light gray fonts on web pages

January 17, 2017 12:00 PM

what options do I have to make fonts a bit darker?

I use both pc's and Macs, generally with Chrome.

Lately, it seems like more web pages have light gray text. I feel like I could see things a bit better if the fonts were a bit darker. I can see my Kindle just fine. I don't need readers, but I am getting close.

Todoist is an example of a web page that looks a little too grayed out to me.
I've been on a free trial and I'm trying to figure out if I can make it work for me.


Do I have any options to improve my ability to see?
I've tried increasing the screen contrast on the mac under accessibility.
I've tried the Chrome extension"High Contrast."

Anything else I can try?

posted by egk to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

Since it's a specific website, you could see if any of these user styles work for you using the Stylish extension in Chrome.
posted by foxfirefey at 12:13 PM on January 17, 2017

In a different solution, you can also increase the size of most websites by the zoom function.
posted by INFJ at 12:33 PM on January 17, 2017

Best answer: It won't fix your immediate problem, but I recommend complaining loudly, perhaps using a link like this one to make your point.
posted by shponglespore at 12:43 PM on January 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

In a pinch, I highlight greyed out text. That is usually sufficient.

My phone also had a dark mode setting and other options that made a substantial difference.

You can also email whomever is in charge of the website. They may have useful info for you and it also might prompt them to make the site more readable whenever they do updates. This is especially true for things run by a small team.

I think there are also tools for customizing your viewing experience, but I am failing to come up with the right terms.
posted by Michele in California at 12:47 PM on January 17, 2017

For Firefox, I use Blacken: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blacken/

It slows down large pages, but generally makes the Web readable again.

Chrome's High Contrast plugin seems to work for me. The fact that it alters images is a big downside, but the text is indeed blacker. Any particular reason it isn't suitable?
posted by yath at 1:59 PM on January 17, 2017

Sorta like the user solution, I have a javascript bookmarklet thing that often works. It brute forces background white, text black, and old-school hypertext link colors. The Gist.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:00 PM on January 17, 2017

For just changing the font color, +1 on foxfirefey's Stylish extension recommendation. This works on todoist.com: .inner > p { color: #000 !important;}

Getting the above and testing it took me seconds using Chrome's built in Inspect tool.
posted by christopherious at 9:21 PM on January 17, 2017

Best answer: NoSquint Plus can do this, among other useful readability things, and is rather less fiddly than more flexible general-purpose user styles tools like Stylish.

NoSquint Plus for Firefox
NoSquint Plus for Chrome
posted by flabdablet at 1:51 AM on January 18, 2017

I use a JavaScript called "Zap Colors" which makes web pages black on white with blue links, just like TBL intended. The one on this page seems to do the same thing as the one installed in my browser.

Going full black on white is probably more than you're looking for now, but I found that smaller steps were less effective as sizes got smaller and screen densities got higher. This saves me a lot of zooming.
posted by DaveP at 4:31 AM on January 18, 2017

The "Dark Reader" extension for Chrome inverts everything, and remembers your settings site by site.

Another approach is a text only display like Safari's reader mode. "Rocket Reader" works well on Chrome desktop--you can set font, style, colors.
posted by Jesse the K at 1:18 PM on January 18, 2017

Sorry, wrong name
Dark Reader
Mercury Reader
posted by Jesse the K at 2:39 PM on January 18, 2017

Response by poster: I did write Todoist and they said:

"Unfortunately, there's no way to set the font to a darker color yet. We may consider adding such an option in the future, though."

I haven't done any actual complaining yet. After tax season, I might take it up as a hobby.

High Contrast worked pretty well on Todoist, but it changed everything in all my tabs, which was sort of tiring in a different way. I mean, a different kind of eye strain. I use too many tabs.

NoSquintPlus seems to hit the sweet spot for now. I'll probably be in readers soon so it great to have so many options for tweaking things. Stylish could come in handy when I have bit more time to play with it.

Thank you all so very much!
posted by egk at 9:57 AM on January 20, 2017