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Is there a way in which when you choose to format the size of the font within your notebook, for a particular cell, when you go into another cell, the default size font (12pt) will not be re-activated. I want the font size to stay constant throughout the entire notebook, until I go back and need to manually change it by hand.

Example:

Format -> Size -> 16 Point

J. M.'s missing motivation
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night owl
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3 Answers3

18

There are a variety of ways to do this. One can use Stylesheets as noted by acl. Perhaps the most direct way is this:

For one Notebook:

SetOptions[EvaluationNotebook[], FontSize -> 16]

For all Notebooks:

SetOptions[$FrontEnd, FontSize -> 16]

You can also set FontSize for different Box types, such as GraphicsBox:

SetOptions[$FrontEnd, GraphicsBoxOptions -> {BaseStyle -> {FontSize -> 15}}]

If you are more comfortable with a GUI, all of these options are available through the Options Inspector in the Format menu.

If you decide to go the advanced route and use style sheets here is a guide to get you started:

David Park's StyleSheet creation notes (.zip file)

Depending on your goals, this question may also be of interest:

How to set default magnification for all windows

Community
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Mr.Wizard
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  • good point, more direct if less general – acl Feb 18 '12 at 23:44
  • Mr. Wizard. Thank You so much, this works perfect. One thing, you forgot to add the s to the end of Option for the first two dealing with the notebooks. – night owl Feb 19 '12 at 00:31
  • @nightowl I'm glad I could help. I rely heavily on spell-check and I was typing that from memory. Thanks for the catch. – Mr.Wizard Feb 19 '12 at 00:41
  • @NoEscape could you give me an example of what you mean? – Mr.Wizard Oct 16 '12 at 15:48
  • Found it: Some of my inline math has an internal FontSize->12. I entered it via copy/paste from somewhere else. If you have such (hidden) FontSize assignments, the approach will fail. – NoEscape Oct 16 '12 at 16:24
  • Is there a setting that will leave cells with style "input" as 12pt, but any cell styled as "text" default to 16pt? – JohnD Nov 18 '12 at 22:21
  • @texasAUtiger that sounds like a job for Style Sheets. Have you already considered and rejected that option, or are you unaware of it? – Mr.Wizard Nov 19 '12 at 02:14
  • @Mr.Wizard: Just checking if a simple one line command(s) like the ones above would accomplish this before diving into stylesheets (since I have not dealt with them before). Sounds like now is the time! – JohnD Nov 19 '12 at 02:18
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    OK, so none of this seems to work. I am running Mathematica 11.0.0.0 I am running the standard notebook. SetOptions[EvaluationNotebook[], FontSize -> 16] -- Does nothing. What is this supposed to do? Change the font size in all the boxes immediately? Change the font size in all future boxes? SetOptions[$FrontEnd, FontSize -> 16] -- Has no discernable effect, either to the current notebook, or to any others that I open, or after I restart Mathematica. Format menu => OptionInspector=> Font size (by search). There is no pull-down next to FontSize, and changing the number (13) directly undoes as s – Richard Hartley Apr 17 '18 at 01:23
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    None of the suggestions seems to work for me either: MMA 12.0 on Mac OS 10.11.6. Does anyone know why these suggestions don't work, or how to do this? – Michael B. Heaney Jun 04 '19 at 02:54
  • @MichaelB.Heaney Sorry, I still use v10.1 – Mr.Wizard Jun 06 '19 at 09:21
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    On my MMA 12.0 in Linux Mint 20, your solutions also have no effect on the font sizes. Could you by any chance manage to update your answer, pls? – Leo Dec 18 '20 at 11:29
6

Yes: you may use stylesheets for this. See also this.

acl
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    I don't feel up to explaining in detail how to set up, use and modify stylesheets; if someone else does, please do so and I'll remove my answer – acl Feb 18 '12 at 23:39
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You can zoom in and out the entire stylesheet (text and figures) by holding Crtl while rolling the mouse wheel.

Note that this won't scale the text menus nor Mathematica's hints.

P-Gn
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  • This is about as useful as advising the OP to sit closer to, or further away from, his (or her) screen. It can certainly make text look bigger or smaller, but it won't reset the size of the fonts used. – High Performance Mark Mar 14 '18 at 11:11
  • @HighPerformanceMark it has the same visual effect, and since most of the time, people change the font size for readibility issues, this is actually relevant. – P-Gn Mar 14 '18 at 11:43