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Mary C Hodges Author

Level 1 33 points

How darken text for readability?

I an trying to figure out any way, in the normal day to day activity to handle the insistence on lite blue, and grey text. I do have
pretty normal sight, but within apps, or even Apple web pages, much of the text is too faint in it's lovely lite gray, to see without
increasing the font size to 18 pt. Am I missing some really simple FIX?

Thanks so much. mch

MacBook (13-inch Aluminum Late 2008), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
Posted on Jan 28, 2013 6K55 AM

(16) Me too (602) Reply

Ticoromo1 Top-ranking reply

Level 1 5 points

Posted on Jan 6, 2015 8K58 PM

Am I the only person annoyed at Apple's IPhone design team determining that light gray text on a white
background is better for legibility? What were they thinking!!

View in context ကp

19 replies Sort By: Rank ခˆ

Ticoromo1 Top-ranking reply

Level 1 5 points

Jan 6, 2015 8K58 PM in response to Mary C Hodges

Am I the only person annoyed at Apple's IPhone design team determining that light gray text on a white background is better
for legibility? What were they thinking!!

(6) Reply

appleglo
Level 1 4 points

Oct 13, 2015 1K36 PM in response to Buddhadasa

Me too! Done everything...no good results. Why oh why did Apple feel it necessary to change the font color! Maddening! If it's
not broken, don't mess with it!

(6) Reply

Buddhadasa
Level 1 4 points

Sep 29, 2015 1K00 AM in response to Ticoromo1

No, you're not "the only person annoyed at Apple's IPhone design team determining that light gray text on a white
background is better for legibility?" Coping with near invisible light grey font is for me a major irritant. Even this txt is too feint.
One ought to be able to read at a glance and with ease, not peer at almost illegible greyed-out fonts. What were they thinking? I
doub they were.

(5) Reply

NewYaka
Level 1 13 points

Dec 8, 2017 10K56 AM in response to Jeff120Jeff

Hi Jeff120Jeff. I don't know why this issue is marked "solved". I'm having two problems: first in my version of Sierra Go to
Settings > Accessibility > Increase Contrast does not exist. I have to click display icon to get to a contrast slide bar. Second, I
already have the best contrast I can get on my Macbook air. Slide bar only makes it worse. The cause of this problem is Mac's
use of grey and black. It doesn't work. I'm not the only one complaining. Please escalate.

(4) Reply

Duma
Level 1 5 points

Nov 26, 2015 3K02 PM in response to Mary C Hodges

I'm age 97 and have had an Apple computer of one size or another for quite a few years. My previous one was a 27 inch "Lion."
My eyesight is still pretty good with tri-focals for regular use and bi-focals prescribed for computer viewing, and I have little
trouble except for very small print like newspaper type especially when in light colors (a dumb idea) and I was led to believe by
the advance hype that the new Apple Yosemite would be great for reading on-screen text.
So as soon as the Yosemite came on market I bought (at a cost of about $2800) one of the early 27 inch Yosemite models
and what a mistake that was. The text had more resolution but they got that by making everything much smaller. I had to go to
the least resolution available on the scale menu in order to read it at all and I still have to do so when not online or wenj using the
Apple Safari browser. After a frustrating year of experimentation I finally switched from Safari to the Google Chrome browser
and it helped a great deal because the Google Chrome browser has an extension which allows one to go through a range of
color modifications. The best option I found on it was the switch to High Contrast which makes the raised contrast on the Apple
display option look like a joke. On the Google Chrome browser it also makes all the texts look bigger and as if they were all in
BOLD. I have recently upgraded the Yosemite system to the new El Capitan at no cost which also helps some, but by and large I
would say the trouble I have had with Yosemite from the beginning is inexcusable for Apple. In my view it certainly wasn't ready
for prime time. For those having the same problems I did, I suggest trying the Google Chrome browser which does have a few
bugs of it's own but in my case it made considerable improvement in my use of all the computer's features when online.
Unfortunately when offline I still have to wrestle with almost invisible texts when viewing some of the built-in apps. Why can't
Apple just give us an option to make all the texts stand out in BOLD like Google has done with their High Contrast extension?

Duma

(3) Reply

michealolaoire
Level 1 8 points

Nov 11, 2017 4K29 PM in response to Mary C Hodges

Very difficult to read. Have to strain my eyes. Why are they doing this?

(3) Reply

Mary C Hodges Author

Level 1 33 points

Feb 20, 2013 6K32 AM in response to linda25

Linda, I'm so glad I'm not the only one with problems. My latest actions have hepled quite a bit, but I am far from an expert and
when my KMUG gurus didn't find an easy way, I was at least given some works to search. These are not STEPS, to take, but
ideas to try.

My 2 computers were so far from Factory settings for the screen that I found a window within Color Sync Utility [ I believe that
was my search phrase in Spotlight]. At any rate, one option, without losing my current, bad calibration settings, was Factory
Setting. It seemed really yellow, and dark, but I tried it, and then followed the steps to calibrate Factory. By following the
mysterious instructions, my screen looked more normal, BUT…the text looked much more readable. Apple still uses an annoyinly
light gray text for most of its help, like at the bottom of this page, but I can at least see it with my aging eyes. Light blue and gray
may be "arty", but it stinks for reading.!

Hope this doesn't take you on a wild goose chase.

mch

(1) Reply

lori1837
Level 1 10 points

Jul 28, 2017 4K34 PM in response to JLeo47

I find that the web pages print in a faint gray. I bought a new printer and that did not help. I asked neighbors all ages to try. All
had the same results. It was suggested that I use a PC. This started when I upgraded the system. I need to print out readable
page when I am placing an order for goods or financial pages.
Lori

(1) Reply

149quay
Level 1 4 points

Nov 3, 2016 1K51 AM in response to Mary C Hodges

How about a sensible reply? in English not an egotistic answer please leave your ego in the box
[email protected]

(1) Reply

nhoward55
Level 1 4 points

Oct 7, 2017 7K09 PM in response to Ticoromo1

Design fad that shows up so many places these days, especially on the web. Thank goodness for the Firefox browser's View >
Page Style > No Style to let me actually see text so I can read it.

(1) Reply

Unggoy Murderer
Level 1 15 points

Jan 28, 2013 11K23 AM in response to Mary C Hodges

There is an option to enable a high-contrast view in OS X Mountain Lion. It is however, a global effect, so you can't modify
specific regions.

To enable a high contrast mode:

> On the Dock, click Settings

> In Settings, click on Accessibility (System Section, second icon from right)
> Select Display from the list on the left side
> Ensure the Invert Colors checkbox is checked.

This setting will invert the colours on your screen:

Black becomes white, white becomes black, blue goes to orange, green goes to purple. I'm not sure if it's the solution you're
looking for, but it should help you increase readibility in some cases.

If it does work for you, and you don't want to use it all the time, you can place a shortcut to the options in the menu bar:

> On the Dock, click Settings

> In Settings, click on Accessibility (System Section, second icon from right)
> At the bottom of the window, select the Show Accessibility status in menu bar checkbox.

Hope this helps you out!

- Callum

Reply

linda25
Level 1 0 points

Feb 20, 2013 12K42 AM in response to Unggoy Murderer

I went to assessibily because i couldn''t read the light text and broken small text. The text went to black and white text and
black background, which i didn't know would happen. First i tried color sync and also tried making the windows text and photos
bigger. no luck. now my screen is this crazy purple and white with black background and text and photos are white and light
purple. i would love to get my colors back. What should i do? i still have the broken small white letters while trying to read the
community pages. i have a 13' macbook pro from 2010. i added more memory and mountain lion worked well at first. Did i
mess it up while trying to fix the color with colorsync? Thank you for your help!! Reading your response about inverting colors, i
think that is exactly what i did.

Thanks again for your help.

linda

Reply

Mary C Hodges Author

Level 1 33 points

Nov 5, 2017 9K36 AM in response to Jeff120Jeff

Jeff, Thank you for finishing up this thread that was started back in 2013. The basic reliance on gray text still exists with Apple
designers, but some of the tweaks did certainly help. I am not a doctor, but will add that I did not know the part cataracts played
in my computer "sight." After 2 successful surgeries, the Accessibility tweaks do make a nice difference in personal preferences
for my computer.
Thanks for the email to remind me of my earlier request.

mch

Reply

fizzinyellowichor
Level 1 4 points

Jan 1, 2018 4K25 AM in response to Mary C Hodges

Agree, silly problem. The "Accessibility::contrast" solution offered does NOT work. Only thing that works seems to be bold or
font size. What a terrible design choice. (Not just Apple, either: my 'droid has some of the same proclivities, just not applied to
the main body of text you're trying to read.)

Reply

Jeff120Jeff
Level 1 18 points

Nov 5, 2017 8K18 AM in response to Mary C Hodges

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Increase Contrast > Darken Colors, After this the text should be dark enough to read well.

Reply

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