Making fonts readable on an HDTV at 1080p

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Hello, I'm new to the forums and to owning a mac, this is my first post :D I'm trying to figure out how to increase the font size for the entire OS, below are more details:

My new mac mini is hooked up to my 47" LG HDTV that supports 1080p through the mac VGA adapter (I was surprised my TV had a vga connector, it also supports HDMI but I had already bought the mac display adapter for VGA so I could use it with my monitor in my office if I ever decide to move it in there).

Long story short, I'm using this mini to surf the web and play video on my tv. Working wonderfully so far, the mini correctly detected that my tv was 1080p and the display looks beautiful! Playing movies was very easy.

My problem comes into play when I want to surf the web or use other applications. In firefox I'm able to adjust the size of the font onscreen easily enough (I changed my default font size to 20), but all application fonts and OS fonts remain very small.

I'd like to figure out a way to increase the fonts for the menu across the top of the screen for all applications. I'm normally quite adept at customizing an OS, I've been a windows user for years, a linux user for about 3 years, and now a MAC OS X 10.6 user for a month :) I'm not having much luck googling or searching forums for how to do this, am I overlooking something really simple?
 
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Have you tried lowering the resolution, that makes it all a little bigger.
 
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lowering resolution

I'm happy with the current resolution (1080p), I'd rather increase the font sizes. Surely they can be fixed? Every other OS out there lets you easily adjust the font size of everything...
 
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bugs from last fix

strike that last solution from the record, any value other than 1.0 causes context menus (from right clicking) not to work at all. Since I use those menus alot I can't use this fix :(

In ubuntu I just open the appearances system setting and modify system font sizes to my hearts content, in windows the equivalent settings are in desktop appearance. I'm bummed that OS X 10.6 doesn't have something similar.
 

chscag

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Unfortunately there is currently no way to increase screen font size without decreasing screen resolution. Safari can be adjusted somewhat, but that only works while browsing and doesn't always work because of the way some sites are designed.

The best suggestion I can give you is to try a third party app like "Tinkertool". Since it's free you've nothing to lose by trying it. Download from here.

Be sure to read the instructions and don't get tempted to turn on or change things such as viewing hidden files. The results may be unexpected and undesirable.

Regards.
 

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