Monday, February 16, 2009

Fonts Too Small in Apple Mail?

Do HTML messages sent from Windows users look microscopic in Apple Mail? Use the following trick to force Apple Mail to always use a larger minimum font size on received messages - some HTML messages might not look exactly as intended but at least you can now read them.

1. Quit Mail

2. Open the Terminal and type in the following:

defaults write com.apple.mail MinimumHTMLFontSize 12

3. Restart Mail.app and your HTML messages are readable.

You don't have to choose 12 point. Select whatever you like.

16 comments:

  1. Thank you thank you thank YOU. I have been looking all over for a way to do exactly this. What a relief.

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  2. Sorry to sound a bit dumb but what do you mean by 'open the terminal'? I need to fix this font size thing and your solution sounds the simplest, if only I knew what you meant.

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  3. Hi Justin... to open the terminal, click on the little magnifying glass in the top right of the screen and type Terminal to search for it. It will come up as an application. Good luck!

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  4. Brilliant, thank you!!! Justin

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  5. Sorry Mr Mac Brainiac but after saying how brilliant your solution is I've struck a reef!

    After following your instructions the first time my e-mail font became tiny again so I repeated the steps only to find when opening the Terminal that the pasted text from the last time I opened it has disappeared. I'm that way now that I'm doubting whether it worked the first time around.

    Any suggestions?

    Justin

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  6. Has my question stumped you or have you gone on holidays? I'm about to give up on Mail and move to Entourage which doesn't have the same font problem, although I'll be losing a few of the really handy features of Mail.

    Justin

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  7. This works really well for me and solved a constant irritation... thanks

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  8. I just tried this and it had absolutely no effect. Do I need to type anything else or press a special key after typing the text (other than enter/return?)

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  9. didn't have any effect for me neither.

    Stay away from this solution guys, the guy who wrote the post is clearly not checking in...

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  10. Hi guys. I'm checking in.. but there isn't much I can do if it doesn't work for everyone. It works for most people but not all.

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  11. Brainiac, it would help to include the command for getting back to the default...is there one? cheers!
    jigs

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  12. Has anyone had outgoing mail fonts/sizes be inconsistent? They look good onscreen when I compose, but when someone responds to my email, the original message is either huge or tiny, and not in the specified font under Mail preferences. Any thoughts on this?

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  13. Jodi,

    I've had the same issues with inconsistent fonts and sizes outbound. This "fix" may have causes other problems.

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  14. if you have checked "use same mail format as original" in
    Mail/preferences/composing that may account for the changes in font when replying to messages.

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  15. Very happy!! Thanks you!! working great for me

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  16. Give poor old Mac Brainiac a break. This works perfectly. Only thing that seems to be missing is to punch the return key after pasting in his generously given line.

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