I am computer stupid (word size)

My son is sleeping and I don’t know how to do this. The type on my computer is too small. Please tell me how to make it bigger like it was yesterday. Thanks.

move your face closer to the screen.

are you talking about a web browser and which one?

what computer, operating system or program are you talking about?

The usual internet explorer.

Ctrl-+ (hit Ctrl key and then the + key but you don’t have to use the Shift key so I guess it’s really the “+ =” key) or depending on the browser, View>Zoom>Reset or Zoom In.

In FireFox: Menu>View>Zoom-Check Zoom Text Only>Zoom In

IE8 Page (right hand side) Menu>Page>Text Size

That solved it. Bless you!

You’re welcome.

That was my first post in about 3 years. :stuck_out_tongue:

Would - make it smaller?

Doesn’t work, unless you hold the Control key down while pressing the + key, then immediately release both.

(If you “hit Ctrl, then the + key,” that doesn’t imply they are both depressed together, but sequentially, and if you don’t tell them to release immediately, you may get some repeating functions you didn’t want as they continue to hold the keys down.)

I’ve learned you have to be explicit with instructions like this. If you don’t, there will always be someone who doesn’t know how “Control/” functions work, no matter how second-nature it is to you.

So, obviously, BigBertha didn’t follow what you said, but what you meant, and it worked by accident.

Yes.

I find that a thesaurus can help to increase word size, if you’re really concerned about that sort of thing. :slight_smile:

Interesting, your statement “unless you hold the Control key down while pressing the + key, then immediately release both” could be interpreted to mean that while already pressing the + key, one should then also hold down the Control key–not that the Control key needs to be pressed first and then the + key. But that doesn’t work. And, you don’t need to release the two keys immediately both at the same time, but that’s what your instructions imply is necessary.

I’ve learned people who correct other people need to be explicit when doing their correcting.

Easier method: Hold down Ctrl and roll the wheel on your mouse.

It is very necessary. If you hold down most any key on most any keyboard, it will begin to repeat. For many purposes, a string of a dozen repeats may not be what you want. I see this happen frequently with newbies.

Of course, “immediately” is reasonable human-time, not microseconds, computer time.

Then what? How about releasing the Control key?

Is that stupid? You may laugh, but after supporting unsophisticated users for decades, there’s always one who wonders why the text keeps getting bigger and smaller every time they move the mouse

“Did you release the Control key?”

“No, was I supposed to?”

My favorite story is when I told the user to press the up-arrow key a few times to move the cursor around the text. She said, “but all I get is a bunch of '6’s!” I’l leave it to you to figure out just why.

You know, it takes a special kind of talent for a complete newbie to notice the caret at all, let alone confuse it with one of the arrow keys.

(Now, how many people here didn’t know what the ^ was called before they read this post?)

Internet Explorer has a display at the right hand bottom of the window. Normally it shows a little magnifying glass next to 100% and an arrow.

Clicking on the 100% changes it to 125%. Clicking again changes it to 150%. Clicking it a third time returns it to 100%.

Clicking on the arrow brings up a menu of choices from 50% to 400%. There’s also a clickable “Custom” that brings up a box into which you can input any specific percentage. I don’t know how large or small it goes, though.

That’s the best way to resize something for specific viewing purposes. And you don’t need to know how to work the Ctrl key at all.

And here I thought this was a computer architecture question.

Yeah, I was thinking the answer was 32 bits.

It’s probably for the best that there’s no keystroke to change that.