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How to Change System Font Size in Windows 10 (Increase/Reduce)

If the default Windows text size is too small or too big, follow these steps to change the system font size in Windows.

As part of the ease of access, Windows 10 lets you decrease or increase the system font size with just a few clicks. When you change the font size, it will be applied system-wide. As long as the applications are using the default system font settings, the font size changes will be applied to all built-in and third-party programs.

Unlike in the older versions, there is no need to make any registry changes. Rather, we can use the new Windows 10 Settings app to change the font size. All you have to do is drag a slider and then font size will be changed instantly.

In the quick guide, let me show the simple steps to quickly reduce or increase the system font size in Windows 10.

Change System Font Size in Windows 10

You can either increase or decrease the system font size. I will show you both. Follow the one depending on your requirement.

Increase System Font Size in Windows 10

To increase the system font size, follow these steps.

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Go to “Ease of Access“.
    Open ease of access page in settings app
  3. Go to the “Display” page.
  4. Under the “Make text bigger” section, drag the slider to the right side to increase the system font size.
    Increase system font size by dragging the slider in settings app
  5. Click on the “Apply” button to save changes.

As soon as you click the apply button, the new font size will be applied system-wide. All applications should now show bigger fonts.

If the changes aren’t applied instantly, restart the system. Sometimes, the font size cannot be adjusted while the applications are actively running in the foreground or background. Rebooting the system will fix that issue.

Personally, I try to keep around 70 centimeters to 80 centimeters distance between me and the computer screen. For that distance, 105% to 110% text size looks just perfect. But your mileage may vary depending on the screen size, resolution, and the distance. So, I encourage you to try different font sizes to find the perfect fit for you.

If you have vision problems or configuring the system for elderlies, I recommend setting the font size to 125%. This makes the text content easier to read and reduces the strain on your eyes.

Reduce System Font Size in Windows 10

To reduce the Windows system font size, follow these steps.

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Go to “Ease of Access“.
  3. Go to the “Display” page.
  4. Under the “Make text bigger” section, drag the slider to the left side to decrease the system font size.
  5. Click “Apply” to save changes.

As you can see, to decrease the system font size all you have to do is drag the slider to the left side. You cannot reduce the system font size by more than 100%.

Troubleshooting

If you cannot find the Make Text Bigger option in the Ease of Access page, make sure that you are running Windows 10 v1809 or higher.

The simplest way to know the Windows 10 version is to use a Run command.

Press Win + R, type winver and press Enter. In the About Windows window, see the second line. It should say “Version 1809” or higher. You can safely ignore the OS Build number. Unlike the version, the OS Build number will change every time you install a Windows update.

Increase font size on windows 10

How is it Different from DPI Scaling?

The font size change is completely different from DPI scaling. In case you don’t know, DPI scaling scales all UI elements like fonts, images, and icons. DPI scaling is generally used in high-resolution monitors.

I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, check out how to change OEM information in Windows and how to delete clipboard history in Windows 10.

Image credit: Resize font from Flaticon

6 thoughts on “How to Change System Font Size in Windows 10 (Increase/Reduce)”

  1. Avatar for zenburn

    It seems this feature makes text bigger only for MS Store Apps, which were always oversized anyways. All other native Windows programs remain unchanged… heck, even all the system dialogs and context menus remain unchanged with the tiny 9pt font.
    Why Microsoft can’t do any single feature about font scaling properly? The only usable dialog to adjust font sizes gone away with Win10 Creators Update and since then, the only option is to use the tedious registry hacks to set the desired font size.
    Also the feature to adjust the overall screen scaling is a joke as well, when you are allowed to choose only from scales with 25% increment, not mentioning the problems with blurry fonts in some native programs.
    And the only thing I wanted to achieve was to change the system font size from 9pt to 10pt, but perhaps that’s too much to ask from this operating system.

    1. Avatar for Bashkarla

      That is odd. I’ve used this feature my self and I can see that the font size has been increased in all apps, including the good old win32 apps. However, if the app developers choose to use their own font size settings then that font size may not increase or decrease as they are not following the Windows recommended practices. For instance, a free application called Speccy is unaffected but Google Chrome scales the font according to your ease of access settings.

      1. Avatar for zenburn

        I’ve tried Chrome and you are right, it scales up, but only partially (tabs, address bar and web content are scaled up, but all other fonts like in context menu or favorites bar remain unchanged for me).

        Can you please name some win32 programs that scale up like you mentioned? When I look at Windows system tools like Device Manager, Disk Management, Control Panel, etc… there is no effect at all. The same with MS Office 2016 and all other 3rd party programs like Notepad++, Firefox, Qt Designer, FreeCommander, etc, etc.

        The most sad thing is the only settings that enabled us to set both font size and font family, which were included in Windows since I remember (definitely since Windows 95), gone away with Win10 Creators Update, and of course silently without any proper replacement.

        I don’t know if I’m the only one, but Windows feels more and more inconsistent to me. We have the Store Apps and the new Settings, which are all ridiculously oversized with huge fonts… and on the other side all the system tools and system dialogs are so tiny, almost impossible to read and there is no way to set all the dialogs to have a similar font size.

      2. Avatar for zenburn

        I’ve tried to upgrade another computer to Windows 10 1809 and it seems the feature *Make text bigger* works much better there. Now really most of the system dialogs have bigger fonts! (don’t know why it didn’t work on my notebook).

        Although I think this feature is still a downgrade, because:
        1. Only one slider value for both MS Store and Windows System fonts (my problem with Win10 is that all the MS Store Apps are oversized, while system dialogs too tiny).
        2. Compared to previous Windows, we still can’t customize font family and sizes for various UI elements.
        3. It seems the feature *Make text bigger* just tweaks the registry values in `HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics`. So. there is no significant improvement compared to known registry hacks.

        1. Avatar for Bashkarla

          I think it takes some more time to iron out the issues and make things good. They are getting there, but very slowly. We should remember that Microsoft cannot go all out with customization as they have to think about backward compatibility which spans decades.

  2. Avatar for Naren jain

    unfortunately,windows10 and Edge brought out by MS with much fan faire including creating “Insiders” both in windows10 and “office365” has completely failed uphold the claim made by MS while launching both these products. Both are full of similar errors as were experienced in the earlier versions resulting in to miseries for the users with no resolution at all. My advice to IT users and followers is to keep away from both the products and rather with MS completely.

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