How To Configure Thunderbird Fonts?

I have just migrated to Mac from Windows and Linux. I imported all of my Thunderbird email over and have everything up and running. The one thing I can't figure out how to do is to configure the fonts that Thunderbird uses for its basic User Interface (UI) - the font it uses to show the list of email folders, the list of emails in a particular folder, the text labels on the buttons in the button bar and so on. Right now, it is using a pretty small font and I wish to increase the size. I tried the Mac method of View, Make Font Larger, but this just changes the font in the message window, but not these basic UI fonts.

The standard Mozilla method to change the UI fonts is to add a file called userChrome.css to the "chrome" directory of your profile folder. I have done this, and specified a font size that it quite large (20 pt), so that I would immediately know if it was working, but it is not.

Is there a Mac specific way of changing Thunderbird's UI fonts? If the userChrome.css way *is* the way to do it, could someone who has done this post an example? Perhaps I have the syntax messed up...

Thanks!

Amazing. Having now moved to a 20" iMac, I was wondering exactly the same thing. I too will be watching for any solution.

Mark

False alarm folks! I figured it out after a bit. Placing file userChrome.css is exactly the right approach. It should go into the Thunderbird "chrome" folder in your Thunderbird profile folder (which will be ~/Libary/Thunderbird/Profiles/some-jibberish-name/).

If you simply copy in the example userChrome-example.css that Mozilla provides and edit it to set the font sizes as you wish, and then save it as userChrome.css, nothing happens! In the userChrome-example.css, the font statements are commented out! Dohhh!!! Simply remove the comment enclosures and all is well. Good thing I am programmer!

geekboy2000, since you are having the same issue, here is the contents of my userChrome.css:

/*
* Edit this file and copy it as userChrome.css into your
* profile-directory/chrome/
*/

/*
* This file can be used to customize the look of Mozilla's user interface
* You should consider using !important on rules which you want to
* override default settings.
*/

/*
* Do not remove the @namespace line -- it's required for correct functioning
*/
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* set default namespace to XUL */


/*
* Some possible accessibility enhancements:
*/
/*
* Make all the default font sizes 20 pt:
*
* * {
* font-size: 20pt !important;
* }
*/


* {
font-family: Helvetica !important;
font-size: 10pt !important;
}

/*
* Make menu items in particular 15 pt instead of the default size:
*
* menupopup > * {
* font-size: 15pt !important;
* }
*/
/*
* Give the Location (URL) Bar a fixed-width font
*
* #urlbar {
* font-family: monospace !important;
* }
*/

/*
* Eliminate the throbber and its annoying movement:
*
* #throbber-box {
* display: none !important;
* }
*/

/*
* For more examples see http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html
*/

That's it! I highlighted in RED FONT the changes I made. Good luck!

<snip>

mac57 said:

geekboy2000, since you are having the same issue, here is the contents of my userChrome.css:

Click to expand...

<snipped file>

mac57 said:

That's it! I highlighted in RED FONT the changes I made. Good luck!

Click to expand...

Excellent work! Thanks very much. I settled on Georgia, and may try a few more, but yes, that did the trick. Very much appreciated!

Mark

Setting up the fonts as Lucida Sans, and using the Tiger Mail theme gives it a really nice Mac Mail look. Having used Mail, I must prefer Thunderbird in terms of functionality,but the Mail appearance is great. Again, thanks for the details on a really nice tweak!