How to Read Mail in a Larger Font in Windows Mail or Outlook

Monitor resolutions increase, but fonts don't. Somehow, it was easier and more comfortable to read emails gray on black in a Courier-like font on a 70-character-wide terminal.

Fortunately, modern displays and operating systems provide you with options. While the default may not be perfect for your eyes, it's easy to change the display font in Windows Mail or Outlook Express to something bigger, thus better.

To read a message in a larger font in Windows Mail or Outlook Express:​

• Select View | Text Size from the menu.
• Choose your preferred font size.

As a swift alternative, move the mouse cursor over an open message or the preview pane, hold down the Ctrl key and scroll down with the mouse wheel. To decrease the font size, scroll up.

With a little more tweaking, you can also print your emails in a larger font in Windows Mail and Outlook Express.

To have Outlook Express display all messages in plain text and a reasonably large font:

• Make sure Outlook Express is set up to use only plain text.
• Select Tools | Options… from the menu in Outlook Express.
• Go to the Read tab.
• Click Fonts… under Fonts.
• Make sure Largest (or, of course, a different size) is selected under Font size:.
• Click OK.
• Now click OK again.