# Mozilla on Linux and teeny fonts... **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [December 23, 2002, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mozilla-on-linux-and-teeny-fonts/144617 "2002-12-23T23:05:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mozilla-on-linux-and-teeny-fonts/144617/1 "2002-12-23T23:05:20Z")
…well, not _teeny_, but small enough to be annoying. I’m running Mozilla 1.1 on Redhat 8. I’ve noticed that on the SDMB, and in fact on most other site specifically running VBulletin, the fonts in the main body table (containing such things as the forum names and the actual posts) show up in 10pt type. Normally, I can just hit [ctrl]+ to make it legible, but it _is_ rather strange. I haven’t dug through the board’s stylesheet to see if the problem is there, but I can’t help but think it’s on my end. I’ve installed Verdana in both XFree86 and GNOME’s fonts directory, and it looks fine on most other web pages, including my phpBB. It only seems to be a problem in VBulletin. I checked the VB forums, but most of those people seem to be drooling morons (“howww can I runn a bored on my home computer???”). Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mozilla-on-linux-and-teeny-fonts/144617/2 "2002-12-24T02:49:15Z")
In my experience, a _lot_ of things display small in Mozilla - for some reason, I think it assumes a smaller default font size than is really desirable. The simple solution is to check under Edit\>Preferences\>Appearance\>Fonts, and set a minimum font size of at least 12 points (or more, but 12 point is the very least that I can personally stand to look at). The complicated way is to use the same control to set the default sizes of your installed fonts these’s a pulldown menu of them) to something reasonable - again, I’d make this at least 12 points, perhaps more. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mozilla-on-linux-and-teeny-fonts/144617/3 "2002-12-24T05:01:25Z")
Not sure how to advise you, as vB is really built around IE and Linux isn’t even on their radar screen, I don’t think. I’m sorry you’re not getting the optimum experience here. But even regular Windows-based Mozilla displays this stuff differently, as I have discovered. Not sure what to do about that, either. your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mozilla-on-linux-and-teeny-fonts/144617/4 "2002-12-24T08:55:03Z")
As another datum, I’ve had a similar problem in Unix-based Netscape Navigator. Not that I think anyone should be using such an old browser. I’m just saying. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mozilla-on-linux-and-teeny-fonts/144617/5 "2002-12-24T20:11:47Z")
I figured as much. Take a look at the source for the first couple of lines of my OP: ```auto Mozilla on Linux and teeny fonts...

...well, not teeny, but small enough to be annoying.
``` Looks like they’re aiming for stylistic compatibility with Netscape 4. I know the \ tag is deprecated, but does Mozilla ignore it completely? I don’t expect you to do anything about it, **Tuba** , because it would involve modding the php code, and I understand that Jelsoft is pretty strict about their support policies. …thanks, though. No biggie. ---

**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mozilla-on-linux-and-teeny-fonts/144617/6 "2002-12-24T21:40:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by black455 \* > I know the \ tag is deprecated, but does Mozilla ignore it completely? This I find hard to believe. The font tag is held on more dearly by stubborn developers who won’t get with the times at least as much as any other outdated piece of markup. I can’t find it explicitly mentioned one way or the other on [mozilla.org](http://mozilla.org), and I don’t have access to Linux here to test it. (Unlike **TubaDiva** , I don’t recall having any problems like this with Windows-based Mozilla, but I don’t even remember which version I was running.) The [size], [font], and [color] vB tags all make exclusive use of the HTML \ tag. Do none of these work on your user agent? ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mozilla-on-linux-and-teeny-fonts/144617/7 "2002-12-25T18:48:05Z")
Let’s see… Blah… Blah… Hmmm… looks to me like that first line is at about 14px. Y tu? ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mozilla-on-linux-and-teeny-fonts/144617/8 "2002-12-25T21:03:40Z")
The capital L is 18px tall for me, so I imagine the font size to be about 24px. And the first “Blah…” is red. But I’m on IE, so whatever. 🙂