Changing page appearance

How to make the text larger and set the text colour in your web browser.

Newer versions of Internet Explorer include a zoom feature that allows you to increase the whole web page. There are three ways to do this.

Using the keyboard:

Press CTRL and ' + ' to zoom in and CTRL and ' - ' to zoom out.

Using a mouse:

If you are using a mouse with a scrollwheel you can scroll text and images bigger and smaller by holding down the CTRL button on the keyboard and scrolling the scrollwheel at the same time.

Using the Tools menu:

  • Choose the Tools menu at the top of the browser window (Alt+X)
  • A list of options will appear in the drop-down menu. Choose 'Internet Options'.
  • A 'General' window will open, with 'Appearance' at the bottom of the window.
  • Select 'Colors' to change the font colour, or 'Fonts' to change the font size.
  • The text in your browser should now appear in the size and colour you have selected.
  • You may need to use the 'Accessibility' options to choose to ignore font size and colour set by the website.

See the Microsoft website for more information about accessibility options in Internet Explorer.

Using a mouse:

  • Click the 'Customise and control Google Chrome' button (the spanner to the right of the address bar).
  • Select the 'Settings' option
  • Select 'Show advanced settings'
  • Scroll down to the 'Web content' heading
  • Next to 'Zoom' in the menu, click the plus or minus buttons to increase or decrease the text size
  • Alternatively you can use the 'Customise fonts...' button to change the font size.

Using the keyboard:

  • To increase the text size, hold down Ctrl and press either + on the numeric keypad, or = on the main keyboard
  • To decrease the text size hold down Ctrl and press  -
  • To return to the default font size press Ctrl + 0

See the Google website for more information about accessibility features in Chrome.

Changing the font size

Firefox uses a Zoom feature that resizes the whole web page. There are three ways to do this.

Using the keyboard:

  • Hold down the CTRL button and press the '+' key to zoom in or the '-' key to zoom out.

Using a mouse:

  • If you are using a mouse with a scrollwheel you can scroll text and images bigger and smaller by holding down the CTRL button on the keyboard and scrolling the scrollwheel at the same time.

Using the Firefox menu:

  • Go to View > Zoom > Zoom in OR Zoom out

The default Zoom setting will automatically resize all the images present on the page as well as the text. So if you increase the size of text, images get bigger and vice versa. Our site makes use of large billboard images with graphic text which can be made larger using this feature. However, if you wish to resize only the text without enlarging the images you can disable automatic image resizing in Firefox.

  • Go to View > Zoom and check 'Zoom Text Only'.

Firefox will also remember the preferred Zoom text size setting you have used for individual sites you visit and will display them at the same size when you visit them again.

Changing the font colour

  • To change the font colour, go to 'Tools' and then click on the 'Content' tab.
  • Select 'Colors...' to set the colour.

See the Mozilla website for more information about setting fonts and colours in Firefox.

From the View menu:

  • Select 'Make text bigger', or 'Make text smaller'

Using the keyboard:

  • Hold down COMMAND key and press the '+' key on the keyboard to enlarge the text or the '-' key to decrease the text size.

From the View menu:

  • Select Zoom and then the percentage you require to increase or decrease the text.

Using the keyboard:

  • Use the '+' and '-' keys to increase or decrease the text by 10% at a time.