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    Version 20/21 Increase tab text font size

    Opera for Windows
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    • samkook
      samkook last edited by

      Right-click desktop->Personalize->Window Color(at the bottom, next to Desktop background) and then change the "Item:" dropdown to "Message Box".

      It will change it for every message box Windows 7 display though.

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      • lem729
        lem729 last edited by

        @browzer1

        Good find. Thanks for mentioning this. You're right. One can tweak things to near perfection here 🙂 You can adjust, not just Message Box, but also Menu. A number of forum users could not read the menu.

        Thanks, samkook, on helping me find Message Box. I think this is very good. You right click -- Personalize. Then click Windows Color at the bottom. Then click Advanced Appearance Settings. In the drop-down menu, I adjusted message box, to a font size of 10 instead of 9 (tried 11 first) (it was too big for me), and this seems to affect the font size on my tabs and also for the folders on my bookmarks toolbar. Then I adjusted "Menu" and changed it from 9 to 10. (First I tried 11). This changed the size of the Opera menu, and made it better for me. I think the right click context menu is changed by this. Still, it's great for people who need accessibility. It's necessary to click apply, and save in a number of places, or you lose the change.It is a Windows wide change, but if it's good in Opera, it may be okay elsewhere for the user.

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        • samkook
          samkook last edited by

          I just got why he tried to make the font bigger, I just updated to v21 and immediately regretted it since I can barely read the tabs, menu and context menu on my HTPC anymore.
          Thanks for finding a fix, I don't know what they were thinking.

          Edit: But I think I'm gonna go back to v20 since the only reason I updated was to show the full address bar, but there's still no way to make it all black and actually readable.

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          • lem729
            lem729 last edited by

            As I get older -- 🙂 I need a little aid in reading the menus. Opera needs to hire @browzer1

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            • samkook
              samkook last edited by

              For me, it's the 10 feet separating me from my 32 inch TV that make things hard.

              Being able to set the default zoom to 150% is a great feature to have, but it's not as good when you make everything else smaller with no way to change things from inside the software.

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              • lem729
                lem729 last edited by

                Wait, I haven't fiddled with the zoom. (Though it's nice to have the feature) (Generally, I just use 0 to increase size of text, and 9 to decrease it).

                It was the editing of the "Message box" and the "Menu" that seemed to do the trick for me. I just added (from 9 to 10 on font size in both). It didn't kill anything else in the rest of windows (maybe made it better there too). For some reason, I don't remember my menus changing that much with Opera 20 to 21. Maybe if it changed a lot, it was a "bug." Or I was sleeping when I installed in, and just can't remember now. But I am happy with browser1's idea. On the personalize and display front in Windows, you can also adjust the size of text. But that's Windows-wide, so is only good for Opera, if you don't hurt the rest of Windows. I didn't adjust that, as I can still (with my mid-range glasses) 🙂 read the text in the computer okay.

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                • samkook
                  samkook last edited by

                  The zoom(and font size option I think) is only for the webpages, not opera's UI. I went from 20.0.1387.91 to 21.0.1432.57 and the size from the context menu and the main menu got about twice as small. The tabs weren't that bad, but still too small. Maybe the change was less sudden since I may have skipped a few updates since I've had it disabled for a few weeks.

                  I couldn't justify making everything in windows bigger so going back to v20 seemed like a better idea for me.

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                  • A Former User
                    A Former User last edited by

                    Try enabling the experimental HiDPI Support in opera:flags

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                    • samkook
                      samkook last edited by

                      After seeing the side effects from that other thread, I'm not sure why someone would want to.

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                      • lem729
                        lem729 last edited by admin

                        I know he had problems but that was when he enabled the feature. Surely, he could disable it, without browser-Frankenstein runing amuck? Someone once said: "when the going gets tough, the tough get going!" AND can't you always return to Opera 20? In any event, I'm not doing it myself. But then again, I don't have a problem with the menus being too small.

                        One person did have success. https://forums.opera.com/topic/2595/menu-text-size-in-opera-21/2
                        Someone else, I recall had a bar showing up when he enabled. But I can't find that thread.

                        Perhaps we need to hear more from rafaelluik to see if I've mistated your seeming :)))) safety.

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                        • samkook
                          samkook last edited by admin

                          This is the thread with the guy who had that black bar show up: https://forums.opera.com/topic/2608/opera-pages-and-interface-too-small-in-high-resolution/3

                          I assume disabling it would return to normal, but you never know for sure with experimental features.

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                          • lem729
                            lem729 last edited by

                            I'm not quite sure how you go back to Opera 20 either. I looked at c:\program files (x86)\Opera, and I no longer see an Opera 20 file or folder there.

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                            • lem729
                              lem729 last edited by

                              Here it is -- version 20.

                              ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/desktop/

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                              • leocg
                                leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by

                                I'm not quite sure how you go back to Opera 20 either

                                To go back to a previous version/build just delete the folder with the newest one. Don't forget to close Opera first.

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                                • casaet
                                  casaet last edited by

                                  I have just installed Opera 21, and the only thing I am not satisfied with is the font size. Will going back to 20 increase the font size significantly? I went from an older version to 21, so I have not tried 20.
                                  Of course the developpers should fix this as soon as possible. The solutions mentioned in this thread is not possible in my version of Win 7.

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                                  • lem729
                                    lem729 last edited by

                                    @casenet

                                    You mean you can't adjust the Display, or "Message Box," or "Menu" in your Windows 7, through the personalize feature? I thought it was available in all versions of Windows 7. I'm assuming on font size you're not comfortable changing the font in Opera through the Zoom feature in the Opera menu, or, if you have your advanced keyboard activated, pressing from the keyboard 0 to make font larger, or a 9 to make it smaller. (Without the advanced keyboard function set, I believe the shortcut for making fonts larger is + and smaller -

                                    Some people have said that the size of fonts/menus, etc. changed from Opera 20 to 21, but I don't think everyone experienced that. I did post in this thread a link to Opera 20 in case you want to uninstall what you have and try that.

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                                    • casaet
                                      casaet last edited by

                                      Thanks for answer Lem. Readability and and font size are very good in Opera 21, except for bookmarks and menus. I am an experienced user of both windows and linux, and if there is something I cannot do, it is either impossible, or for very advanced users. In this case I suspect there is no solution to the problem, except using both 21 and an older version on the same computer. I have older versions of Opera on one win 8.1 laptop and one Linux laptop, so I will manage. Using any other browser than Opera is, of course, out of the question.

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                                      • lem729
                                        lem729 last edited by

                                        For my computer, I was able to adjust."menus" through the Windows 7 personalization feature in this thread, and i did make my menus larger. it did work for me. It wasn't that hard, but the feature you had to get to, to adjust was a bit hidden. After you right click on a blank spot on your Windows home screen, and click on Personalize in the context menu of your Windows 7, you go to the bottom of a screen and see something called, "Windows Color." If you click on that (it sort of hides things), there's an item drop-down of settings you can change. One of them was menu or menus. (I'm not at my desktop right now, so am describing this from memory). I changed my menu fornt from 9 to 10, and it helped me. You have to make sure you save any changes in a few different places or you lose the setting.

                                        As for bookmarks, there are a number of bookmark manager extensions which can give a drop-down menu, where everything is easier to see. You might want to look into that. Anyway, sorry i haven't been really able to help more. Best of luck. It's no fun if the menus are too small.

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                                        • A Former User
                                          A Former User last edited by

                                          It is possible that casaet is using Windows 7 Starter Edition, which has extremely limited customisation options.
                                          🙂

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                                          • lem729
                                            lem729 last edited by

                                            Thank you for mentioning that. It's possible that he has an edition where he cannot make the adjustment. I'm not famliar enough with the Starter edition to know what it permits and what it doesn't. But I was thinking of another reason why he might be having a problem.. I was trying to explain how, even though I could access items for changing the size of things, the location of the ability to do that was pretty hidden. It was not intuitive. Once again, Microsoft outdid itself 🙂 They have a lot of wonderful software, but sometimes, it's too much a technician's hidden wonderland.

                                            By the way, I was not at my computer when I tried to explain it in my last post, and I am now, so for casaet, or any one else who might like to adjust the size of menus, or other features in Windows, let me try once more to describe how to do this.

                                            First, you right click on an empty space on the Windows Desktop to get the Personalize option, and you select it. Then you click on Window Color (at the bottom of the tile that comes up). After you do that, you get a tile with menu options, at the bottom of which is something called, "Advanced Appearance Settings." That's the key choice. You need to click on that. And then, a new Windows tile (rectangle) comes up to the left, and under "Item," you can select what you want to adjust as an item. Browzer1 initially focused us on Message Box (which is worth looking at). There are other choices. I was suggesting that he change the font of the item, "Menu." That one will help with his menus in Opera (and elsewhere in Windows) being too small. And he would have to be careful to save what he changes the menu font to in a number of places. I was happy to discover -- thanks to the help of browzer1 -- the ability to adjust a number of items, including the menu. If people have windows 7, and any discomfort with the size of fonts/the menus, etc., there's a goldmine here. But as you so rightly suggest, it's possible the edition of Windows 7 doesn't support making the changes.

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