size when PRINTING. When I go into prefences in
Entourage and click "FONTS" & then "printed items" it does not change
the size or the style of the front regardless of what size or style I
enter. Also when clicking PRINT the print dialogue box does not seem
to offer a choice of font size or styles as my old PC Office program
did. What am I missing here?

Thanks.