How to get past Android's default tiny text size

[NickNitro]

Has this (larger text size) issue been addressed by anyone yet. I'm a member of the "semi-blind" (only need glasses to read) gang who would love a resolution to this problem. I bought the phone on the basis they advertised "pinch and spread" capability in their applications, but now find it only works on some applications, such as PDF Viewer and Doc Reader applications.

Another problem which is annoying is that they don't tell you how to re-activate the screen keyboard when in the middle of a call which requires keyboard entry after the screen's gone blank. I use the left hand phone button, but I'm never sure it's not going to have side effects. The roller ball doesn't seem to re-activate the screen (perhaps pressing it does?). Is there a timer setting that I can use to keep the screen alive for a bit longer?

Any ideas would be welcome.

Cheers

Rod

Might try an app called "Keep Screen" works on my droid 2.1
Choose dial pad in the list of all your apps on the phone and it will keep that app lite up till you close it. Good for reading, browser, text message etc when you don't want the screen to black out and wear out the power button mashing it all the time.
Dialerone app made all my contacts easy to read "large text" no more reading glasses there.
Hanscent sms made my text readable w/o glasses on the conversation but will not enlarge text while you are typing, only after you type the whole message does it show it enlarged in a different screen...8/
Another app that works great on my 2.1 android is called Tap Tap App
You wave your hand over the notification sensor and the screen lights back up. Different timings can be set to short time, long time, or never (till you hit power button) to put it to sleep. I'm still buying the iphone 5 when it comes out and doing away with android all together. I need system wide font size like iphone & BB have. Fumbling around looking for glasses a hundred times a day is very frustrating especially while driving.

 

[lpnalda]

Plese report this here. Issue 4547 - android - DROID NO FONT SIZE ADJUSTMENT - Project Hosting on Google Code

 

[lpnalda]

I've thought about using the voice functionality in some apps and in 1.6 and 2.0; anyone tried this? How good is it?

But ideally they could just give us an option to increase the font size on things like gmail, google searches, and the market app descriptions. Can we organize in some way to let the developers know that this is something we want to see (so to speak)?

The voice functionality is *sometimes* useable. The results depend on connection, your voice clarity, and background noise. I seem to get a hit 5/10 times. I've kind of given up on it, preferring to just learn the keyboard in portrait mode so that ChompSMS enlarges the outgoing message font, which it doesn't in portrait. K-9 mail won't enlarge the outgoing font, so I'm stuck there. I'm still sticking to this though, as I tried blackberry for a week and was disappointed in the lack of apps, and the limitations of the smaller screen when browsing the web. I found that not all apps conformed to the font scaling either. So took it back and sticking to the LG optimus V, unless i swap it for an Intercept on the same carrier (virgin mobile).

 

[lpnalda]

Get k-9 mail. It allows you to set a large font and you can even zoom as in the browser.

That is when *reading* mail. You're still stuck to the small composing box and font when composing.

 

[wayrad]

For what it's worth, on rooted phones you can flash a new system font - see 300 Flashable Font Packs - Change your system fonts the easy way! - xda-developers

I think some of the available fonts are slightly larger, and some are definitely clearer, such as the low-vision APHont. It's not as good as scaleable fonts, but better than nothing. I don't really like the stock font either, and the ones on some custom ROMs are just impossible for my middle-aged eyes.

 

[lpnalda]

For what it's worth, on rooted phones you can flash a new system font - see 300 Flashable Font Packs - Change your system fonts the easy way! - xda-developers

I think some of the available fonts are slightly larger, and some are definitely clearer, such as the low-vision APHont. It's not as good as scaleable fonts, but better than nothing. I don't really like the stock font either, and the ones on some custom ROMs are just impossible for my middle-aged eyes.

Yeah I've given a lot a thought about rooting. I'm going to ask a couple of people about it tonight. I'm a bit leery though as I'm afraid things will stop working. One scenario I'd want to avoid is what happened when I tried an app called Ideal Text Enlarger. It worked really good at first, and you could scale the fonts up to like 18 point! It didn't work in all apps, but you had a way to tell it which apps you wanted modified, this included apps like the contact list/phone book, but one night my phone crashed, that option went away in the app, and I simply had to uninstall it as it did me no more good. I'm seeing they took it off the market I noticed, so maybe others had trouble too. Is anything like this likely to happen with a font-modified rooted OS?

 

[wayrad]

one night my phone crashed, that option went away in the app, and I simply had to uninstall it as it did me no more good. I'm seeing they took it off the market I noticed, so maybe others had trouble too. Is anything like this likely to happen with a font-modified rooted OS?

I've flashed fonts maybe half a dozen times (on three or four different ROMs) with no problem whatsoever. I don't remember doing it with the stock ROM, but I imagine it would work just fine too. Custom ROMs vary in stability, with some being more stable than stock (IMO) and some less so; I don't think it's related to any font modifications they may have.

With rooting, you gain the ability to make truly complete backups, so if things don't pan out with a ROM or mod, it's easy to get back to a stable configuration (as long as you make the backups in the first place!).

 

[obensha]

Just to point out that groupy has changeable fonts for both contact and details (including phone number) with +2 on contact and +3 on details + changing the font color for phone I found the display very satisfactory. totally different from the almost non-visible phone number font on the stock contacts

 

[WhoMe?]

This may work in other apps but in Gmail the answer is Open Gmai then MENU>OTHER>SETTINGS>TEXT RESIZE>HUGE. It ain't huge but it is readable.

 

[Mavis Cruet]

There's an app on the market called "Font-Size for Root Users"
It's not free .. costs