Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

User Help for Mozilla Thunderbird
SpotTheWonderdog
Posts: 5
Joined: October 5th, 2007, 5:39 pm

Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by SpotTheWonderdog »

My wife's CRT finally died and I bought a 21" flat screen. She has extremely poor vision and I've bumped up the system fonts to extra large (Windows XP) and increased Thunderbird's minimum font size for emails to 24 (why the limitation of 24?) in Thunderbird 1.5.0.13 for reading/creating emails.

With CRTs I could change the resolution so that the font size was huge but no so with flat screens (yes, the native resolution can be changed but the results are awful).

It's almost impossible for her to read the GUI's text. All my searches for font size for Firefox (2.0.0.7) and Thunderbird return changing font size within text or within the browser which I already know how to modify.

I showed her the magnifier and she hates it.

My question is this: How do I change the font size of the Mozilla/Thunderbird's GUI? Such as, the text within tabs or the text next to icons or the subject lines and so forth?

My other question (Firefox question) is how do I change the text within a textfield (like the one I'm currently inputting into)? I can use Ctrl+ to increase the font size of everything in the browser, but the text isn't not dark enough. Ideally, she needs Arial Bold with a size of about 40.

I read a few articles about Firefox\defaults\profile\chrome\userChrome.css but I couldn't figure out the syntax or find a tutorial. And I didn't know what parameters to change.
I tried changing a few tags but the css didn't seem to load anyway (according to FileMonitor).
User avatar
Daifne
Moderator
Posts: 123071
Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Post by Daifne »

SpotTheWonderdog
Posts: 5
Joined: October 5th, 2007, 5:39 pm

Post by SpotTheWonderdog »

Daifne wrote:Pane and menu fonts
While the it's certainly not a "no brainer" to add and modify the userChrome.css for Thunderbird, I was, however, from your link and using google, finally got it figured it out. Of course, now that I've done it, it all so "simple", "easy" and "intuitive".

I can read the text from across the room and my wife no longer has to put her nose to the screen and squint.

Thank you very much!
User avatar
Daifne
Moderator
Posts: 123071
Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Post by Daifne »

You're very welcome.
Lorick
Guest

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by Lorick »

OK, I did exactly what the pages said:
in XP:
Document and Settings\lf\application data\Thunderbird\profiles\mine.default
New folder: chrome
Text file: chrome/css
#folderTree > treechildren {font-size: 16px; font-family: Arial;}
#threadTree > treechildren {font-size: 16px; font-family: Arial;}
#dirTree > treechildren {font-size: 16px; font-family: Arial;}
#abResultsTree > treechildren {font-size: 16px; font-family: Arial;}

Restarted Thunderbird - but no change.
What did I do wrong??
rsx11m
Moderator
Posts: 14404
Joined: May 3rd, 2007, 7:40 am
Location: US

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by rsx11m »

You have to be in the C:\Document and Settings\user\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxx.default\chrome folder, this seems to have worked out to that point.

The name of the file in that folder must be userChrome.css in exactly this way, including capitalization (even though Windows usually doesn't care about case in file names). Use nothing more than Notepad to create and edit that file, it is plain text. Hope this resolves it.
ruraltexan
Guest

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by ruraltexan »

rsx11m wrote:You have to be in the C:\Document and Settings\user\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxx.default\chrome folder, this seems to have worked out to that point.

The name of the file in that folder must be userChrome.css in exactly this way, including capitalization (even though Windows usually doesn't care about case in file names). Use nothing more than Notepad to create and edit that file, it is plain text. Hope this resolves it.
How does this translate to Vista and Windows 7?
User avatar
Daifne
Moderator
Posts: 123071
Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by Daifne »

The only difference is the path to the profile. Start Button\*user name*\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\*random string.profile name*
mike g
Guest

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by mike g »

Hi,
I'm also trying to do this and not having much luck. I have windows 7 and hen I follow the path you describe I come to a file named s8985z45.default after profile. I don't know where to go after this?
mike g
Guest

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by mike g »

If I go inside that folder there is no Chrome folder. Do I create it and then create the userChrome.CSS text file here?
Bozz
Posts: 2684
Joined: October 18th, 2007, 1:53 pm

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by Bozz »

mike g wrote:If I go inside that folder there is no Chrome folder. Do I create it and then create the userChrome.CSS text file here?

Create the chrome folder as a sub-folder of your s8985z45.default folder then create the userChrome.css file in the chrome folder.
Last edited by Bozz on March 2nd, 2010, 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Lee_Dailey
Posts: 14194
Joined: July 27th, 2004, 4:33 pm
Location: milky way galaxy, sol system, terra, north america, usa, tx, bedford

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy mike g,

i presume win7 is more-or-less like vista on this subject, so lookee ...
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folde ... dows_Vista

hope that helps,
lee
mike g
Guest

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by mike g »

Thanks for the replies. I'm definitely in the right place but when I did that nothing happened. I even shut thunderbird down and restarted it. When I created my userChrome.css file I did it on notepad but I notice when I open it, it opens with microsoft front page, do you think that this could have anything to do with it not working? Here is what I put in the Css file.
/* Global UI font */
* { font-size: 11pt !important;
font-family: Verdana !important;
}

Is this right?
Thx
mike g
Guest

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by mike g »

Hey Guys,
I tried creating the css on word and that did it. Thanks for all the help and advise...I love thunderbird even more now!
User avatar
Lee_Dailey
Posts: 14194
Joined: July 27th, 2004, 4:33 pm
Location: milky way galaxy, sol system, terra, north america, usa, tx, bedford

Re: Changing Thunderbird's font size (NOT email text font size!)

Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy mike g,

you are quite welcome! glad to help a tad. [*grin*]

if you decide to do a bit of experimenting with css stuff, you might wanna install this addon ...
Stylish

it lets you make narrowly defined [or broadly defined, if ya want] styles and apply them easily. you can turn 'em off-n-on at will to see what each does and how they interact. you _do_ hafta restart tbird when you make changes, but that's easier than diddling with the userchrome.css file.

i like it. [*grin*]

take care,
lee
Locked