Use a screen reader to explore and navigate Outlook Mail Use Outlook Web App with Narrator, the built-in Windows screen reader, in your web browser to zoom in, or enlarge, the text of an email or calendar and make it easier to read. I have a new Macbook Air and when using the Mail program. I don't want to increase the font to 18 and send the email as an 18 font sized.
OS X Mavericks has numerous features and settings that make text and images more visible. In this article, I will discuss many options and methods to take advantage of those features in different ways. In pointing out many different ways, I hope to help you find a method that will be a good fit for you.
Use System Preferences, Displays Settings: Access System Preferences from the dock or the Apple on the menu bar, and click on Displays. Then click on the Display tab.
Choose Scaled, and the different resolution settings available are displayed. The options available vary, depending upon what resolution your model of the computer is capable of displaying. Adjust the settings by choosing different options—the lower the numbers are in the setting, the larger objects will be displayed. Below are examples of the display setting options you will see on a white MacBook, an older iMac, and a MacBook Pro with Retina display. If you change the display settings to use the largest font possible on MacBooks and older iMacs, it causes an issue where the buttons at the bottom of some apps cannot be seen on the screen. In the image below for example the Edit and Share buttons at bottom of iPhoto aren’t visible, even by scrolling down. This issue does not occur on recent without the DVD drive.
Because of this, I suggest opening and System Preferences at the same time. Then adjust the resolution to the largest size (lowest numbers) you prefer, and confirm the Share button at the bottom of iPhoto is still visible. That way, you choose the display setting that works best for you without any loss of functionality. On a MacBook Pro with Retina display, the resolution setting image at the beginning of this article results in the largest object size possible with no loss of functionality. The increases the size of objects with no loss of clarity when resolution settings are changed.
This should be considered when making new purchases if it’s important to you. When changing the resolution on other Macs, there is a loss of clarity as the resolution settings are changed from the default. The exception to that is resolution settings that end with HiDPI. However that setting seems to consistently cause the display issue described above with iPhoto. Use app Preferences settings: Many apps have a setting in Preferences that effectively increases the size of the text it displays.
IPhoto has a setting on the Appearance Tab called Source Text that can be set to Large. ITunes has a setting on the General tab, in the Views section called “Use large text for list views”. Increasing the font size in certain apps may be done as a function of preference, rather than necessity.
For example, check out the image below, that reflects iTunes with the “Large text for list views” setting. Use various forms of Zoom: Because zooming requires at least some work, I recommend trying all of the above settings first. OS X does really well in this area, providing a multitude of methods. Using the Command & + and Command & – keys This is an effective way to increase font size when you are in an app that involves text, such as Safari, Mail or Calendar. Below is an image of of the Calendar app with event name sizes increased using Command & +. Using Control & Scroll This is a simple, powerful way to zoom.
Access System Preferences, click on Accessibility on the right, and choose Zoom on the left. Then check “Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom”. The default modifier key is Control, but can also be set to Command or Option. Then, hold down the modifier key and scroll up and down with a mouse, or on a trackpad (with two fingers) to zoom in and out. Custom Zoom Levels For people who use zoom frequently, you can avoid the need to keep adjusting the zoom level by setting custom zoom levels.
To do this, choose “Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom”. Then, click the More Options button at the bottom right and set a minimum and maximum zoom level. When using this setting: Command, Option & + zooms in to your maximum level Command, Option & – zooms out to your minimum level Command, Option & 8 zooms into and out of whatever zoom level you are currently at. Magnifying Glass style zoom Instead of having the entire screen zoom in, you can zoom in on a small rectangular area of the screen. When using this setting, the magnified area of the screen moves around with the cursor and has the look and feel of a magnifying glass. To do this, set Zoom Style to Picture in Picture. Trackpad and mouse gestures Both the Apple and have settings that allow zooming, but it is limited to browsers.
To enable it on the trackpad, access System Preferences, Trackpad, and click on the Scroll & Zoom tab at the top center. There are two gestures that can be enabled for zooming with the trackpad. “Zoom in or out” by pinching with two fingers is the first one listed, and works in any browser. “Smart zoom” by double tapping with two fingers is the second one listed works only in Safari. The Magic Mouse preferences features only one zoom method, “Smart zoom” by double-tapping with one finger. In Safari, text can be read aloud easily by highlighting it, and choosing Speech, then Start Speaking. You can use the Reader and Start Speaking in combination to have an entire article read aloud with no ads.
Click on the Reader button to remove any ads from displaying. Use the keyboard shortcut Command & A to select all of the article. Control & click, or right-click on the highlighted text and choose Speech, then Start Speaking. Knowing about the different settings that increase font size and methods that can be used to zoom can help you and your loved ones have a more enjoyable computing experience.
. “Why does my signature look too big in Outlook?” “When Outlook users receive my email, my signature looks terrible” As an Apple Mail user, have you ever wondered why your messages look less than professional when Outlook users receive your email messages? Perhaps the message body font is displayed at a different size than your auto-generated signature, displaying something like this? Users Control How They View Emails “But my preferences in Mail have a font and size selected.” Unfortunately, although you may have set your email to display, for example, at 12 in Verdana, these settings only affect what you are viewing in Mail. These settings are not applied to outgoing email. There is a reason for Mail’s lack of compatibility with Outlook. The message body text is usually sent as plain text (no font or size specified) and your signature most likely has a size specification of html small, medium, or large.
This can lead to two interpretations of sizes: one for the message text area and another for the signature block. Outlook will set the message font size and font to what the Outlook user has specified (default is Calibri 11 point in Outlook 2010) in the message body area. Your signature size is up to Outlook to interpret a baseline for small, medium, or large. This, of course, is messy looking with two font sizes displayed to your Outlook recipients. Plain Text Not Always Ideal You can have the text message body and signature match via plain text. I spoke to Apple Support for help and they suggested clicking on “Always match my default message font” for signatures. After testing with Outlook users – the result is plain text only emails.
However, I think you would agree plain text has a downside. No bolding, colored text, etc. (nice for when you want to answer a question within someone’s message).
Although it may be great viewing only plain text to override folks who send emails with 9 point fonts with pink text (usually too small looking to the average Mac reader), overall it’s a less aesthetic experience. Format Outgoing Email – Universal Mailer Plugin for Apple Mail To step around the issue of inconsistent font sizes, install the plugin. Once installed, you can set your outgoing messages to the font size and font you prefer. However, unless your signature file is a rich text file – Universal Mailer cannot correct plain text signature files. Fixing Your Signature File Remember the size setting mentioned earlier of “small, medium, or large” for your signature? Here is how you can match your outgoing signature file to the message body of your text once you install Universal Mailer. It’s important your signature is a rich text formatted signature instead of plain text which Universal Mailer cannot override.
Access your Signature through Mail in Preferences Signature tab. Highlight your Signature and Control Key for the right-click menu. From the right-click menu select “Font” and then “Show Fonts”.
Select the font and font size you prefer (12 at least to be readable) Now your signature should match the outgoing text body of your email message with Universal Mailer plugin without settling for plain text emails. You can bold and use other elements to help emphasize your communications. Assuming your email recipient doesn’t override the settings, you should now have a nicely matched email message with no “exploding” or other signature size mismatch with the body of the email text message. Let Apple know you would prefer they fix outgoing emails to have a set font and font size (with matching signature size in rich text) so the entire email looks good for Outlook users. Apple Feedback: Special thank you to Paula Farthing, Marian Harmon, and Teresa Morinaga for being Outlook 2010 testers. Note: This information applies to Apple Mail 6.2 in Mountain Lion OS 10.8.2. Universal Mailer is a third-party plugin.
Any updates to Apple Mail may uninstall the plugin and require reinstalling. For the technically inclined wanting to see the HTML markup – the signature files are in the Library folder. You can reach it via “Go” from the Finder menu “/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Signatures/” Having an problem implementing? You can contact the.
Latest version is available on. Universal Mailer seems fine for dealing with the font problem, particularly with Outlook. However that leaves the issue of attachments.
Some of my contacts using Outlook can’t see attachments. – not sure if that’s because I’m specifying icon only attachments but then who wants huge images in the middle of the body of an email. The only reliable way I’ve found is to use Attachment Tamer. However that isn’t compatible with Universal Mailer.
So I’m left with the choice of either successful attachments OR emails laid out as intended – or I guess plain text emails. Hi Nancy Thanks for getting back on this. I know, I’m puzzled as it does say that the UM plugin fixes the attachment issue, but I’ve had a couple of clients on Outlook say that attachments weren’t showing up, though they did when they looked on webmail (having said that some Outlook users did get the attachments which is puzzling). I tried emailing myself to a Win8 Mail box and the attachment failed to be displayed there unless I used Attachment Tamer. For now I’m trying Mail Box which doesn’t have these issues at all and looks a lot nicer than Apple Mail with a lot more features, though it is a bit of a memory hog and doesn’t work with iCal on Mountain Lion – at least not yet. At least I can look professional when I send emails to clients!
Best wishes Richard. says. Hello, I have been experiencing the above issues with Apple Mail – signature mismatch AND Outlook changing my body text font as well. So I really hope this works.
If not, I’ll most likely purchase a Windows machine for my business needs because professionalism is a must and my Apple emails have been anything but professional when sent to a Outlook user – easily 75% of my customers. Anyway – my questions: I am currently running 10.7 (Lion) 1. I am assuming the 1.4 version is for Lion users?
Do you know of any limitations to this version like – are advertisements removed for this version as well? Mike No adverts when I used it. I’m currently using Postbox.
A bit of a memory hog but if you have sufficient Ram on board then I find it acts like a grown up mail client – properly formatted text and attachments and a whole host of other features – more like Entourage only better in some respects and you don’t have the Office for Mac problem of not syncing with iCloud. Doesn’t link with iCal properly yet – try emailing a appointment and Mail still opens, but fine with Contacts. Will do me until Apple sort Mail out – not holding breath mind you ?. David says. Hi Richard – thanks for the feedback I was finally able to install UnviersalMailer v 1.4. I couldn’t get 1.5.2 to work. When I double clicked the downloaded file (1.5.2) my system wouldn’t recognize / open it (again, I am running 10.8.2).
I kept getting an error message asking me to choose the application to open it BUT then when I tried to open it with installer (as 1.4 did automatically) another error message popped up stating it didn’t recognize that application (Installer). V 1.4 seems to be working OK (running tests today) BUT I am left wondering what’s the difference between 1.4 and 1.5.2???
Am I using an older version with older issues like the attachment issue that the developer talks about on his Twitter page (apparently this was fixed in the newest version – this is what he states). Anyway – thanks to you as well Nancy for bringing this much needed fix to the forefront. And sorry to use your nice blog page as a “IT help center” ?. Mike K says. Hi Nancy, Thanks for sharing the workaround. I’ve been having all sorts of fun trying to get my emails sent to my outlook colleague in my desired font!
Universal Mailer provides the best solution I’ve found so far. For some of my emails (particularly replies) I don’t like adding a sig, which then means Universal Mailer doesn’t kick In as you point out in your post. One tip for those situations is to create a sig with just a single character in it – a. You then set the. To your desired font as you describe above to enforce rich text format. You can also set its colour to white so it doesn’t show up. Use this as your signature and your replies then look as if they dont have a signature.
Unfortunately just space characters set to a font don’t seem to work in the sig file, but im going to try inserting some non text html in and see if that helps. Best wishes, David P.s I don’t think postbox integrates properly with MS exchange – if it did I would probably go with that. Mac Outlook doesn’t sync with iCloud so that’s out for me – no good if you have an ipad or iPhone and wants your reminders and calendar synchronised across devices!. andreas says.
Hey all, I’ve given up on this a long time ago. I love my Mac dearly and have Universal Mailer installed, but for business, I’m afraid Windows and Outlook is the way to go. I just find it rather peculiar for a company that is so focused on neatness and cleanness such as Apple to neglect such an important issue.
It really is a shame that Mac users need to use other OS’s to produce something as simple as a neat and presentable email message. Cheers, Raed PS. Outlook 2011 isn’t the best alternative either. Tried that too and prefer Mail with Universal Mailer.
My wife and I are huge fans of Keyboard Maestro, a wonderful app that allows one to create a huge variety of totally customized macros, quickly and easily. To deal with the Mac Mail signature/body problem, we just created a macro. This highlights the entire body of the email (including signature); opens the font panel; selects whatever font and point we want (I like 14-point Palatino) and applies it to the text; closes the font panel; and returns the cursor to where it was. Takes one keystroke, and runs in half a second. You can use Keyboard Maestro to create other helpful macros for Mail (or whatever).
In my case, one activates the “To:” field, types in my wife’s email address, and returns the cursor to the body, ready for typing. Another set allows me to select which email address I’m sending from, and which signature I’m using, with a keystroke for each. There are some outstanding plugins out there, and I used to use a good deal. But I’m increasingly realizing that I can often replace those with macros of my own choosing, with no worries about needing to reinstall after upgrading and no compatibility issues with other apps.
Arjen says. I’m fairly certain you have missed a step. Both the body area and the signature areas are formatted separately so it sounds like your content body hasn’t been set properly. Do you have the box checked for “Force Font for Outgoing Emails” and the font set for Outgoing emails on that same panel? That would be the first thing I would check. Most times when there is an issue, a step has been missed.
Please watch the video although I wrote this post over a year ago so some features may have changed. Also please don’t forget the developer has a support area, you can also ask him about this (see above in the post for links to the developer).