Windows 7 64 bit, Any way to improve the readability of the Menu Text.

[terry4536]

I have Windows 7 (64 bit) Professional. My problem is that the menu text is hard to read. The font size is small and the color is light grey on a white background.

I have not found a means to alter this. I can control the fonts and colors of some things, but the text in the Windows menus (Start menu, Control panel, Documents, ect.) all remain this tiny font size in grey.

Is there any way to improve this? I would like change the text to black & a larger font. Would any of the "God Modes" be any help?

Is this situation any better in Windows 8.1 64 bit ?

The last trick that I found relating to this was to type "Windows colors" in the Control Panel search field , and then select Change Colors and Metrics. This allows you to change some colors and text fonts & sizes within a Theme. But it doesn't help with my problem.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that I do much of my computing on a 50" Plasma from across the room.

Here is a screen shot to Illustrate my problem.

 

[aldan]

go to control panel>display to change your display settings.here you can set the size of the font.here also you can turn on and set clear type text.the windows 7 help section is also very helpful here.

 

[terry4536]

That was the very first place I went. The screen resolution is set to 1920 x 1080. The font size was set to large. Some fonts are changed by these settings, but most are not.

All of the text in the Start Menu for example are still tiny.

 

[aldan]

to tell the truth ive never run across this before.is there any answers in windows help?

 

[terry4536]

I did a search under Windows help. That was where I found the trick about "Change window color and metrics". I wasn't aware until then that there was a search field in Control Panel. Paste "windows color" in that field and it will bring up a page that has a half dozen choices (it was a page I didn't know about).

At the very bottom of the Windows theme page you can change the sound, fonts, ect. of a loaded theme. And you can save a version of the altered theme. I was able to improve the fonts in Firefox. But the same them has no affect on IE11 or Chrome. The trick I mentioned does the same thing but without a theme.

 

[aldan]

you can change the fonts in each of your browsers but thats seperate from your display settings in your computer.

 

[junkeymonkey]

don't know if this will help any

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=333998

 

[junkeymonkey]

looks like some kind of download on this if it applies to you in any way

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2545698

 

[terry4536]

SUCCESS

I typed "appearance" into the Start menu. I then clicked "Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows".

And I unchecked "Smooth edges of screen fonts", but this seemed to enlarge the fonts but it made the text virtually unreadable. But I left it on.

I then went to the next suggestion of changing all of the text fonts from "Segoe UI font w/ Tahoma ". This still didn't work. At this point I had to be within 8 inches or so to read the text.

So I went back to the the earlier page to reverse the "Smooth edges of screen fonts" back to what it was originally. While I was there i decided to experiment with some of the other options. The one that worked was changing from "Optimize for Performance" to "Optimize for Appearance". And it worked. I now have clear readable text again. Thanks everyone.

 

[aldan]

good you got it sorted.

 

[terry4536]

Well I was a bit premature. The text is clearer. But when I reset the text edge smoothing, I lost the font size increase. So although it is easier to read, I am back to the tiny print.


I went back and reset the fonts to Tahoma with font sizes set at 16 and 17. Then I saved the theme with those changes. I did this because the earlier success disappeared when I rebooted the system.

 

[Darkbreeze]

You might also double check your screen color settings either under your display adapter settings or the built in menu for your monitor. Sometimes if the contrast is set too high text will get blended into lighter colors along with scroll bars and other items that are normally just a few shades darker than their backgrounds. Just another thing to check. When I made adjustments to my contrast it made some things look much clearer but made others disappear until I changed it back to a lower contrast setting.