New guy with an old question (maybe)

Hi Guys,
Let me begin by saying that I have no idea how to use a Mac properly
I had a Mac laptop many years ago but didn't use it much other than for text based stuff and I only bought it because it had a fantastic bronze coloured keyboard. But now I have ditched my main desktop Windows based PC and got myself a Mac Mini to use in its place. It's the older G4 version running at 1.25 ghz with 1gb of RAM. The Operating System is OS X 10.5.8 and it came pre-installed with Airport Extreme and Bluetooth.
My situation here is unusual in that my keyboard and mouse are about 12 feet from the screen which is a 50" Plasma TV.
That is the cause of my first problem. Text size.
When a web page opens up, the text is to small for me to read. I can zoom in and get the text big enough but I can't find a way to save that font/text size so that all pages open already at that size. To be honest, I don't even know if such a thing is possible.

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.
5tevie

ps ..... I'm a Brit so please forgive the proper spelling of some words.

Welcome to Mac Forums
For the 2browsers I use, Safari and Firefox, it is as follows. I'm sure all the browsers will have something alike in their preferences.

For Safari, go to Safari menu, preferences, advanced, and select "never use fonts smaller than" and put in the size you want.
For Firefox, go to Firefox menu, preferences, content, default font, select your size, and then click advanced, minimum font size, and put in your desired font size.

Thank you , 6string.
I use Firefox, a hold over from my Windows years.
I did as you suggested and now I can read the screen again.
You're a star.

I have another question for you if I may.
I bought myself a magic mouse and a tricky little keyboard and I'm having minor issues with the mouse.
I would need a mouse mat 4 times bigger than the one I'm using to get the little arrow to go from one side of the screen to the other. As it is, I have to keep lifting the mouse off the table and moving it over to the left in mid air before putting it back on the mat to move it further to the right again.

(Reading that back to myself it doesn't make perfect sense but I hope you understand what I mean)

I have been into the Dock >> Prefs >> Mouse and moved the scroll slider over to the right and that helped a bit but I was wondering if there is a way to make the cursor move further for every inch that the mouse moves?

Cheers m'dears,
5tevie

That was easy. So, what's the second problem?

Welcome to Mac Forums!

Ahhhh, there is still a slight problem with text size that I didn't notice before. The web pages are smack on as is this box that I am typing into. The problem area now is the text sizes within the Firefox toolbars. I can see the line that starts with Firefox >> File >> Edit etc but everything between that and the actual web page could do with being a bit bigger.
It makes it difficult with 10 - 13 tabs open and 20 or more Favourites in the Favs toolbar.

Is there a way to make that text larger?
I found a "Right click" method but there was nothing in there about text sizes. I'll go and have another look at the Firefox Menu to see if I missed anything there first time round.

Cheers,
5tevie.

As for the screen and text... it sounds like you need to play around with the display settings and find the best for you. System preferences>displays and see how that goes.
As for the mouse, there is 3rd party software. I don't know which ones are good, but they are similar to Apple - Downloads - System/Disk Utilities - MagicPrefs

I have the same issue with the font size. Using a same size tv yet it's an lcd.
What is the recommended minimum font size for this?

comovartia .... I may be wrong but I would think that the text size would depend on how far you are from the screen and how good your eyes are.
As an example, I followed 6string's advice in the first reply and set the font to 14.
On this 50" plasma screen i can now read text comfortably from about 12 feet.

I'm back again.
I've been looking around in Preferences (from the dock) and also in Firefox prefs and found what seems to be a good combination. I have to stress that this works for me but it may not be as effective for everyone else.
I first went into System Preferences in the dock and clicked on "Displays".
I then changed the display resolution to 1024 x 768 and accepted the size.
Next I had to do a bit of Firefox web page adjusting because each page was now massive. That is easily done by clicking and holding at the bottom / right of the web page and dragging it over to the left until you get the desired size.
But now the font size is far to big so it's a click on "Firefox" up next to the Apple logo >> Preferences >> Content (across the top) and then make the default font size 10.
You then click the "Advanced" button next to the font size number and make the minimum font 10.
Click OK on that screen and close the Prefs screen and you should now have easy to read text in your Favourites toolbar and your open tabs as well as text in web pages etc.
Hope that works for you.
5tevie.