Do your correspondents appreciate receiving text set in huge font sizes?

I suggest you set the composition size setting to "medium" and use the Tools|Options|Display|Formatting→Advanced options to set the displayed size to suit your own needs.

Here is my guide to fonts and sizes in Thunderbird: http://xenos-email-notes.simplesite.com/417754775

If font sizes bug you, please try plain text. Since messages composed using this have no size or typeface settings, there is nothing to go wrong. It just looks rather, er, plain.

Most people reach for the mouse to select text. Have you tried using the cursor movement buttons, along with shift, control, end, home, page up, page down?

This add-on:

https://codefisher.org/projects/extra_format_buttons/

gives you toolbar buttons for easily applying some formatting, including one for text size. I find these useful to "heal" text that has been mangled by Outlook. However, I recommended this add-on recently to learn that it isn't currently compatible with TB45.0

If it sounds useful to you, let me know and I can email you a tweaked copy.

Zenos said

Do your correspondents appreciate receiving text set in huge font sizes? I suggest you set the composition size setting to "medium" and use the Tools|Options|Display|Formatting→Advanced options to set the displayed size to suit your own needs.

If I set COMPOSE to medium, then I cannot read what I am typing, its too small. The DISPLAY settings only work on received mail, not on what I am in the process of composing.

Interesting to learn that what the Preferences call "SIZE" is NOT in points. People expect font size to be referenced in points. The settings window should say so: "Size in Pixels."

Also, even though I have set my minimum DISPLAY font to 16 pixels, and cleared the "allow other fonts" box, I still receive mail displayed with several sizes of font. Each "level" of quoted material gets smaller. So I can't read it...

Then when I REPLY, I have a composition with different sizes. I want quoted material to conform to my specified COMPOSITION parameters. I also want pasted-in material to conform, unless I do something to toggle "as is."

Maybe some of that will stop, now that I know I have to specify my minimum for "Other Writing Systems" besides Latin.

duplicate post

Points are meaningless. You don't know what display device will be used. Can a phone usefully display 20pt text? What use would 10pt text be on a 2m wide projector screen?

I tried adjusting my settings per instructions above but its gotten worse. When I Compose an email, the text is miniscule. The "aA" button says my default size is Medium. Except that in Prefs/Composition/General, I have set Extra Large. WTF ???

My Display is set to Size =16 minimum. But that only affects received emails, right?

VerizonSucks said

My Display is set to Size =16 minimum. But that only affects received emails, right?

If Display changes Compose, then what use is Compose? Compose should be WYSIWYG on MY screen.

Neither email nor html are wysiwyg. You have zero control over how others see it.

Please think carefully about what point sizes mean. They attempt to dictate absolute sizes of type. Yet this cannot happen given the vast range of devices and viewing modes that your recipient could use.

The app should be able to display MY screen at the actual point size I desire. The app should know what my screen resolution is, and make the pixel size equal my desired point size, as if I was looking at a sheet of paper, to be wysiwyg for my display when I look at it. This should occur for all of the menu font displays as well as what I am composing or reading.