How to enlarge webpage text on Windows phone (Opera Mini)

General Questions
#1

I’m pretty blind and phones are tiny, so it’s hard to read web content. You can zoom the screen all you like, but the text won’t wrap, so it’s not really possible to read something on the web without horizontally scrolling back and forth over every line.

I’d read that Opera Mini would do the trick with a mode called Small Screen Rendering, so I installed it. There’s a screenshot here (PCMag.com) of that feature working in Opera Mini 4.0 Beta, but I have version 9.0 and there doesn’t seem to be anything like “fit to width” in the Settings.

Anybody use Opera on a Windows phone, anybody know how to set it up? Thanks.

#2

Dunno if the Windows app store has it, buy if they do, try Opera “Classic” instead of Mini.

#3

They do not. They sure do have a lot of free and $1.99 browsers I never heard of, though. Maxthon Browser, UC Browser, SurfCube 3D Browser, Beyond Browser … I’ll google some recommendations. Anything that will allow me to blow up text to Huge and have it wrap, like most any webpage does in any PC browser, will do.

#4

Text rendering on IE mobile sucks. I tried a bunch of different browsers from the store, but they all had the same problem. I am inclined to suspect that the alternative browsers are all just feature wrappers for the same IE mobile rendering engine.

#5

I’d hope not Opera, though? They’ve been a better browser than IE since when dinosaurs roamed the earth. And they used to have the feature; that screenshot in my OP is from 2007. I can’t think why they’d drop it. I can’t be the only old blind guy who actually wants to read webpages on my phone.

#6

Not sure. I have a feeling there may be some limitation imposed by the phone API itself that dictates the style of text display - Windows Phone is a bit like that; it does create a quite consistent experience across applications, but in this particular context, that’s not a benefit.

It does look like Opera Mini might be subject to this - looking at their page here, it says:

That sounds to me like they will have fully incorporated the Windows Phone display standards.

Unfortunately, the Microsoft phone store also doesn’t have the sort of flexible refund policy that other platforms do - so it’s not even easy to try out paid-for apps without a commitment.

#7

Just to note - there is a ‘reading mode’ in IE mobile - tap the little book icon in the address bar. this will render the text from the page in flowed form at a size you can select in the settings. It’s OK for reading - no use at all for navigation.

#8

That is REALLY useful information. Turns out I don’t have that little book icon in my address bar (it’s visible in one of the screenshots here). I am running Windows 8.1 on the phone, and as far as I can make out, IE 11 mobile is supposed to be integrated with the OS itself and can’t be installed separately. I’m calling the provider to find out – maybe reinstalling the phone’s OS will do the trick. If so, I think that may be all I need – I’m happy to turn Reading Mode on and off to navigate and read in alternation. Thank you!

#9

Ah - I’m on WP10 - maybe that little feature only exists in IE on my version?

It may be possible to upgrade the Windows Phone OS on your handset (even if your network provider hasn’t released an upgrade) - I had an HTC 8X which I upgraded from 8.1 to 10 by joining the Microsoft Developer Preview scheme.

There is a risk attached of course - but I accepted it as I managed to find plenty of examples of people who had upgraded their 8X already without any problems.