How do I make fonts (nicely) bigger on a Mac with an external monitor?

April 16, 2023 3:32 PM

I have poor eyesight and need larger font sizes, including the OS titlebar and menu fonts, etc. My Macbook allows for making everything bigger on the laptop screen using the "scaling" option. But with my external monitor, I can't do this (unless I pick a blurry non-native resolution). Any suggestions?

I connect the mini-DisplayPort on my Mac (2015 Macbook Pro) to the DVI input on my external monitor (Acer G246HL, 1920x1080 resolution) through a mini-DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter. My monitor does not have HDMI nor DisplayPort inputs.

My OS is macOS Monterey.

I can make the display bigger as described here. Without the external monitor, this works nicely - it continues using the native resolution on my laptop screen, but makes all fonts bigger. But with the external monitor, I'm forced to specify a pixel resolution instead of just saying "bigger", and unless I use the 1920x1080 native resolution, everything is blurry from the bad scaling. And the native resolution is too small for my eyes.

Can I increase font size while still using the external monitor's native resolution? Or any other tips? My eyes thank you.

posted by splitpeasoup to Technology (3 answers total)

I connected my MBP (same vintage as yours) to my 4k monitor via HDMI and the "scaling" default says 1920x1080 (even though it was clearly using 4k resolution instead). Ditto for the larger scalings, it was definitely not using the resolution specified.

I think what Apple actually means here is that the selected scaling is roughly equivalent to using the specified resolution.

Perhaps it behaves differently if it detects that the display is not a high-DPI one. It may not know the native resolution of your monitor at all -- it might be lost because of the adapter. You might have better luck with an HDMI to DVI adapter instead.
posted by neckro23 at 6:13 PM on April 16, 2023

Best answer: BetterDummy is probably what you want. The newer version BetterDisplay may work better, however the screen scaling seems to be a pro feature (which, at $15, seems pretty cheap if it works, tho).
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:49 AM on April 17, 2023

Best answer: As to why; macs don't allow external monitors below 4k in resolution to use UI scaling, which is, yes, fucking stupid.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:53 AM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]