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fonts in graphs don't scale using firefox with Win 8

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Using Win 8.1 and Mozilla Firefox, when I go to Yahoo finance to look at a stock graph, everything scales except the graph's labels for the axes. As an example, go to Yahoo finance (Yahoo.finance.com), click on Nasdaq (or any other), then under the graph on the top right click on 5d (or 1m or whatever). The graph will display correctly but the x-y axes labels are too small to read.

So far only IE has worked well with Win 8 after having adjusted zooms and fonts. Firefox had been my browser of choice. Please help me achieve this.

Using Win 8.1 and Mozilla Firefox, when I go to Yahoo finance to look at a stock graph, everything scales except the graph's labels for the axes. As an example, go to Yahoo finance (Yahoo.finance.com), click on Nasdaq (or any other), then under the graph on the top right click on 5d (or 1m or whatever). The graph will display correctly but the x-y axes labels are too small to read. So far only IE has worked well with Win 8 after having adjusted zooms and fonts. Firefox had been my browser of choice. Please help me achieve this.

All Replies (15)

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Hi there,

Can I ask what version of Firefox you're seeing this issue in? I'm trying to reproduce in Win 8.1 using Firefox Nightly but don't see any problems--though it's possible I'm looking in the wrong place.

Here's what I'm doing to try to reproduce:

1. Go to <http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^IXIC+Interactive#symbol=^ixic;range=1y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;> 2. Click on 1D, 5D, 1M, etc buttons at the bottom of the graph.

Can you take a look at this screenshot to see if I'm looking at the right things? https://cloudup.com/cBiveg36NkG

Note: I had to install Flash to get this far, so I feel like maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing.

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Here is a screenshot of a typical yahoo finance graph. I've included the area below it to demonstrate the normalcy of the fonts and images. The graph area is still "active" in the sense I can click on things to change the timeline (e.g, 5d, 1m, ytd) and the data values in the graph follow my mouse movements.

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Hmmm. Can you tell me what Flash version you have installed? I just tried to reproduce in Firefox 27 stable on Win 8.1 as well as in Nightly and can't. (It's possible there's a Flash plugin issue?)

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Are you zooming the page (View > Zoom)?


You can set the layout.css.devPixelsPerPx pref on the about:config page to 1.0 or on Windows 8 to 1.25 and if necessary adjust layout.css.devPixelsPerPx starting from 1.0 in 0.1 or 0.05 steps (1.1 or 0.9) to make icons show correctly.

See also:

Use an extension to adjust the text size in the user interface and the page zoom in the browser window.

You can look at this extension to adjust the font size for the user interface.

You can look at the Default FullZoom Level or NoScript extension if web pages need to be adjusted after changing layout.css.devPixelsPerPx.

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I've gone into the about:config (to the general pc user, this is intimidating because it has a list of over a hundred items that are "boolean", etc... things that won't make sense. But don't stop here, although watch how carefully I go about this).

I found the layout.css.devPixelsPerPx line and see it is set to: default, string, and -1.0 (the last being the value column). The negative 1.0 is what bothers me since you suggested values of 1.0 or more. In addition, layout.dpi is also negative "-1". Can you advise on whether that the "-" is the main issue and that positive values are required as well as if layout.dpi is as expected? I don't want to make a drastic change without understanding the issue.

For the record, I've tried to leave my new PC with Win 8.1 in as-installed condition. I've played with zoom at the computer display level (not the win++) and within Firefox as well as the fonts (any level I can find it, including in the control panel). From what I've read, this issue is a result of Microsoft letting go of pixel control because of higher resolution screens (like mine, which has 3600x1800) and it just being too hard to pre-fixing everything for every situation.

Modified by carey_Santa_Cruz

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I'm sorry to miketalyr, I didn't see the post: I have Adobe Flash Player 12 plugin (found in installed programs)

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I tried the layout.css.devPixelPerPx. I changed the value from -1.0 to 1.8. It didn't fix the graph problem. But it did fix the menu font size. I didn't know that's where you adjust it... The zoom (ctrl+"+") adjusted everything else to how I'd like it. But the graph remains problematic.

(Where do you find out about what does what? I never heard of this about:config page nor all the parameters it adjusts.)

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Did you have a look at the two extensions that I posted?

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Yes and yes to the add-ons (I just did after prodding because I don't like add-ons). No luck. Does anyone else have this issue? I can't believe it's only yahoo finance. I don't remember if it affected graphs in on-line newspapers and I can't find one at the moment.

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Ah, you have to right click on the element on the page itself to zoom in on the element. Try this and I hope this helps. The plugin for the graph has its own zoom scale. Right click on it, and let us know if this helps.

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Thank you for your reply, guigs2. However, that only zooms in onthe graph and does not fix the problem. Again, the issue is that the graph on Yahoo Finance for any stock on, say, 6 months is that everything (I mean everything) is fine except for the labels on the abcissa (the labels on the edges of the graph... the stock prices and the dates), the volume data, the "enter name of stock" area and the date, etc.

It's the strangest thing because the rest of the webpage is to scale.

This undermines my confidence in Mozilla for other websites, so I don't use it.

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I may be able to offer some insight into this issue. In addition to the Yahoo stock/finance problem, certain software applications have the same issue like Kapersky Pure (some menu item fonts are extremely small) and most notable Adobe Reader XI. The control icons (just below File, Edit, View, Window, Help) and the control icons on the side of the page (export files, etc.) are very small as well. I think this issue is software/application specific. Most of the issue resides using Adobe apps/software such as Reader XI and Shockwave for Firefox. Any thoughts?

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Sorry for the delayed response. Yes, there are other software with the same issue. Kaspersky, on-line Civilization (I don't play, but I downloaded it as an offer), and, yes, Adobe reader.

My guess is that Microsoft let go of the standard monitor pixel sizes (e.g. 768X1280 or whatever...) because there are so many different high density pixel screens (mine's about 1800X3200). Programs either choose to control the pixel density or it becomes an unknown variable dependent on each computer's screen resolution setup. For example, if I decreased the resolution to the 768x1280 setting, I could actually see a full screen Civilization window. In high resolution settings, it was a small box with microscopic letters.

If you get into the details of Firefox, there is a whole set of defined settings (see earlier in thread about "layout.css.devPixelsPerPx pref on the about:config"). While I like learning, sometimes knowing a thousand different settings is not the way I want to work on my computer. And none of it comes with definitions. I don't want to be a proud firefox web browser certified technician. But I appreciate firefox and am glad someone there does understand it. Actually, it would be fun.

Back to my issue with the yahoo finance and firefox, it is more confusing because most of the webpage is normal sized while some of the inner graph fonts are microscopic. Changing the screen resolution has no effect on it. Playing with the screen resolution changed the sharpness of the firefox fonts. Right now it's fuzzy and I'm uncertain it will sharpen when I restart my computer.

So, in short, I don't have a clue.

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You always need to use an LCD monitor with its native resolution to avoid severe display issues.

Best is such a case is to use the layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to get icon show up in the correct size and use extensions to get the text size right.

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Cor-el: Thanks for the insight. It caused me to google the pixel stuff. I found the following:

"Note that the above method only affects the Firefox user interface's DPI settings. Web page contents still use a DPI value of 96, which may look ugly or, in the case of high-resolution displays, may be rendered too small to read. A solution is to change layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to system's DPI divided by 96. For example, if your system's DPI is 144, then the value to add is 144/96 = 1.5. Changing layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to 1.5 makes web page contents use a DPI of 144, which looks much better."

I'm glad I learned that, although there are more important things to learn in life. Still, it won't fix the yahoo finance issue where a graph has everything set right except for other labels on the graph (and other things).

I truly believe Microsoft made it work with IE and the hell with compatibility for everyone else. Unfortunately, Microsoft can't make IE safe (nor do I trust anything else of theirs if I were given a choice)