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CS5 Very small toolbar- Tried Preferences, Interface, Large and it doesn't work.

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
May 23, 2010
25 replies
194418 views

I have Win 7 and just got the CS5 Premium installed. Everything is fine in the other programs but Photoshop's toolbar and swatch pallette are so small that it is very hard to work with. The menu bar(file, edit, etc) all across the top look like they are are a 2 pt. font. They are also very hard to read. I tried setting it to large in the preferences but it didn'tchange anything. Any other suggestions?

Correct answer Mylenium

Your system's DPI setting in the display settings.

Mylenium

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dhawn6

Participating Frequently

I am like the rest of you. I have 30 inch screens and have to roll my chair up to the screen to see it, I have tried large in settings, it didn't make a difference. Please if they are any fixes other than resetting screen please post.

Noel Carboni

Legend

Could one of you with the problem please photograph or capture your screen, and post the image here?

What's impossible to be sure of, from the text above, is whether some folks are seeing larger fonts than others, or whether the single somewhat fixed display setup is simply too small for some eyes.

Is this the same size as what you're seeing? Make sure you click on these images to see them full size:

-Noel

Noel Carboni

Legend

One thing I can suggest, for those of you running Windows 7, is to run the ClearType Tuner. You can make choices that will make small characters seem darker and easier to read.

-Noel

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mikeobe

Participating Frequently

I'll have to look when I get home, but I don't think I've noticed this Problem at all! Win 7, 64 bit. Could it have something to do with the Video Card?

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sjhpubs

Participating Frequently

I have a brand new machine. What I am noticing is that the full version of

Acrobat 9 is accessible, at least when it is used through the browser. So

they have made some progress but unless there is something really well

hidden in PS, there is still no way to make it fully accessible. The menu

items are accessible but not the menus or the palettes or the dialogue

boxes.

T

toivoanderson

Participant

Amen. I have a 30 inch monitor and 66 yr old eyes (and Windows 7). My workflow is constantly interrupted by having to change my seated position and thrust my head forward so that I can read the icons. It's like buying a Ferrari but being unable to adjust the seat. I find it a gross oversight and sleight to users who spend a lot of money to use their product, which supplies multiple options to manipulate the workspace and photographs but no way to adjust the fonts in the workspace.

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gambist1

Participating Frequently

Have you tried making the menu options larger? Not idea I know, as the menu titles remain ridiculously small.

I used Control panel - App and Personalise - Personalize - change window glass colour - Adv application settings.

Then select from list of Items - Menu and make it larger font type and size (Verdana is nicely spaced for reading on screen). It does make the menu items list much larger.

I also tried Edit/prefs/Interface. UI text = large and I think it made the palette size a bit larger.

The real issue here is why does Adobe not conform to Windows accessibility options. I thought most companies now had to allow for reading problems on screens - I guess they just forgot it!!

Noel Carboni

Legend

Adobe software has the rare characteristic that it is built for BOTH Windows and Apple environments. Under the covers, Adobe has "rolled its own" controls, coded in a system-nonspecific manner.

This has both good and bad sides.

The good side is that it's one of the most consistent products between the platforms that you will find. If you are good at using Photoshop on a Mac and you are placed in front of a Windows system, chances are you'll be good at using Photoshop on that system as well.

That bad side is that Adobe may not keep up with the latest "trends" in window management by Microsoft. To their credit, Microsoft has been working to make the Windows environment more usable by creating things like the ability to size up virtually everything on the display. This is not accomplished in one fell swoop, but by making the myriad different controls and visual elements sensitive to the chosen settings.

See where I'm headed here?

Adobe, while creating an environment that has certain advantages for them, has also created an environment that has certain assumptions built in - like what size things will be rendered on the display, and this environment is also very vast, embodying all the Adobe products.

Adobe apparently has not chosen to migrate their UI controls along with the new Microsoft directions - which by any measure aren't consistent even in themselves (just look at the UI for WordPad in Windows 7 if you want an example). Adobe might also have made the judgment that if they were to tweak their controls they'd unleash a whole new realm of user problems, both because they had to touch a lot of code, and because now there's a whole new layer of complexity that covers virtually everything.

Even today on some systems people report not being able to see all the numbers in the edit boxes. Imagine if all those UI elements were made variable...

I'm not justifying Adobe's approach, but I can say (as a developer myself) I do understand it.

-Noel

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gambist1

Participating Frequently

I have just installed CS5 and am having same problem. Also Win 7. The menu titles and icons in title bar are so tiny they are unreadable. Adjusting dpi size doesn't affect this program atr all. It seems as if Adobe doesn't respond to the usual Windows adjustments? Any ideas? I just can't see the menu titles. It is awful

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Honeydew56Author

Participant

Do you have the trial version of CS5? That is what I am using and I will be getting the disks today. I'm hoping once I install the disks that my tools and menus will get bigger. I did read where you can manually set the dpi to 149% or 151% in your display settings. That didn't help with making the tools any bigger but it did take away the triple cursor problem that I had in Photoshop Elements. If you find a solution, let me know.

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gambist1

Participating Frequently

I have the full version of CS5. Nothing will change the title bar text. If I play around with my Win7 display settings I can increase the size of everything else, slide bars, menus themselves, palettes, but not Adobe menu titles. Dreamweaver seems the same, it has teeny weeny text and is nearly unreadable.

I am very cross about this, every other program is amenable to being changed within Windows - why not this one?

MyleniumCorrect answer

Legend

Your system's DPI setting in the display settings.

Mylenium

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Honeydew56Author

Participant

I have always had my system appearance/display setting set at "Larger" (150%). I did go to the control panel and changed the screen resolution from 1920 x 1080 down to 1360 x 768. That made the tools and menus the correct size. But then all my other programs(and desktop) had huge menus and tools. They were so large that it would be hard to work in those programs. So I set it back to 1920 x 1080 and I'm back to the microscopic tools and menus in Photoshop. Is there anything else that you could recommend? Thanks for your help.