How to make Control Panel's text bigger without using DPI settings?

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  1. Posts : 44
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
       #1

    How to make Control Panel's text bigger without using DPI settings?


    Hi.
    I want to make the text on my whole screen and system readable by making it bigger. Only the text.

    Windows has a DPI setting but it affects everything including icons and window sizes, which results in some windows and dialogs not fitting on the screen.

    The options in personalize don't affect the Control Panel and and system window's text.

    Using magnifier is the closest thing to what I want I've seen at the moment but it's not very nice. Since it's zomming in and not actually making things bigger, text looks pixelated or blurry and it's really ugly.

    There must be a real solution to making all the text bigger including control panel's but I haven't found it yet. Does anyone know?
    Thanks

    Edit: Here are some pictures to show the parts that don't increase font size...
    ...
    ...
    Given up trying to embed the images. I have attached them. Can they be downloaded/seen?
    Green means can be changed
    Red means cannot be changed

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails How to make Control Panel's text bigger without using DPI settings?-dpi.png   How to make Control Panel's text bigger without using DPI settings?-explorer.png   How to make Control Panel's text bigger without using DPI settings?-folder.png   How to make Control Panel's text bigger without using DPI settings?-startmenu.png   How to make Control Panel's text bigger without using DPI settings?-themes.png  

    Last edited by Rookie2; 18 Jun 2016 at 08:57.
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  2. Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       #2

    Hi,
    Besides using View by large icons ?
    How to make Control Panel's text bigger without using DPI settings?-cp-large-icons.jpg
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  3. Posts : 44
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #3

    That only affects the icons, and even if it did affect the text as well, it wouldn't change anything outside that area, e.g. the side categories, each panel applet's options, systtem windows, etc
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  4. Posts : 2,497
    Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
       #4

    Other than what ThrashZone has suggested I don't think what you want is possible. There is a fundamental problem here. You can't arbitrarily make text bigger without also making the containing elements, such as dialog boxes, push buttons, etc, larger as well. Outside of very constrained limits this would result in clipped text. The only way to avoid this is to make everything larger, by setting a larger DPI.
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  5. Posts : 44
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #5

    @LMiller7 are you saying windows control panel's text is hard coded or something like that? is this a limitation by design? If what you say is the case, then how do you prevent DPI settings from affecting window sizes?

    EDIT: I think I've seen clipped text in other situations before but I would like to see how it looks in the control panel
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  6. Posts : 2,497
    Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
       #6

    LMiller7 are you saying windows control panel's text is hard coded or something like that?
    Not at all. But concepts of text size are complex and I will not try to explain them here.

    As for preventing DPI settings from changing windows sizes, no way. That is one of the primary reasons why DPI settings were provided for.

    The bottom line is as I explained. Increasing text size without also increasing the size of other elements will result in clipped text. There is no way to avoid this.
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  7. Posts : 44
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #7

    LMiller7 said:
    As for preventing DPI settings from changing windows sizes, no way. That is one of the primary reasons why DPI settings were provided for.
    Besides very small unresizable windows or windows that don't save the last size used, what benefit is there in making windows bigger by default if they can be resized and the new size is saved?

    Anyway, it's very dissappointing that there's no solution for such a common problem. Maybe Windows just wasn't designed to be used by people with bad eyesight on screens with 768 vertical pixels or less without having a degrading experience.
    Or maybe this is because they added this sort of accessibility/customization options in later versions like WIn8 or Win10. Do you (or anyone else) by chance know if on Windows 8 or 10 it is possible to do what I asked about here? If so, I might upgrade
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  8. Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       #8

    Hi,
    Yep well the other way is more complex
    Window Color and Appearance - Change

    No shame in using a larger dpi
    I use 119% dpi.
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  9. Posts : 44
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #9

    I think I'm gonna ask Brink about this. Maybe he knows of a hidden trick to achieve my goal.

    I think 118% DPI setting is enough for some windows like VLC settings to not fit on the screen
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  10. Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       #10

    Hi,
    I don't believe vlc has ever had a very good interface experience
    But you should be able to resize the window/ close and reopen and it should remember the new size.
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