Monday, March 11, 2002
Change Your Pocket PC's System Font Size
Posted by Jason Dunn in "ARTICLE" @ 04:42 PM
Requirements
Any Registry editor that is capable of editing the Registry in your Pocket PC. Editors such as RegEditCE from Grundle Software (my favorite because it can export and import registry files), PHM's Registry Editor or the Remote Registry Editor included in the eMbedded Visual Tools from Microsoft can be used.
Why Change The Font?
In my opinion, some of the font sizes that Microsoft chose for their various built-in apps are just too darn big. For example, the below screen shot shows a section of my contact list using the default 14-point system font. Notice that the email address of almost every contact is cut-off on the right side, because there is just not enough room on the screen to fully display it:
Now check out a screen shot of the same contact list using my 12-point font mod. Not only are there fewer items getting cut-off on the right, but it also now has enough extra room to display two additional contacts on the same screen:
Below are some more before (using 14 point) and after (12 points) screen shots that help illustrate the additional info that can be displayed when using a 12-point font size:
Bonus
If your Pocket PC is in landscape mode (using Jimmy's JS Landscape app) and a reminder alarm pops up, none of the dialog's buttons will be visible, making it difficult to close the alert window. However, some dialog boxes will reposition their text when using a smaller system font. The below screen shot illustrates how a 12-point font allows the dismiss and snooze buttons to now be partially visible and thus clickable.
Gotcha's
Because some dialogs reposition their text when using the smaller font, some text may be hidden or harder to see. But, as shown in the below screen shot, you can usually work around this problem by using an object related to the hidden text, such as dropping down the drop down list to see the different values:
How To Do It
WARNING: Modifying your registry can cause serious problems (including data loss) if not performed correctly. You should only perform the below changes if you are experienced with modifying the registry.
ALSO IMPORTANT: Remember to write down the previous values for these keys before you modify them, in case you want to undo these changes.
To change the System Font size from the default 14 to a more efficient 12-point font, u se your Registry editor and navigate to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\gdi\sysfnt
and change the value for the "Ht" entry to "12" decimal (the previous value will be a 14 or some huge number like 4327284 for some reason).
The above registry change will change the size of the text in the Title Barm Start Menu and Icons. To change the text size of the menu bar at the bottom of your screen, go to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\gwe\menu\barfnt
and change the value for the "Ht" entry to "12" decimal.
To change the text size of the entries in the various pop-up menus in the bottom menu bar, go to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\gwe\menu\popfnt
and change the value for the "Ht" entry to "12" decimal.
That's it - just perform a soft reset for the changes to take effect.
Conclusion
I hope you find this modification useful. I have been using the smaller font size for the past few weeks and I have not found one reason to switch back.
Any Registry editor that is capable of editing the Registry in your Pocket PC. Editors such as RegEditCE from Grundle Software (my favorite because it can export and import registry files), PHM's Registry Editor or the Remote Registry Editor included in the eMbedded Visual Tools from Microsoft can be used.
Why Change The Font?
In my opinion, some of the font sizes that Microsoft chose for their various built-in apps are just too darn big. For example, the below screen shot shows a section of my contact list using the default 14-point system font. Notice that the email address of almost every contact is cut-off on the right side, because there is just not enough room on the screen to fully display it:
Now check out a screen shot of the same contact list using my 12-point font mod. Not only are there fewer items getting cut-off on the right, but it also now has enough extra room to display two additional contacts on the same screen:
Below are some more before (using 14 point) and after (12 points) screen shots that help illustrate the additional info that can be displayed when using a 12-point font size:
Bonus
If your Pocket PC is in landscape mode (using Jimmy's JS Landscape app) and a reminder alarm pops up, none of the dialog's buttons will be visible, making it difficult to close the alert window. However, some dialog boxes will reposition their text when using a smaller system font. The below screen shot illustrates how a 12-point font allows the dismiss and snooze buttons to now be partially visible and thus clickable.
Gotcha's
Because some dialogs reposition their text when using the smaller font, some text may be hidden or harder to see. But, as shown in the below screen shot, you can usually work around this problem by using an object related to the hidden text, such as dropping down the drop down list to see the different values:
How To Do It
WARNING: Modifying your registry can cause serious problems (including data loss) if not performed correctly. You should only perform the below changes if you are experienced with modifying the registry.
ALSO IMPORTANT: Remember to write down the previous values for these keys before you modify them, in case you want to undo these changes.
To change the System Font size from the default 14 to a more efficient 12-point font, u se your Registry editor and navigate to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\gdi\sysfnt
and change the value for the "Ht" entry to "12" decimal (the previous value will be a 14 or some huge number like 4327284 for some reason).
The above registry change will change the size of the text in the Title Barm Start Menu and Icons. To change the text size of the menu bar at the bottom of your screen, go to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\gwe\menu\barfnt
and change the value for the "Ht" entry to "12" decimal.
To change the text size of the entries in the various pop-up menus in the bottom menu bar, go to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\gwe\menu\popfnt
and change the value for the "Ht" entry to "12" decimal.
That's it - just perform a soft reset for the changes to take effect.
Conclusion
I hope you find this modification useful. I have been using the smaller font size for the past few weeks and I have not found one reason to switch back.
