Poor font handling in Thunderbird
Hello TBird people,
I honestly can't tell if this is an off-shoot of the recent update(s) but I have had a remarkably bad time with font handling in the program, which I had not before.
This issue is that the display font of a Compose window (as in if I'm replying to a msg or composing a new one) is remarkably small. Too small to comfortably read. I thought I found the solution by adjusting the font size, but then found out from copied replies back to me, and comments from correspondents, that the font that was going out in my emails was gigantic ("old-man fonts"). At one point I looked on my screen at a reply back to me and a compose window layered on top and there were three totally different font sizes displayed, when all I want is ONE readable font. (Image attached)
Making matters worse is the confusing set of options, including one area with sizes in pixel and another in "small, medium", etc.
My current fix for this is that when I write something new, I magnify the window with Crtl-+ (Ctrl-mouse-wheel-up, actually) and have a good size to read, and then it appears to send normally. What a dumb thing to have to do every time. The issue seems to be, simply, that the compose windows *display* smaller than the rest of the program.
Any fixes that don't create other problems? Thanks
~ Jon
All Replies (4)
Options/General/Language & Appearance, Advanced..., set the fonts and sizes (in pixels) with Fonts for: Latin and repeat with Fonts for: Other Writing Systems. Uncheck 'Allow messages to use other fonts'. Keep the defaults in Options/Composition/HTML Style.
SFHowes -
Thanks for the response, but while once change altered things, it was not on a positive direction.
All my settings were already as you stated, excepting "Other Writing Systems", which had a couple of fonts set larger (16/17px). I reset all those to 12px. Now virtually everything is displayed remarkably small, smaller than any text in other programs I use, CERTAINLY smaller than bringing up, say, OpenOffice, typing a doc with a 12px font. I can't understand why "Other Writing Systems" would have some global effect on my basic use of the program.
IF - a big IF - I can be assured that all fonts are uniform in size, both displaying to me and as sent, I could use the CS layout hack to increase display, but I'd rather figure out why this is the one program on my system that insists on putting things on the screen in micro-fonts.
I appreciate any other insights you can pass along. I was ready to abandon TBird the other night but can't find anything with the other good features I like. Help me keep TB!
Cheers, Jon
'Other Writing Systems' includes Unicode text. What is your screen resolution? Since a size of 12 px is about equal to 8 pt, most users would find that too small. Set the sizes to 16 or 18 for Other Writing Systems and see if it makes a difference.
Thanks for your continued help...
Windows 10, screen res 1920x1080. I had to make the change you outline to both the "Other" as well as "Latin" for the fonts to increase in both reading msgs as well as bringing up a reply window; increasing only Other kept the reply text very small.
I will try this and attempt to send messages to see what kind of font goes out. Keep in mind, I was alerted to this by someone mentioning getting "Reader's Digest"-sized fonts in my emails. I've used TBird for a number of years and never had issues, and I have not gone through any system changes or hardware/software installations. For me, these issues all started with the last major revision of TBird. Since that immediately caused issues, I now have automatic updates turned off, which is not my preference.
Again, I appreciate your assistance, I know it can be frustrating trying to help these situations!
Jon