Changing the Appearance of Web-pages: Fonts

Since this Web-site contains a large amount of text and legibility is vital, the Fonts are not fixed, so that you can read the material in the most congenial form. This means that you can choose the Font for these pages via your own Browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Safari).

A large number of Web-pages specify the Font that they will appear in, and are designed specifically for that size and appearance; you can usually override this if you choose, but it may affect the design and spoil the effect intended.

Changing the size of the text can usually be done from the keyboard while you are viewing a page (except in Explorer where you need to go to the Toolbar), see the examples below; this can affect the layout of pages, but can increase their legibility or printability.

It's worth noting that you can also change the Fonts that appear in the Menus, Toolbars and Titles of your Browser itself, click here.

Here are a few examples of how to change the default Fonts for the appearance of Web-pages to your preference in the commoner Browsers (e.g. Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Safari):

• In Explorer,
  • go to the Tools menu, and
  • at the bottom of the menu is Internet Options,
  • click here and
  • you get the General page where there is an option-button at the bottom called Fonts.
  • Click this and
  • against 'Language script' select 'Latin based' and
  • then select your default typeface.
  Simply to change the text size,
  • go to the View menu, and
  • in the middle is Text Size, which allows you to change the size of the typeface.
  If your mouse has a wheel, a limited amount of text size changing is possible by holding the Control key down while rotating the wheel.
• For more information, see: Internet Explorer.

• In Netscape/Mozilla,
  • go to the Firefox menu, and
  • you will find Preferences;
  • under the category Content, select the Default Font and Size.
    • the Advanced button offers various further refinements concerning spacing, Serif and Sans-serif fonts, and Character Encoding.
      • Since many web-page authors specify their own font preferences, you will probably want to leave the box to 'Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above' checked.
  Netscape/Mozilla also allows you to change the size of the font from the keyboard by
  • pressing "Control +" (Control at the same time as the plus sign) or "Control -" (the minus sign/hyphen);
  • you can also do it from the View menu, using Text Zoom.
• For more information, see: Netscape, Mozilla.

• Mozilla Firefox, however, has taken on Explorer characteristics, so you need to
  • go to the Tools menu, and
  • at the bottom you will find Options. This should take you first
  • to the General section and after that, matters are more straightforward:
  • on the right-hand side there is a button for 'Fonts & Colors' and the available options are a slimmed-down version of Mozilla/Netscape.
  • In the 'Fonts for' select 'Western',
  • in the 'Proportional' category specify whether you prefer the default to be a Serif (such as Times) or Sans-serif (such as Arial) typeface and its basic size, and
  • then select your choice of Fonts in the various categories (those that will affect this site are the Serif and Sans-serif ones).
    • Since many web-page authors specify their own font preferences, you will probably want to leave the box to 'Allow documents to use other fonts' checked.
  Like Netscape/Mozilla, Firefox also allows you to change the size of the font immediately by
  • pressing "Control +" (Control at the same time as the plus sign) or "Control -" (the minus sign/hyphen);
  • you can also do it from the View menu.
• For more information, see: Firefox.

Another problem that seems to be specific to Firefox is that sometimes certain characters are not recognised and appear on the screen as little white question-marks in black square diamonds—these include ‘smart’ quotations and non-breaking spaces.

• Go to View > Character Encoding > Autodetect
• If this is set to "Off" change it to "Universal"
• If it is already set to "Universal" go back to the Character Encoding menu and select one of the "Western" character sets.

  One of these should work, but I hope to overcome the problem in the pages’ coding as well.

• In Opera,
  • go to the File menu, and
  • at the bottom you will find Preferences (or press 'Alt P');
  • under the category 'Fonts and colors', make sure that the first option, 'Normal', is highlighted,
  • then go to the button alongside, 'Choose', which allows you to change the base font, so that there shouldn't be any need to change the other categories.
  To change the text size immediately, simply
  • press the plus sign (+) or the the minus sign/hyphen (-), or
  • go to the View menu, and the option Zoom.
• For more information, see: Opera.

• In Safari,
  Mac version:
  • go to the Safari menu, and
  • find Preferences, second on third item down (or press '⌘ ,' i.e. 'Command [comma]');
  • go to Appearance and select the font you prefer under Standard.
  PC version:
  • go to the Edit menu, and
  • find Preferences, last item on the menu (or press 'Control ,' i.e. 'Control [comma]');
  • go to Appearance and select the font you prefer under Standard.
  To change the text size immediately, simply
  • press the Command key (⌘) [Control in the PC version] together with the plus sign (+) or the the minus sign/hyphen (-), or
  • go to the View menu, and the option Make Text Bigger/Make Text Smaller.
• For more information, see: Safari.

You can also access Internet Options or Preferences on your computer:

• in Windows, for example, this means going to the Start Menu, selecting Settings, then Control Panel, then Internet Options, where on the General page there is an option-button at the bottom called Fonts, where you can change your default typeface.

If you are tired of Tahoma for all the Menus, Toolbars and Titles in your Browser, you can change the appearance of the majority of the Menus, Toolbars and Titles, though these cannot usually be done through the Browser itself and will affect your general Screen Appearance as well.

• In Windows, for example, the simplest way of doing this is to use the Mouse and
  • Right Click on an empty part of the Desktop Screen.
  • Select 'Properties' from this Menu, and
  • then, at the top, the Tab 'Appearance'.
  • Select 'Advanced', where there is a series of options under 'Item', some of which you can choose the font for in the box below. These include:
    • Active Title Bar;
    • Icon;
    • Inactive Title Bar;
    • Menu;
    • Message Box;
    • Palette Title;
    • Selected Items and
    • Tool Tip.