Accessibility
Tuesday, 05 April 2011 22:11

Change font size of web page text in Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers

There are several ways to change the font size of the displayed web page text in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox web browsers.

The quickest way to change font size in both Internet Explorer and Firefox- if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel

mouse Changing font sizes in both Internet Explorer and Firefox using the scroll wheel on the mouse is quick and easy, especially when you don't want or don't like to tinker around with browser menu options or keyboard shortcuts.
Hit the Control (Ctrl) key and keep it pressed. Now, move the scroll wheel and see what happens - scrolling the wheel away from your hand will decrease the font size while if you scroll it towards your hand, the font size will increase.
A few points to remember. Internet Explorer will let you resize the fonts to 5 sizes - Largest, Larger, Medium (the default), Smaller and Smallest. Firefox, however, has a wider range and lets you decrease the font size till it becomes illegible or enlarges it so much that you see only one word on the screen (I've done this).

What if you don't have a mouse with a scroll wheel? Use the browser menu or learn the keyboard shortcuts

Another way to change font sizes of text on web pages in Internet Explorer and Firefox is through the View menu.

Internet Explorer

Click on View from the top menu and move down to Text Size. You can now change the text to one of the five sizes - Largest, Larger, Medium, Smaller and Smallest. (Refer image below). Internet Explorer lets you change the font size to only one of these five values.
change_font_size_internet_explorer You can also accomplish the same using keyboard shortcuts. ALT-V would bring up the View menu. Clicking on the "x" key would open the Text Size menu. You can now use the up and down arrow keys and finally click on "Enter" once you have made your selection.

Firefox

From the View menu, choose Text Size and then select whether you want to increase or decrease the font size. (Refer image below)
change_font_size_firefox

The keyboard shortcuts for changing the font size of text on web pages in Firefox are much simpler than Internet Explorer. Keeping the Control key pressed, click on the "+" key to increase the font size and "-" key to decrease the font size. Firefox allows a broader range of values, and if you need to reset to the default size simply use Control and the "0" (zero) key.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 April 2011 22:24