Adjust the text size of individual iOS apps ↦


Adjusting text size via Control Center.

The Athletic just updated its iOS app to support iOS’s dynamic text setting. This is a good thing, because that text is now adjustable at a system level and allows people who need larger type to get it, systemwide.

The problem is that the default type in The Athletic’s app on my iPad is much smaller than it was before this change. And yet, if I simply crank up the size of the text using iOS’s text settings, everything else on my iPad gets much larger than I would prefer. (The Athletic’s app is, weirdly, the outlier.)

The solution to this problem can be found in an article we posted here in January by Shelly Brisbin:

To enable per-app settings, you add the app to the list in Settings > Accessibility > Per-App Settings, then configure the iOS options you need for this app. Options here include text size, but you don’t actually need to configure per-app settings to tweak the text size you see in a specific app. That’s because Control Center offers an express train to text size adjustment.

First, add the text size control to Control Center, if it’s not already there. Now open an app whose text size you want to change, and keep changed. I’ll use Mail. Open Control Center and then Text Size. Flip the toggle below the vertical slider to Mail Only. If you haven’t changed text sizes before, the slider probably shows 100% (default). I’ll raise mine to 160%, which is within the range of accessibility text sizes. When I return to Mail, list text and individual message text will reflect the change.

Try this with any app that would benefit from larger (or smaller, for that matter) text than usual. If you do this on the Home screen, notification text will change. as will some text in Today view. You can’t enlarge lock screen widget text, unfortunately, or even media player text on the lock screen. And if an app doesn’t support dynamic type, none of this will work.

It’s that simple. Either add a per-app text size in Settings, or add the Text Size item to Control Center and customize the text size of any app you like. Thank you, Shelly!

Go to the linked site.

Read on Six Colors.

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