Mac OS X’s Address Book: Limited options for font size
Posted by Pierre Igot in: MacintoshMay 31st, 2004 • 3:50 am
There are many problems with Mac OS X’s Address Book application, and I have had the opportunity to describe quite a few of them:
- cmd-Z undoes everything
- no “Copy” command in contextual menu (Apple fixed the problem in Mail, but not in the contextual menus in Address Book itself in Browse mode)
- general sluggishness even on a fast machine
- non-standard “Company” checkbox control
- lack of field labels
- impossibility to turn the (poor) AutoComplete feature off
And that’s just the ones that I have had the opportunity to discuss here.
Here’s another one to add to the list. The Address Book interface suffers from a serious lack of customizability. One particular problem is the font setting for the lists and card contents. The only option available is a very limited font size setting in the application’s preferences, which lets you choose between “Regular“, “Large“, and “Extra Large“. Well, it just so happens that, in my particular environment, “Large” is too large and “Regular” is too small. What can I do about it? Nothing (unless there’s an undocumented setting that can be changed through the Terminal, but I cannot find anything on Mac OS X Hints).
And that font size setting applies to everything. You cannot choose a font size for the address book entries themselves that is different from the one for the lists. Even if you double-click on an Address Book entry to open the card in a new window, the font size in that new window is the same, even though the window is much smaller and it would make sense to provide a bigger font size there.
And of course you cannot change the font face, which is Lucida Grande in the lists and Helvetica in the card area.
It’s all very frustrating.